SEPTEMBER 25, 1902] 
has, according to the /Vestern Electrician, been submitted to 
the U.S. Navy Department. The board reported that it had 
tried the Rochefort system with some success, messages having 
been received and sent with accuracy, and that it was now 
proposed to test in turn a French and two German systems. 
On Friday afternoon last, Mr. Stanley Spencer, the aéronaut, 
sailed from the Crystal Palace in the airship he has constructed. 
A successful voyage over London was made, and the vessel 
descended at Eastcote, near Pinner. 
THE British Medical Journal states that arrangements are 
nearly completed for the formation of a new society to be known 
as the Therapeutical Society, which shall concern itself with 
the medicinal properties of every kind of natural product of 
value in practical medicine. As new countries are opened up, 
plants hitherto unknown are brought to this country, and, as 
our contemporary remarks, the society may fulfil a most useful 
function if it undertakes to study the chemical, pharmacological 
and therapeutical qualities of such plants, especially those which 
are believed by the natives of the countries from which they 
come to possess valuable medicinal properties. The first presi- 
dent will be Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, K.C.M.G., F.R.S., 
and the first hon. secretary Dr. T. E. B. Brown, master of the 
Society of Apothecaries. The meetings are to be held in the 
house of the Society of Apothecaries, and the first will take 
place shortly to make the necessary preliminary arrangements 
for the first year’s work. 
Part of an expedition for the survey of the Gold Coast set 
sail from Liverpool on Saturday last. The remaining members 
of the expedition, numbering between thirty and forty, and 
consisting of trained surveyors from the Ordnance Survey and 
surveyors from Queensland and New Zealand, will leave for West 
Africa on October 4. 
AN inquiry into the earthquakes in Guatemala and Martinique 
has been undertaken by Prof. Sapper, of Tiibingen, who has 
obtained leave of absence for the purpose from the Wiirttemberg 
Government. 
AN international exhibition of photography is to be held in 
Moscow in the spring of next year. It will be divided into the 
following sections:—(1) Scientific photography; (2) artistic 
photography ; (3) photography applied to printing ; (4) works on 
photography ; (5) technical applications of photography ; (6) 
photography considered as a special industry. 
THE following rewards are offered by the Government of 
South Australia for the discovery and working within the State 
of a deposit or deposits of marketable mineral manure—5soo/. if 
found on Crown lands ; 250/. if found on freehold lands. It is 
stipulated (1) that the deposit is easily accessible and within a 
reasonable distance of a railway or seaport, and not within 
twenty-five miles of any discovery on account of which any 
bonus has been paid; (2) that the deposit is sufficiently 
abundant and is available at a price which will allow of it being 
remuneratively used for agricultural purposes; (3) that the 
product is of a good marketable quality, averaging not less than 
40 per cent. of phosphate of lime. In the event of a phosphate 
of a lower average composition being discovered, it may be 
recommended that a portion of the reward be paid. Applica- 
tions must reach the Minister for Agriculture, Adelaide, not 
later than December 31. 
Ir was found from the examination of 55,000 children in 
some thirty-six public schools in New York that no fewer 
than 12 per cent. suffered from contagious diseases of the eyes. 
NO. 1717, VOL. 66] 
NATURE 
Sou 
To prevent such children from attending the institutions, a 
routine examination of the eyes is in future to be made at regular 
intervals, and for this purpose ophthalmic surgeons have been 
appointed. : 
JuDGING from the reports issued by the teachers in the various 
West Indian islands, the experiment of introducing the subject 
of agriculture into the elementary schools, which was due to 
a suggestion made by the Commissioner of the Imperial Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, has already begun to yield satisfactory 
results. The best accounts come from Jamaica, where the 
training college at Kingston provides a suitable centre for im- 
parting instruction to teachers in training and special classes ; 
here, too, good practical work has been accomplished. School 
gardens are being instituted, notably in Jamaica, Trinidad 
and Tobago, but in some of the islands they have not proved so 
successful owing to predial larceny. A full account of the 
agricultural conference appears in the last number of the Wes¢ 
Indian Bulletin, when besides these reports several papers of an 
economic nature were read. The Hon. Sydney Olivier pointed 
out the necessity for careful sorting and good packing of exported 
fruit if West Indian growers hoped to establish a market in 
England and America. He suggested that an inspector should 
be appointed to report on the condition of the fruit as it arrived 
atits destination. The Hon, W. Fawcett read a paper on the 
banana industry in Jamaica, which gave general information on 
the habits of the plant and its method of cultivation. Statistics 
show that at present the exports to England are small in 
proportion to those shipped to America. Mr. A. Howard 
brought forward evidence to show that epiphytes do harm to 
cacao trees mainly by blocking up the lenticels. He- advised 
spraying with copper sulphate or rosin compound to kill 
off the smaller plants. Other papers were, ‘‘Insect Pests,” 
by Mr. H. Maxwell-Lefroy ; ‘‘ Barbados Aloes,” by Mr. W. G. 
Freeman ; and ‘Essential Oils,” by Mr. J. H. Hart. 
THE issue of the “lektrochemische Zeitschrift for August 
contains a useful reference article by Dr. H. Lienau on 
bauxite. This mineral is the chief source of the commercial 
aluminium produced by the electrolytic processes, and although 
many attempts have been made, and are still being made, to 
replace it by some cheaper raw material, these attempts hitherto 
have been unsuccessful. Natural deposits of bauxite occur in 
France, Germany, Ireland and the United States, those of 
the department Var in southern France being at present the 
most extensively worked. In 1896 this district produced 
29,620 tons and in 1901 65,000 tons, of which total 55,000 
tons were exported to other countries. After a reference to the 
geological formation in which bauxite occurs and to the varying 
composition of the deposits, the author describes the various 
processes which have been worked at one time or another 
for extracting aluminium or its compounds from this source. 
The first patented process dates from 1858, and had for its 
object the extraction of aluminium hydrate from red bauxite. 
The demand by paper and colour manufacturers for a cheaper 
source of aluminium sulphate than the alums turned attention 
to the direct production of aluminium sulphate from bauxite, 
but the efforts to produce this salt, free from iron, from red 
bauxite have not been completely successful. The utilisation 
of bauxite for the electrometallurgical production of aluminium 
is a comparatively recent development, but very large quantities 
of the mineral are now being used in aluminium reduction 
works. The author surmises from this fact that bauxite is 
being employed directly in the electrolytic baths, and that the 
troublesome and costly process by which alumina was first 
extracted from the raw bauxite is now being dispensed with. 
