April 6, 1899] 



NATURE 



54: 



out that four years ago Lyallpur, now a flourishing township 

 and mart for agricultural produce, was a barren, uninhabited 

 jungle. In six years 1,000,000 acres have been brought under 

 cultivation at a capital outlay of 1,500,000/., while the net 

 revenue for the last year was 16 lakhs of rupees, or a return of 

 nearly 7A per cent, of the capital expended. It is now esti- 

 mated that the total value of the crops in a single year equals 

 the capital cost of the entire works. At the present time in 

 the Punjab alone 9500 miles of main and branch canals have 

 'been constructed, not including 10,500 miles of small dis- 

 tributaries. The total area irrigated by these means, which in 

 1868 amounted only to 1,000,000 acres, in 1878 to 1,300,000 

 acres, and in iSSS to 2,300,000 acres, has risen, owing to the 

 startling progress of the last decade, to 5,200,000 acres. These 

 figures form a striking testimony to British philanthropy, 

 ■organising power, and engineering skill. 



The sixty-seventh annual meeting of the British Medical 

 Association will be held at Portsmouth on August 1-4. The 

 present President is Sir Thomas Grainger Stewart ; and the 

 President-elect is Dr. John Ward Cousins. An address in 

 medicine will be delivered by Sir Richard Douglas Powell, 

 Bart. ; and an address in surgery will be delivered by Prof. 

 Alexander Ogston. The scientific business of the meeting will 

 fee conducted in twelve sections — namely medicine, surgery, 

 obstetrics and gynecology. Slate medicine, psychology, anatomy 

 and physiology, pathology, ophthalmology, diseases of children, 

 pharmacology and therapeutics, laryngology and otology, and 

 tropical diseases. 



The Liverpool Marine Biology Committee have arranged 

 their usual Easter party for dredging and other zoological work 

 at the Port Erin Biological Station. The station will be full of 

 workers during not only the present week, but throughout April. 

 In addition to members of the committee there are students 

 from Liverpool, Manchester, Cardiff, Newnham and other 

 colleges. The Lancashire Sea Fisheries steamer is at Port 

 Erin, and several days will be spent in trawling and tow-netting 

 in the deep water between the Isle of Man and Ireland. A long 

 hose-pipe and pump will be used for obtaining plankton from 

 the bottom waters, and a closing tow-net will also be tried. 

 Another section of the work consists in the collection of fish 

 spawn for the Lancashire hatchery. The hatching boxes at 

 present contain over four million developing embryos of plaice 

 and cod. 



In view of the visit of the British Association to Glasgow in 

 1901, an effort is being made to draw up complete lists of the 

 fauna, flora, and geological features of the Clyde district. A 

 natural history sub-committee has been formed, the Convener 

 being Prof John Young ; \'ice-Convener, Prof. Malcolm 

 Laurie ; and Secretary, Rev. G. A. Frank Knight, Almanarre, 

 Garelochhead. A leaflet, showing the scheme of work that 

 has been sketched out, has been prepared with the hope of 

 obtaining help from various quarters to assist the difierent 

 compilers in their labours. Information is specially desired as 

 to (i) distribution of species ; (2) papers in magazines, journals, 

 and transactions of societies, which might otherwise be over- 

 looked ; and {3) names of workers in the different departments 

 who might be willing to assist. The scope of the inquiry, as 

 arranged by the committee, is "the natural drainage area of 

 the Clyde, and of all the sea lochs which form extensions of 

 its estuary." The northern limit, therefore, is the watershed 

 beyond the head of Loch Fyne, and the southern boundary has 

 been defined as a line drawn between the Mull of Cantire and 

 the most southerly point of Ayrshire. Further information can 

 be obtained from the Secretary. 



We learn that some recognition will shortly be made of the 

 invaluable services rendered to geological science by the Rev. 

 NO. 1536, VOL. 59] 



Thomas Wiltshire, Professor Emeritus of Geology in King's 

 College, London. Of late years Mr. Wiltshire's labours have 

 not been of a nature to bring his name prominently before the 

 public, but he has been toiling quietly as the honorary secretary 

 and editor of the Palceontographical Society. That Society has 

 now published fifty-two quarto annual volumes, and some 

 thirty of these have, we believe, been edited by Mr. Wiltshire. 

 These volumes each contain forty or fifty plates of fossils, and 

 two hundred or more pages of letter-press, dealing with organic 

 remains of all classes. The interest attaching to these volumes 

 is world-wide, and so is their reputation. Immense credit is 

 undoubtedly due to Mr. Wihshire, and it is pleasing to learn 

 that the members of the Palceontographical Society (of whom 

 Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., is president, and Mr. R. 

 Etheridge, F.R.S., treasurer) have decided to present him with 

 a testimonial, towards which subscriptions (not limited to 

 members of the Society) are now being received. 



A FEW particulars as to the progress which is being made by 

 the Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal are given in the Lancet. 

 It is stated that, in addition to hearing evidence and visiting a 

 number of sewage works, the Commission have been engaged 

 in determining a number of important questions relating to the 

 desirability or not of laying down chemical and bacteriological 

 standards which should be obtained by effluents, whether in the 

 case of domestic sewage only or of such sewage combined with 

 trade refuse. For this purpose they have employed experts of 

 their own, and it is understood that the staff of chemists and 

 bacteriologists has just been increased, so that the effluents from 

 works of different character can be systematically studied, 

 almost hourly by day and by night, under varying conditions 

 of temperature and rainfall. No statement can as yet be made 

 as to the term over which these experiments must extend ; but 

 it is quite clear that they are at present only in an initial stage, 

 and that, in so far as bacteriological results are concerned, the 

 Commission are dealing with a subject as to which little ex- 

 pert evidence is available, and that the matter will have to be 

 examined very deliberately and exhaustively before useful in- 

 ferences can be drawn. These experiments are being carried 

 out under the supervision of a committee of the Royal Com- 

 mission, consisting of Sir Richard Thorne, F.R.S., Prof. Michael 

 Foster, F.R.S., and Prof. Ramsay, F.R.S. 



A PAPER, by Mr. W. C. Peckham, in the April number of 

 the Century, on the liquefaction of gases in general, and the 

 work of Prof. Dewar and Mr. Charles E. Tripler, of New 

 York, in particular, contains some remarkable pictures of ex- 

 perim'ents with liquid air. The method used by Mr. Tripler 

 to liquefy air is the same as that employed by Dr. Linde and 

 Dr. Hampson. Air is compressed to between two thousand 

 and three thousand pounds per square inch, and cooled by 

 water flowing round the pipes containing it. As it escapes it 

 expands, and is therefore cooled, and this colder air is made 

 to pass around the pipes so as to reduce the temperature of 

 the air in them. The result of this self-intensification is a 

 continual reduction of temperature within the pipes until the 

 temperature of liquefaction, -312° Fahr., is reached. A 

 laboratory form of this apparatus produces from thirty to forty 

 gallons of liquid air in ten hours. In fifteen minutes after the 

 engine is started liquid air can be drawn off. A number of 

 experiments, many of which exemplify results obtained by Prof. 

 Dewar, are described and illustrated in the article. One of 

 the most striking experiments is performed by placing over a 

 cool fire a tea-kettle containing some liquid air. " The heat 

 of the fire evaporates the liquid, and a stream of vapour of air 

 shoots out of the spout to a great height. It looks like steam 

 from a kettle of boiling water. In a very short time water 

 poured into the kettle may be taken out as ice, and the bottom 



