April 20, 1899] 



NA TURE 



593 



At a meeting of the general committee of the National Sea 

 Fisheries Protection Association, held on Tuesday, it was re- 

 solved : " That representation be made to Her Majesty's Govern- 

 ment urging the necessity of telegraphic communication with the 

 Faroe Islands and Iceland, and requesting them to join other 

 Powers in subscribing the amount asked for by the Great 

 Northern Telegraph Company of Copenhagen as an annual sub- 

 scription for the transmission of meteorological and other 

 Government information ; and to appoint a representative to 

 attend the Meteorological Congress to be held in St. Petersburg 

 in August next." 



The third plague epidemic, which has caused the most ter- 

 rible ravages in Bombay, is, happily, on the decline. Referring 

 to the mortality which has marked its progress, the Times 

 states that five weeks ago the populace were dying ^t the rate 

 of 350 daily. At least 250 of these deaths were due to the 

 plague. During the past week, however, the hot weather has 

 set in steadily, and the plague generally retreats before a sus- 

 tained high temperature, the decline being immediately notice- 

 able when the thermometer verges upon the nineties. On 

 Monday the mortality fell to 193, of which probably about 100 

 were plague cases. As to the protective value of inoculation 

 against plague, it is stated that in the town of Hugli 33,000 

 persons were inoculated with the Haffkine fluid, while 6000 re- 

 mained uninoculated. In one week there were 371 deaths 

 among the uninoculated, while only 41 occurred among those who 

 had been inoculated. All inoculations were voluntary. The 

 results obtained from Prof. Lustig's curative serum are, how- 

 ever, unfavourably reported upon by the municipal commis- 

 sioners of Bombay. 



Whether the pen be mightier than the sword is not for us 

 to discuss at the present moment ; but that the camera is 

 mightier than the pen, and follows very closely after the sword, 

 will be conceded when the eye glances over the snap-shots taken 

 during recent campaigns. We learn now that the United 

 States Government is very wide awake as to the advantages of 

 photography for recording events of national or historical interest. 

 According to the British Journal of Photography (April 14), 

 the U.S. War Department has undertaken the compilation of a 

 photographic history of the war with Spain. To ensure the 

 thoroughness of the scheme, a circular letter has been addressed 

 to all the officers in the service, asking them to contribute such 

 prints, films or negatives .as they may have in their posses.sion, 

 promising to return such loans in good condition. It is further 

 requested that the names of all persons who were known to 

 have carried cameras in the regions of active operations should 

 be communicated, so that their aid might be obtained in com- 

 pleting the record. It is proposed to produce in a single 

 volume every obtainable feature and photograph bearing on the 

 subject ; and as it is generally known that the camera was 

 extensively used, the publication of such a volume will be looked 

 forward to with great interest. 



Bulletin No. 3 of the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory 

 contains an account, by Mr. .S P. Fergusson, of the progress of 

 experiments with kites during the years 1897-8, with photo- 

 graphic illustrations of the beginning of an ascent, of the steam 

 power windlass, and of kites carrying meteorograph. In 1884, 

 Mr. D. Archibald succeeded in elevating anemometers to a 

 height of 1300 feet in this country. Mr. W. Eddy devised a 

 simple but efficient kite, about ten years later, which reached a 

 height of about 2000 feet. Since that time the work at Blue Hill, 

 under the able superintendence of Mr. A. L. Rotch, has steadily 

 .idvanced, until within the last two years the meteorographs 

 h.ave been repeatedly carried to heights exceeding 10,000 feet. 

 The greatest height was reached on February 28 last, viz. 

 NO. 1538, VOL. 59] 



12,507 feet, by means of the Hargrave kite, with improvements 

 by Mr. H. H. Clayton ; this pattern being the most stable of 

 those in use, has been adopted in all experiments since the 

 spring of 1897. The vertical height is computed by means of 

 the formula 



H = (sin h) Ix, 



in which H represents the height ; h the angular altitude above 

 the horizon, obtained by observing the kite with a surveyor's 

 transit placed near the windlass ; / the length of the line, read 

 from the dial attached to the windlass ; and x is a constant 

 quantity determined experimentally as a correction for the sag 

 of the line, &c. This computation is made in about a minute, 

 and the results are accurate within one per cent. Kites are 

 much less expensive than balloons, and the exposure of the 

 instruments is better than can be obtained in manned balloons. 



Mr. F. Napier Denison has made a special study of the 

 minute undulations recorded upon the self- registering tide 

 gauges, and has compared them with the curves of the self- 

 registering barographs for a number of points on the Atlantic 

 coast of Canada, and within the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the 

 smaller bays. He finds that these minute undulations in the 

 water are due to the direct action of atmospheric waves or bil- 

 lows, or, more properly speaking, oscillations of barometric 

 pressure passing over the harbours and bays. Prof. Cleveland 

 Abbe, the editor of the U.S. Monthly Weather Review, sug- 

 gests that it would be much better to study the barometric 

 oscillations directly as a meteorological problem, and,^li- 

 sequently, to study their effect on the tides as an oceanic 

 problem ; but Mr. Denison recommends the reverse order of 

 treatment. Mr. Denison's last paper appears in the Proceedings 

 of the Canadian Institute for November 189S. 



A NOTE by Prof. H. V. Hilprecht, in the Bulletin (January) 

 of the Free Museum of Science and Art, Philadelphia, states 

 that the new Babylonian expedition of the University of Penn- 

 sylvania resumed active work a short time ago. The ex- 

 cavation of the lowest strata of the temple of Bel or Enlil — 

 " the father of the gods " — the exploration of certain quarters 

 of the ancient city proper, and the determination of the precise 

 site of the chief gates of Nippur, form the chief task of the 

 expedition at present. A small number of generous and in- 

 telligent citizens of Philadelphia have provided the necessary 

 means for a two years' campaign in Babylonia, with Prof. 

 Hilprecht as scientific director, and Dr. J. H. Haynes as the 

 director of operations in the field. It is hoped that the ex- 

 pedition will settle a number of vital archaeological and chrono- 

 logical questions. 



At a meeting of the Royal Statistical Society, held on 

 April 18, Mr. Martineau read a paper on the "Statistical 

 Aspect of the Sugar (Question. " He began by pointing out 

 that though this question originated some thirty years ago with 

 the bounty on the exportation of refined sugar from France and 

 Holland, it had now been extended to the general consideration 

 of the production of beetroot sugar, both raw and refined, on 

 the continent of Europe, stimulated as it is alleged by bounties. 

 How striking had been the progress of the beetroot industry he 

 showed by comparing the sugar production of the world at 

 intervals during the last quarter of a century. In the first 

 decade the cane sugar production was increased by 266,000 

 tons, and the beetroot production by 640,000 tons. In the 

 second, cane went up 668,000 tons, and beetroot 1,718,000 

 tons. In the last five years, up to 1897, cane had decreased 

 474,000 tons, and beet increased 1,415,000 tons, .\mong the 

 conclusions drawn from the paper are that cane sugar can be 

 produced cheaper than beetroot ; that cane sugar can be 

 profitably produced and sold in this country at a price materially 



