232 

reported to be twelve feet in height and to have 
drowned several fishermen in the harbour. With the 
above position for the origin, it is difficult to account 
for the fracture near Hawaii of the cable from Midway 
Island to Guam, unless, as is sometimes the case, 
there were two separate earthquakes, one to the 
south of the Aleutians and the other to the west of 
Hawaii—a supposition which receives some con- 
firmation from a more recent telegram (Times, 
February 9) that the origin was about 2000 miles 
from Samoa. 
A GERMAN correspondent writes: On February 9 
Dr. G. Aufschlaeger, general director of the Dynamit 
A.G., formerly Alfred Nobel and Co., Hamburg, 
celebrated his seventieth birthday. Dr. Aufschlaeger 
was born at Jahnishausen, Saxony, graduated at 
Heidelberg and then became assistant lecturer at the 
Technical High School of Dresden. In 1882 he 
founded the dynamite factory of Muldenhiitten, 
which was combined in 1884 with the dynamite 
works of Dresden; and in 1889 he became general 
director of the dynamite factory founded in 1864 by 
Alfred Nobel in Hamburg. Here he displayed an 
activity which was of the greatest importance for the 
whole industry of explosives. He brought about the 
combination of the principal German dynamite works 
and their co-operation with the chief foreign represent- 
atives of the industry. As the patents of Nobel for 
the manufacture of gelatin-dynamite from nitro- 
glycerin and nitrocellulose, which belonged to his 
company, initiated a new epoch in the production of 
smokeless powder, he also succeeded in forming a 
syndicate -with the manufacturers of gunpowder. 
This co-operation was of the highest importance 
technically, as it rendered possible the widespread 
distribution of new inventions and improvements. 
For the purpose of testing new inventions the scientific 
technical central offices in Neubabelsberg near Berlin 
were founded. In the construction of explosives works 
Dr. Aufschlaeger directed his attention towards 
securing the isolation of possible explosions and pre- 
venting their spread to other parts of the buildings. 
At the present time he is endeavouring to utilise the 
plant of the explosives works for peaceful purposes. 
“ Vistra-wool,”’ a substitute for cotton, produced from 
wood, is being manufactured by one of the dynamite 
works, and has been highly praised by experts. 
Ir is announced in the Times that in celebration of 
the 450th anniversary of the birth of the Polish 
astronomer Copernicus on February 19, a memorial 
tablet will be unveiled and a municipal scientific 
library bearing his name will be opened in his native 
town of Thorn. 
THE new Research Laboratories of the General 
Electric Co., Ltd., Wembley, will be opened on 
Tuesday, February 27, at 2.30 P.m., when Lord 
Robert Cecil and Sir Joseph Thomson will deliver 
inaugural addresses. 
THE annual lecture to the London Graduates’ 
Section of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers 
will be delivered at 7 o’clock on Monday, February 26, 
by Prof. E. G. Coker, who will speak on “ Photo- 
NO: 2781, ven. 111] 
NATURE 

[ FEBRUARY 17, 1923 
elastimetric Researches on Mechanical Engineering 
Problems.”’ 
WE notice in the programme of lectures for 1922- 
1923 of the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Penn- 
sylvania, that Dr. Walter Rosenhain is lecturing to the 
Institute on the structure and constitution of alloys, 
and that in April Sir Joseph Thomson is to deliver a 
course of five lectures at Philadelphia on the electron 
in chemistry. 
Mayj.-GEN. SIR FREDERICK B. Maurice, Dr. Alex- 
ander Scott, and Prof. A. N. Whitehead have been 
elected members of the Atheneum Club under the 
provisions of the rule of the Club which empowers the 
annual election by the committee of a certain number 
of persons “‘ of distinguished eminence in science, 
literature, the arts, or for public service.” 
TuE following officers and members of council of 
the Royal Astronomical Society were elected at the 
anniversary meeting held on February 9 :—Pyresident : 
Dr. J. L. E. Dreyer. Vice-Presidents: Prof. A. S. 
Eddington, Sir F. W. Dyson, Mr. E. B. Knobel, and 
Prof. H. F. Newall. Tveasuvey: Lieut.-Col. F. J. M. 
Stratton. Secretaries: Mr. H. Spencer Jones and 
Rev. T. E. R. Phillips. Foreign Secretary: Prof. 
H. H. Turner. Council: Prof. A. E. Conrady, Dr. 
A. C. D. Crommelin, Mr. C. R. Davidson, Prof. A. 
Fowler, Dr. J. W. L. Glaisher, Mr. P. H. Hepburn, 
Mr. J. Jackson, Dr. Harold Jeffreys, Prof. F. A. 
Lindemann, Mr. E. A. Milne, Dr. J. W. Nicholson, 
and Mr. J. H. Reynolds. ; 
WE have received an address on advances in the 
metallurgy of iron and steel, delivered by Sir Robert 
Hadfield before the Cambridge University Engineering 
Society on January 25. The address, which was 
illustrated at the time by means of kinematograph 
and lantern slides and exhibits, ranges over a wide 
field, its subject being the importance of metallurgical 
discoveries to modern engineering. The scientific 
record of Cambridge and its school of engineering is 
taken as a text for a discourse on the technical appli- 
cations of science, with special reference to motor-car 
engineering. In this connexion many passages are 
quoted and commented on from the recent autobio- 
graphy of Mr. Henry Ford. An opportunity is taken 
to point out the exaggerated impression of German 
supremacy in chemical science which has been caused 
by our dependence on German text-books, and to 
urge that more attention should be given to the 
production of scientific compendia in the English 
language, and free from undue national bias. The 
address, which breathes a spirit of scientific enthu- 
siasm, contains some interesting incidental notes on 
armour-piercing projectiles and similar subjects on 
which the author speaks with authority. 
AccorDING to the fourth annual report of the 
Scientific Instrument Research Association, the period 
for which Government grants on the present scale 
were guaranteed expires on June 30, but as there is 
in the case of the Association an unexpended balance 
sufficient to maintain the work for a sixth year, the 
Department of Scientific and Industrial Research has © 
extended the period of the grant to June 30, 1924. 
