November 19, 1908] 



NA TURE 



79 



district which at the earlier period of the Bronze age was 

 densely peopled should possess so few examples of the 

 later period, when men no longer buried their weapons 

 with the dead. The writer suggests as an explanation of 

 this that Wiltshire possesses neither large rivers, like the 

 Thames, nor turbaries and bogs, such as those of Somer- 

 set, Devon, and the north of England, situations where 

 such relics are most abundantly found. The chalk downs 

 of Wiltshire offered few opportunities for the loss of such 

 things or for their preservation so late as our time. Even 

 granting this, the absence of founders' hoards, except one 

 from Donham, now in the Farnham Museum, remains un- 

 explained. .Socketed celts and palstaves are fairly 

 numerous, but swords, except one doubtful example in the 

 Devizes Museum, are conspicuously absent. One dagger 

 found at VVinterbourne Basset resembles those found in the 

 Swiss lake-dwellings. The socketed sickle from Winter- 

 bourne Monkton is an unusual form of the implement, rare 

 in any form in Great Britain, and almost unknown on the 

 Continent, where sickles without sockets are the rule. 

 In Ireland, however, they are more common. A socketed 

 gouge, again, is an example of a type uncommon in 

 England. It seems obvious that the conditions of the 

 Wiltshire Bronze-age people differed in some respects from 

 that of the race in other parts of this country, and the 

 abnormal types to which Mr. Goddard directs attention 

 may have been the result of some foreign influence or may 

 have been imported. His article supplies good illustrations 

 of these abnormal local implements. 



The present month has e.xperienced very exceptional 

 changes of temperature, although for the most part the 

 weather has remained mild for the time of year. During 

 the first week the thermometer stood high over the whole 

 country, and in many parts of England the days were 

 more like spring than late autumn. A decided change of 

 teinperature occurred about November 7, and for the two 

 or three subsequent days the thermometer fell to an 

 abnormally low reading. At Greenwich the first frost of 

 the season was registered by the sheltered thermometer 

 on November 10, and the thermometer fell to 22°, which 

 is lower than any previous reading during the first half 

 of November since 1841, whilst on the grass the exposed 

 thermometer registered 9°. The weather report issued by 

 the Meteorological Office for the week ending November 14 

 shows that similarly low readings occurred in other parts 

 uf the kingdom between November 8 and 11, the sheltered 

 thermometer registering 16° in the east of Scotland, 17° 

 in the Midland counties, and 18° in the east, south-east, 

 and south-west of England. On the grass the lowest 

 readings were 7° at Llangammarch Wells, 9° at Green- 

 wich, 12° at West Linton, 13° at Birmingham, 14° at 

 Newton Rigg and Kew, and 15° at Canterbury, Oxford, 

 Buxton, and Dumfries. There was a rapid rise of 

 temperature between the mornings of November 10 and 11, 

 amounting to 30° at Oxford, 25° at Nottingham, and 23° 

 at Bath. The subsequent weather has been very mild for 

 the time of year. 



TiiK monthly meteorological charts of the North Atlantic 

 and Indian Oceans issued by the Meteorological Office, and 

 the chart for the North Atlantic issued by the Deutsche 

 Seewarte, for November, igo8, have been received. The 

 charts issued by both countries contain practically similar 

 useful information, and show on their face the normal 

 values of the principal meteorological elements, the best 

 routes for sailing vessels and steamships, the average limits 

 of trade winds for the month in question, together with 

 the latest reports of ice in the Atlantic and of the south- 

 west monsoon in the Indian Ocean. On the backs of the 



NO. 2038, VOL. 79] 



charts are given average statistics of fog in the Atlantic, 

 of ice in the Southern Ocean, and other information of 

 importance to seamen. The charts are published during 

 the month prior to that to which the data refer ; they 

 are compiled from all available sources at the disposal of 

 the various meteorological and hydrographic offices, and 

 deal with some thousands of observations. The labour 

 involved is very onerous, but the value of the work, brought 

 up to current time, cannot be over-stated. 



Among several useful articles contained in the U.S. 

 Monthly Weather Review for June last, recently received, we 

 find a note by Prof. Cleveland Abbe suggesting the import- 

 ance of establishing a graduate school of meteorology on 

 the principle of that established by the .Association of 

 -American Agricultural Colleges, in which lectures and 

 e.xperiments by specialists bring home to interested 

 audiences the present state of agricultural knowledge. 

 The third session of this school was held at Ithaca in 

 July last; the "seminar" forms a predominating part 

 of the work, in which the instructor undertakes to show 

 students how important items of knowledge have been 

 obtained, and replies to questions that may be put. 

 Referring to meteorology. Prof. Abbe says :—" At present 

 we rely too much on books and letters ; we shall do better 

 to get together, ask questions, try e.xperiments, and com- 

 pare notes." In this country a great step in this direc- 

 tion is made by the director of the Meteorological Office 

 by continuing during the present winter season the series 

 of meetings commenced in 1905 for the informal dis- 

 cussion of important contributions to meteorological 

 literature, particularly those by colonial and foreign 

 meteorologists. To these meetings contributors of observa- 

 tions to the office, and, so far as space permits, others 

 known to be interested in meteorology, receive invitations 

 to be present, and to take part in the discussions. We 

 also note that in a recently published report of a depart- 

 mental committee appointed by the Board of Agriculture 

 the opinion is expressed that in agricultural institutions 

 provision might well be made for instruction respecting 

 the relations between meteorology and the crops. 



The October issue of the Journal of the Institution of 

 Electrical Engineers contains a communication, made to 

 the institution in May by Mr. G. F. Mansbridge^. 'of th'e 

 Post Office, on the manufacture of electrical coifdensers. 

 Although other forms of condensers are mentioned, the 

 chief interest of the communication centres round the 

 rolled paper condenser, in the development of which Mr. 

 Mansbridge has played so active a part. To it we owe 

 the possibility of purchasing condensers for as many 

 shillings to-day as we paid pounds a few years ago. They 

 are made of paper, one side of which is coated with tin 

 mud, which is then dried and burnished. Two sheets of 

 this coated paper are rolled up together, with or without 

 intervening layers of plain paper, and the roll impregnated 

 with hot paratTin wax. A microfarad condenser constructed 

 in this way, and tested by the direct deflection method, 

 the voltage being applied one minute, shows an insulation 

 resistance of 1700 megohms at 100 volts, 1500 at 500 volts, 

 and 200 megohms at 1000 volts. 



The foundations of trigonometry form the subject of a 

 paper by Dr. Arthur C. Lunn in the Annals oj Mathe- 

 matics (October). The author points out that in the exist- 

 ing literature of real analysis, the purely logical introduc- 

 tion of circular functions, apart from any appeal to geo- 

 metrical setting to supply features of the proofs, is mainly 

 accomplished in two ways, one by defining the sine and 

 cosine in terms of their expansions in infinite series, the 

 other by basing the definition on the differentiation formulae 



