594 



NA TURE 



[April 20, 1899 



lower than the average price of the last fourteen years of 

 alternate depressions and reactions ; and that under free and 

 open competition the world would cease to be dependent on the 

 vicissitudes of the European beetroot crop. 



The issue oi Science for March .3 contains a paper by Mr. E. 

 D. Preston, Executive Officer to the Superintendent, on the 

 work of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. The 

 survey was first authorised in the year 1807, began serious 

 work in 1832, and attained its present permanent status in 

 1S43. Regular work has thus been carried un for over 

 tifty years. Besides the ordinary trigonometrical and astro- 

 nomical work, covering 350,000 square miles, the Survey has 

 sounded and prepared charts of 164,000 square miles of sea, and 

 has made extensive investigations into hypsometry, magnetism, 

 gravity, and physical hydrography. The measurement of an 

 arc of the ninety-eighth meridian is amongst the works at present 

 in hand, and negotiations are in progress for extending the 

 measurements of certain arcs into Mexico and Canada. 



A TRANSLATION- of a paper by Prof. Otto Pettersson, origin- 

 ally published in Ynur, appears in Nos. 12 and 13 of the 

 current volume of Die Nalur. An excellent summary is given 

 of the aims and methods of the investigations carried on in the 

 Baltic, the North Sea, and the North .Vtlantic, by Prof. 

 Pettersson and his colleagues during the last six years, and the 

 application of the results to meteorology, and to the study of 

 fishery questions, is described. The paper is important in view 

 of ^ proposals for further international co-operation at present 

 under consideration, as it enters more into technical details 

 than was possible in Prof. Pettersson's recent article in the 

 Nineteenth Century. 



" The mechanics of the centrifugal miichine " is treated very 

 simply by Mr. C. A. Matthey in a paper in the Transactions ol 

 the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland. The 

 author, after referring to the great loss of power due to uneven 

 balancing in separators revolving in fixed bearings, points out 

 the superiority of the Weston machine, in which the separator is 

 suspended from above, and its axis kept within limits by india- 

 rubber buffers. The stability of the arrangement is rightly 

 attributed by the author to the imperfect elasticity of the rubber 

 buffers, which by diminishing the precessional motion tends to 

 bring the axis of rotation towards the vertical. 



Mr. Joseph Manning has written a paper, published by 

 Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein and Co., Ltd.. on "The future of 

 the metric and imperial systems of weights, measures and 

 coinage." In it the author advocates a new system of units 

 identical with the metric units but under diflerent nomenclature, 

 and a system of decimal coinage, according to which 1000 

 farthings would go to the pound. With regard to the former, 

 we fail to see any advantage in using the new names "chor" 

 and "gray" to denote units already known as the "stere" and 

 '• tonne," while it hardly seems desirable to use the name"ar" 

 to represent the hundredth part of the metric "are." As 

 further proof of the growth of popular interest in the metric 

 units, we notice that Scicme Gossip for .April has lent its pages 

 to a description of the system, contributed by Mr. James Quick. 



.\T a recent meeting of the Society of Arts, an instructive 

 paper was contributed by Sir Marcus Samuel un liquid fuel, in 

 which an interesting account is given of the difliculties met 

 with in the first attempts made to popularise the use of oil as 

 a fuel. When the oil fields of Dutch Borneo were first opened 

 up, the oil was not allowed to be carried in bulk through the 

 Suez Canal, and there was not a single port in which obstacles 

 were not placed in the way of its introduction. Now vessels 

 carrying 6500 tons, and capable of discharging over 500 tons 

 NO. 1538, VOL. 59] 



of oil per hour, pass through the canal regularly, and at ports 

 such as Bombay great facilities are now given for the rapid fl 

 discharge and distribution of oil cargoes, experience having I 

 demonstrated its perfect safety. The advantages claimed for ^ 

 high-flash oil as against coal are convenience of storage, safety, 

 reduction of labour in stoking, and rapidity of discharge. 

 Owing to the regularity with which it can be fed into the 

 furnace, the alternate contraction and expansion of the fire lars 

 and steam tubes, unavoidable wh6n coal is used as fuel, and 

 to which so many boiler accidents can be traced, is altogether 

 stopped, although perhaps the risk of over-heating may be set 

 off against this. Oil fuel is in actual use on the Great Eastern 

 Railway, on railways in the south of Russia, in Paris, Southern 

 California, and in South Africa ; it has also been partially 

 adopted in the Russian, German, and Italian navies. The only 

 obstacle to its more general use is the doubt that exists as to 

 whether the price would remain at its present level if the demand 

 were greatly increased. 



In the Cojiimuniiations from the Physical Laboratory of the 

 University of Leiden, No. 45, Ur. J. Verschaffelt describes 

 measurements on the system of isothermal lines near the plait- 

 point, and especially on the process of retrograde condensation 

 of a mixture of carbonic acid and hydrogen. The paper is 

 illustrated by two large diagrams representing the isothermals 

 and condensation lines respectively. 



Messrs. Taylor, Taylor, and Hobsox have just issued 

 a new catalogue of photographic lenses, containing several 

 noteworthy features. .A.n instructive paper on ' ' The Principles 

 of a Lens .Action " is included, and a new form of tables of 

 conjugate foci has been added. In addition to particulars con- 

 cerning the Cooke portrait lenses, the catalogue now includes 

 the smaller Cooke lenses. A new and neat focussing mount is 

 described, and also the Cooke extension lenses. The catalogue 

 will interest all photographers who see it. 



A I'AMrHLKr on " Ventilation," containing extracts from a 

 paper on " Hospital Construction," recently read by Dr. John 

 W. Hayward before the Liverpool Architectural Society, has 

 been reprinted from the Builders' youmal and Architectural 

 Keiord. The subject is an important one ; and the method of 

 ventilation and warming described by Dr. Hayward appears to 

 meet all reasonable requirements. 



"The International Geography," upon which Dr. H. R. 

 Mill has been engaged during the past two years, will .shortly 

 be published by Mr. George Newnes. The work is truly inter- 

 national in character, no less than seventy distinguished home 

 and foreign geographers having contributed to it. Each con- 

 tributor has intimate knowledge of the part of the world with 

 which he deals, and great care has been taken to secure uni- 

 formity of plan anil method ; so that the work « ill be a concise 

 encycloptcdia of geography, suitable alike for reference or as a 

 book for students, .\mong the authors we notice the names of 

 Dr. D. Aitofl, Prof, f.renville K. J. Cole, Sir W. Martin Con- 

 way, Prof. W. M. Davis, Dr. A. .M. W. Downing, Prof. Th. 

 Fischer, Dr. II. O. Forbes, Dr. J. W. Gregory, Prof. A. 

 Heilprin, Sir II. II. Johnston, Dr. Scott Keltie, Prof. A. 

 Kirchhoff, Prof. .-V. de Lapparcnt, Sir William Macgregor, Sir 

 Clements Markhani, Sir John Murray, Dr. X.-insen, Prof. A. 

 Penck, Count I'feil, the late Sir Lambert Playfair, Prof. L. 

 Raveneau, Sir G. S. Robertson, Dr. Th. Thoroddsen, Sir C. 

 W. Wilson, and many others well known in the scientific world. 

 Judging from the strong and representative list of contributors, 

 the forthcoming work will be a very valuable addition to the 

 literature of geography. 



In two papers recently presented to the American Academy, 

 Prof. Richards, in collaboration with Dr. Cushman and Mr. 

 Baxter, returns to the question of the atomic weights of 



