February 6, 190SJ 



NA TURE 



327 



reasonable limits. This applies only to the indicated 

 power ; the conclusions as to the brake horse-power would 

 be widely different. If, however, the engine is constructed 

 to work only with these moderate pressures and tempera- 

 tures, the whole of th» working parts might be very much 

 lightened, and a good mechanical efficiency obtained with 

 the very moderate mean pressures. 



.^T the meeting of the Institution of Engineers and 

 Shipbuilders in Scotland on January 21, two papers of 

 considerable interest were presented. In the first Mr. 

 J. J. O'Neill discussed the inter-relation of the theory and 

 practice of shipbuilding, with special reference to the speed- 

 power aspect of the question. He considered that the 

 lengths of the present .Atlantic liners warrant the belief 

 that greater power can be obtained, providing that the 

 power their dimensions invite is present. The curves of 

 power also show that the present speeds can be attained 

 on shorter lengths, and that the variations of form involve 

 relaiivelv small gains. The possibilities of the future of 

 the ^team turbine, the chief function of which is its 

 capability to obtain greater powers on a given weight than 

 its competitors, widen considerably the vista of engineering 

 practice. With regard to the screw-propeller, the author 

 is inclined to think that, had the same attention been 

 devoted to the screw-propeller problem as has been 

 bestowed on the form of the vessels, greater advantages 

 than the slight variation of form effected would have been 

 secured. In the second paper Mr. I. V. Robinson gave 

 some comparative figures of the cost of power generated 

 by gas and by water. The results show that power 

 generated from blast-furnace gas costs about the same as 

 water-power when the capital cost of the generating 

 station, with or without transmission lines as may be re- 

 quired, is about i8f. per horse-power delivered at the 

 consumers' boundary. 



The new French ethnographical review. Revue des 

 Etudes cthnographiques et sociotogiques, under the editor- 

 ship of M. A. van Gennep, starts its career in the number 

 for last month with an excellent programme. Dr. 

 J. G. Frazer contributes a chapter from the new forth- 

 coming edition of the " Golden Bough " on " St. George 

 and the Palilia." The Palilia is a Roman spring agri- 

 cultural feast, at which the herdsman used to make a 

 sacrifice to Pales and invoked his protection for the flocks, 

 praying him to grant rain for the pastures and to protect 

 the cattle from wolves. In Esthonia, about the same 

 time of the year, a feast is held in honour of St. George, 

 who grants fertility to women and flocks. In eastern 

 Europe the saint seems to represent the old spring god 

 of the Lithuanians, Pergrubius, and, further east, Tammuz 

 or -Adonis. With his wide knowledge of peasant rites and 

 ceremonies. Dr. Frazer has no difficulty in establishing 

 the connection between these varied cults of agricultural 

 and pastoral life. This paper is followed by an elaborate 

 sketch by M. M. Delafosse of the Siena or Senoufo tribe, 

 who inhabit the French territory in West Africa in the 

 region adjoining the British Ashanti frontier. M. C. 

 Boreux discusses the decorated pottery of pre-dynastic 

 Egypt. Some reviews and a bibliography complete a 

 publication which promises to be of considerable value to 

 ethnologists. 



TiTE current issue of the Journal of the Scottish Meteor- 

 ological Society (No. x.xiv., third series) contains memorial 

 notices of Dr. Buchan from several men of science, in- 

 cluding Prof. Hann (Vienna), Dr. Shaw and Dr. Mill 

 (London), testifying to the enduring value of his numerous 

 and " epoch-making " investigations. Mr. H. Bell con- 



NO. 1997, VOL. yy] 



tributes an article on thunderstorms at the Ben Nevis 

 observatories and on the Scottish coasts, on which sub- 

 ject Dr. Buchan was recently engaged. Tabular state- 

 ments show the cases of occui rence of thunder and 

 lightning from 1884 to 1904, together with their seasonal 

 and diurnal range. The atmospheric conditions which 

 determined the displays were of a very complex character, 

 anJ are not yet fully understood. The same journal con- 

 tains (i) an interesting article, by Mr. R. G. K. Lempfert, 

 on the present condition of telegraphic weather services in 

 various countries ; especial reference is made to the great 

 importance of recent extensions of area due to the exer- 

 tions of the Danish and Egyptian Governments. (2) Rain- 

 producing east winds and their influence on the summer 

 of 1907, by Mr. R. Richardson ; the author considers that 

 one of the principal causes of the phenomenally bad 

 character of that summer was the frequent sudden shifting 

 of the wind 'to the east. 



MM. P. Weiss and V. Planer give the results of their 

 comparison of the energy losses due to hysteresis in iron, 

 steel, and nickel, in alternating and rotating magnetic 

 fields respectively, in the Journal de Physique for January. 

 -As previous observers have found, the loss in a rotating 

 exceeds that in an alternating field for comparatively weak 

 fields, but the authors find that for electrolytic iron the 

 loss in the rotating field reaches its maximum w'hen the 

 intensity of magnetisation is about 1200, and decreases to 

 zero at intensity 1700. For steel, the maximum occurs at 

 1000 and the zero at 1600. For nickel the corresponding 

 numbers are 300 and 500 respectively. The energy losses 

 at the maxima are 17,000, 120,000, and 17,000 ergs per 

 c.c. per cycle respectively. 



The small intensity of the electric waves emitted by a 

 sender consisting of a comparatively short vsrtical wire, to 

 the top of which a long horizontal wire is attached, in the 

 direction in which the latter points, and the great intensity 

 of the waves sent in the opposite direction, was pointed 

 out by Mr. Marconi in 1906, and in the Physikalische 

 Zeitschrift for January 15 Dr. J. Zenneck works out the 

 theory of a receiver of the same form. Such a receiver 

 is most sensitive to waves coming from the direction 

 opposite to that in which the horizontal wire points, for 

 then both the vertical and horizontal components of the 

 electrical field are utilised. The best ratio of vertical and 

 horizontal lengths depends on the ratio of the correspond- 

 ing components of the wave, and on the conductivity of 

 the soil, but in any case the efficiency of the receiver may 

 be increased by attaching a wire to the base of the vertical 

 wire and extending it on or under the surface of the soil 

 towards the arriving waves. 



In a communication to the Royal Academy of Belgium 

 (Bulletin. 1907, No. 6, p. 684) Prof. Walthfere Spring gives 

 an account of his further researches on the nature of the 

 allotropic forms of sulphur. Whilst in a previous paper 

 (see Nature, vol. Isxv., p. 182) he was able to show that 

 the sulphur obtained on decomposing a solution of 

 hydrogen sulphide with sulphur dioxide is a hydrate, 

 S,,H,0, it is now demonstrated that the material pre- 

 cipitated by the action of ferric chloride on a solution of 

 hydrogen sulphide is not hydrated, but is a new allotropic 

 iorm of the element. The new variety has a density which 

 is sensibly the same as that of orthorhombic sulphur, and 

 like the latter dissolves in carbon bisulphide, but it differs 

 from it and from all other known forms of the element 

 in its specific heat. Precisely the same form, giving 

 identical values for the density and specific heat, is also 

 obtained on decomposing an alkaline polysulphide in 

 solution by means of an acid. 



