July 12, 1877] 



NATURE 



203 



assert in this respect, it is clear that in the case of the 

 Captain, they thought this amount of injury possible, and 

 it is equally clear from the quotations given by Mr. 

 Goschen in Parliament, that they thought the same of the 

 Injlcxiblc, when they proposed that she should be built, 

 and thought this, notwithstanding the introduction of 

 certain cork-filled chambers and other sub-divisions upon 

 which they now seem disposed to rely for the ship's safety. 

 We may add that even during the present controversy, 

 Mr. Barnaby has published figures which assume the 

 total annihilation of the ends, and if they can be totally 

 annihilated it is clear they may be so far injured as to 

 lose all buoyancy and stability. We may confidently 

 assume, therefore, that the ends can be so far wounded 

 and damaged as to cease to help the ship's stability, and 

 therefore to leave her wholly dependent upon the citadel 

 for the power of keeping from capsizing. In Fig. 3 

 we have shown several large injuries, such as we may 

 assume modern shells are fully capable of inflicting, 

 merely to help the reader to get clear ideas on the 

 subject. 



The question now at issue really is, therefore, what 

 amount of stability has the ship (by virtue of the citadel) 

 with the ends thus injured .' The Times and Mr. Reed say 

 that careful calculations which have been made show that 

 she has none, or next to none. Hitherto the Admiralty 

 have refrained from saying how much they claim for 

 her. They say that the Times and Mr. Reed are entirely 

 wrong in their calculations, and that the ship really has 

 abundant stability for all purposes of safety, and they 

 appeal to a model which is at the y\dmiralty to prove 

 this. Let us say at once no model can possibly prove 

 anything of the kind ; the model must be weighted and 

 arranged entirely to represent the results of calculations, 

 and it is these results which should be clearly, and fully, 

 and authoritatively stated. The Government have laid 

 certain papers on the table of the House of Commons, 

 but they are not yet published, and until they are in our 

 hands it is impossible to pursue the subject further. We 

 shall hereafter give due consideration to them. All that 

 we can now say is that with the Captain case fresh in our 

 memory, in which the Admiralty office dangerously 



£i<f. t. 



overrated the safety of the ship in this very respect, and, 

 remembering as we do that for a ship to be safe at sea, 

 she should have a very large margin of stability over 

 and above that which mere statical and smooth water 

 conditions point to, we shall not ourselves be satisfied 

 with less than the Committee on Designs laid down, viz., 

 '• that the angle of vanishing stability should not be fixed 

 at less than 50 dcg." Nor shall we be content with this if 

 this range is obtained only in conjunction with a small 

 amount of stability from point to point. Mr. Reed has 

 pointed out, in his letters to the Times, the great danger 

 of considering range only, and has attacked the dictum 

 of the Committee on this ground. Dr. WooUey, one of 



ts scientific members, has replied, admitting the accuracy 

 of Mr. Reed's view, but explaining that the truth he 

 enunciates is so elementary and obvious that the Committee 

 thought it unnecessary to mention it, and would indeed 

 have considered it " impertinent " (in the proper sense of 

 the word) to state it. It is difficult to take this view of 

 the matter, however, when we remember that the highest 



rientific officer of the Admiralty, in a matter affecting the 



safety of four of H.M. ships of the largest and newest 

 type, has seized this dictum of the Committee as a 

 sufficient and satisfactory guarantee of their security. 

 We fear we must conclude that the Committee either 

 neglected a very serious element in the calculations, or 

 else greatly overrated the skill and discernment with 

 which their words would be interpreted. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE OVUM^ 

 Biitschli on the Earliest Developmental Processes of the 



Ovum, and on the Conjugation of Infusoria. 

 Studien iiber die erst en Entwicklungsvorgiinge der 

 Eizelle, die Zelltheilung und die Conjugation der Infu- 

 sorien. Von O. Biitschli. (Frankfurt, 1876.) 

 II. 



COMING now to the large and important question of 

 the Conjugation ofJnfusotia, its nature and bearing 

 upon the life- history of the forms, we are bound to state 

 at once our conviction of the inefficiency of the observa- 



Continued from p. i8o. 



