ii4 



NATURE 



[December 5, 1907 



174 rats and mice. It is again shown, therefore, that the 

 plague epidemic is preceded by an epizootic among the 

 rats and mice. Notes are given on the species of rodents 

 affected, and on the clinical details of the cases. 



The Bulletin of the Department of Agriculture, Jamaica 

 {August and September), contains articles on the subject 

 of curing vanilla pods for market and on the vanilla 

 industry, also on bastard logwood and cacao cultivation. 



We have received from Messrs. A. E. Staley, of Thavies 

 Inn, London, a list of Bausch and Lomb's new micro- 

 scope models fitted with an improved form of fine adjust- 

 ment, also a brochure on the use and care of the micro- 

 scope. 



The development of the pollen grain in the gymno- 

 •spermous genus Dacrydium is interesting because, accord- 

 ing to the account contributed by Miss M. S. Young to 

 the Botanical Gazette (September), a number of cells are 

 formed in what is technically known as the microgameto- 

 phyte. The spore passes out of the single-cell stage when 

 a small prothallial cell is cut off ; by another division of 

 the vegetative nucleus a second prothallial cell is formed, 

 and in a similar way a third, the generative cell, is pro- 

 duced. The generative cell gives rise to a sterile and a 

 so-called body cell, the progenitor of the sperm cells. As 

 the second prothallial cell not infrequently divides, the 

 mature pollen grain may show as many as seven nuclei. 



In the Engineering Magazine (vol. xxxiv., No. 2) a new 

 mineral industry, the manufacture of radium, is described 

 by Mr. Jacques Boyer. He gives illustrations of the 

 works lately installed at Nogent-sur-Marne, where 

 waggon-loads of various minerals (pitchblende, autunite, 

 chalcolite, carnotite, and thorianite) are treated for an 

 tlltiniate production consisting of a few minute particles 

 of radium salts. 



The Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scot- 

 land has reached its jubilee year, and in his presidential 

 address Mr. John Ward gave an able retrospect of the 

 events connected with the work of the institution, a sub- 

 ject especially suitable in view of the fact that it is also 

 the centenary of marine engineering as applied success- 

 fully to ocean navigation. To the address, which is printed 

 in the Transactions (vol. li., No. i), is appended a useful 

 chronology of events in the evolution of the marine steam 

 engine. 



The problem of peat utilisation, so often pronounced 

 hopeless, may now be considered as practically solved. 

 The Mond Power-Gas Corporation is building a large 

 peat-generator gas-plant near Heme, in Westphalia ; 

 Messrs. Crossley Brothers are projecting plants on the basis 

 of their long-continued experiments at Openshaw ; and 

 Martin Ziegler has made peat-coke and obtained the 

 chemical by-products, at Oldenburg and at other places, 

 ever since 1897. The Ziegler plant at Beuerberg, in 

 Upper Bavaria, which was opened in 1906, is described in 

 •detail in Engineering of November 15. The results 

 obtained have been eminently satisfactory, and suggest the 

 possibility of manufacturing at a profit peat-coke and 

 -chemicals in Ireland, where from 16 feet to 40 feet of peat 

 can be worked over large areas. 



Mr. Gustave Canet, past-president of the French 

 Society of Civil Engineers, has honoured the Junior 

 Institution of Engineers by accepting the presidency, and 

 in his inaugural address, which was delivered on 

 "November i<S, he frankly and critically compared English 

 and French practice in connection with the design and 

 manufaclure of arlillerv. The conditions under which gun- 



NO, 1988, VOL. 77] 



makers work in the two countries are, he pointed out, 

 essentially different. The whole tendency of French policy 

 has been adverse to the interests of private manufacturers. 

 In Great Britain, on the other hand, there has never 

 been any restriction placed upon manufacturers with re- 

 gard to the supply, during peace time, of war material to 

 foreign Powers. Hence works of private manufacturers 

 have developed and have acquired vast experience that is 

 a valuable national asset, for they can place all their re- 

 sources at the disposal of the Government in case of need. 



Striking evidence of the reduction in working costs 

 and in the number of unskilled coloured labourers effected 

 by the installation of labour-saving appliances in the 

 Transvaal mines is afforded in the paper on the equip- 

 ment of the New Kleinfontein mine read by Mr. E. J. 

 Way before the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on 

 November 15. A branch line was constructed from the 

 nearest railway station up to the mine, and the surface 

 plant was equipped with a complete system of conveyors 

 and elevators for handling all coal, ash, ore, waste rock, 

 and residue sands, whilst the stopes underground have 

 been provided with swinging conveyors specially designed 

 to permit the rapid and easy dismantling and re-erection 

 necessitated by blasting requirements and by the constant 

 shifting of the working faces of the stopes. The actual 

 annual reduction in the working costs due to the installa- 

 tion of labour-saving appliances is equivalent to a saving 

 of nearly 3^. per ton milled. 



The Institution of Mining and Metallurgy has drawn 

 up a series of standard weights and measures with the 

 object of securing uniformity in scientific papers. The 

 word " ton " shall, it is decided, represent a weight of 

 2000 lb. avoirdupois; the word "gallon" shall represent 

 the Imperial gallon measure of 10 lb. of water. Tempera- 

 tures shall be expressed in degrees centigrade. Returns 

 of gold and silver shall be expressed in terms of fine 

 gold and fine silver respectively, not as " bullion." Gold 

 contents of ores, determined by assay, shall be expressed 

 in money values as well as in weights ; and in this con- 

 nection the value shall be taken (as a convenient constant) 

 at 85s. per troy ounce of fine gold. The adoption of these 

 definitions in assay returns will doubtless obviate much 

 of the existing confusion, but it is to be feared that the 

 use of the new ton of 2000 lb. would, in the case of 

 statistics of mineral production, not be so convenient as 

 the statute ton of 2240 lb. or the metric ton of 2204 lb., 

 both of which may legally be employed. 



In the Transactions of the Institution of Engineers and 

 Shipbuilders in Scotland, Dr. Victor Cremieu describes 

 his proposed apparatus for extinguishing the rolling of 

 ships, some references to which have appeared in the 

 daily Press. One method involves the use of a heavy 

 sphere rolling in viscous liquid in a curved tube at the 

 bottom of the ship ; in the second form the moving weight 

 takes the form of a pendulum swinging in a chamber in 

 the form of a sector of a circle, again filled with viscous 

 liquid. The paper contains no reference to what would 

 happen in the event of the weight striking the boundaries 

 of the chamber in a heavy sea or in a disaster. 



In the Rendiconto of the Naples Academy (Mathematical 

 and Physical Section), xiii., 3 and 4, Profs. F. Bassani 

 and C. Chistoni direct attention to a recently formed orifice 

 in the Solfatara of Pozzuoli. This opening was first seen 

 on February 2, and the authors consider that it affords an 

 excellent opportunity for the study of geophysical problems 

 connected with the changes of level of the well-known 

 temple of Serapis. They propose that a series of observ- 



