November 14, 1901] 



NA TURE 



has not been equalled since the time of Berzelius. The presi- 

 dents of the Royal and the Chemical Societies have been asked 

 to be present to represent English science, and the President 

 of the Republic will do honour to this eminent man of science 

 by presiding at the celebration. 



The list of birthday honours includes the name of Prof. A. 

 I'edler, F.R.S., Director of Public Instruction, Bengal, who has 

 been made a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire. 



Pkok. a. Fischer he Waldheim, the director of the 

 Botanic Garden at St. Petersburg, has just commenced the 

 publication of a periodical Bulletin of the Gardens. 



The Imperial Academy of Sciences of Vienna has received 

 intelligence of the botanical expedition in Brazil, from its chief. 

 Prof. R. von Waldheim, down to September 10, from Siio 

 Paulo. The rivers Rio Branco, Rio Mambu, and Rio Aguapihy, 

 flowing through an almost unexplored country, had been navi- 

 gated in canoes ; and large consignments have already been 

 sent to Vienna in the form of living plants and roots, herbarium 

 specimens, preparations in spirit, woods, fruits, and economic 

 products. 



We have received from Major Ross the " First progress report 

 of the campaign against mosquitoes in Sierra Leone " (Liverpool 

 School of Tropical Medicine, Memoir v. pari i.), in which is 

 detailed the methods of procedure and the results up to date of 

 this interesting attempt to reduce the numbers of mosquitoes in 

 a district. The works carried out include the removal of 

 rubbish, especially empty tins and broken bottles, which form 

 breeding places for Culex and Stegomyia (the supposed yellow- 

 fever host), and the filling up and drain.ige, or brushing out and 

 l^reating with crude petroleum, of the puddles which harbour 

 Anopheles. Dr. Taylor, who is in charge of the expedition, 

 writes that it is now (September 28) difficult to find Anopheles, 

 Stegomyia is getting very scarce, and Culex is only seen now 

 and again. Dr. Daniels, of the London School of Tropical 

 Medicine, gives testimony to the same effect in a report at the 

 end. The expedition is intended to be an object-lesson in the 

 manner of ridding tropical towns of mosquitoes by drainage and 

 cleaning, and has been financed by private munificence. 



Koi'E railways have for some time been in use for the con- 

 veyance of iron ore and stone in districts where, owing to the 

 nature of the country, ordinary railways would be impracticable. 

 One of the latest examples of these has recently been constructed 

 in Ireland between Ballinphellic and Ballinhassig by the Cork, 

 Bandonand South Coast Railway Company. It is intended for 

 the conveyance of bricks from the works of the Cork 

 Brick Manufacturing Company, situated about eight miles from 

 Cork. The line is four miles in length and has a transporting 

 capacity of twelve tons per hour. There are 126 buckets, 

 which travel at the rate of four miles an hour, each holding 

 3J cwt. The rope is of steel, and there are forty-three sup- 

 ports consisting of steel trestles, the height of which is sufficient 

 to allow the buckets to travel overhead clear of all obstructions. 

 The loads automatically take on and leave the cables at the 

 stations without any separate coupling operations. The line is 

 worked by a stationary engine, and it requires 12 h.p. to drive 

 the rope. The cost of transport of bricks to Cork has been 

 reduced from an average of i8i. per thousand to 5^. 



I.\ the Swedish journal Jeriikontorst, a description is given 

 by Mr. G. F. lleindenstam of the conversion of the wood waste 

 and sawdust from the saw-mills in that country into charcoal. 

 The waste pieces of wood cut oti in the conversion of the logs are 

 passed through rolling-mills designed for drying out the greater 

 part of the moisture and reducing the wood to the form of saw- 

 NO. 1672, VOL. 65] 



dust. This is then passed on to heated presses and the car- 

 bonising apparatus. In these the liquid bye-product is dis- 

 tilled and the solid matter converted into briquettes. A plant 

 consisting of light carbonising apparatus can deal with 9000 tons 

 of waste wood and sawdust, from which 6000 tons of charcoal 

 briquettes are made, the remainder being used as fuel for driving 

 the machinery. These yield 2006 tons of charcoal, having a 

 market value of from 2/. 51. to 3/. ds. per ton, besides 5304 

 tons of tar, 300 tons acetate of lime, and 45 tons of methylic 

 alcohol and acetone. The total yield from these is 11,487/., 

 the cost of conversion being 7661/., leaving a profit of 3826/. 

 after allowing 2550/. for the value of the waste wood and saw- 

 dust, and 10 percent, on a capital of 16,666/. 



A paper has been contributed to the Vienna Academy of 

 Sciences by Prof. J. M. Pernter on polarisation of light in 

 turbid media, considered in reference to the colour of the sky. 

 The author has observed the polariscopic effects and the relation 

 of the polarisation to the colour in various emulsions of mastic 

 in water, and a comparison has been made between these effects 

 and those observed in the light of the sky. He finds that 

 the two phenomena are in close agreement, and an experi- 

 mental test is thus afforded of Lord Rayleigh's theory of the 

 colour of the sky. 



In connection with the Austrian deep-sea expedition a paper 

 has been published by the director, Herr Th. Fuchs, dealing 

 with the character of the deep-sea fauna of the Red Sea. In 

 spite of the prevailing high temperatures even at the greatest 

 depths, the fauna is entirely of the character of a deep-sea fauna 

 and resembles that of the open ocean. The deep-sea fauna, 

 considered both as a whole and in regard to its individual 

 species, shows considerable resemblance with the fauna of the 

 so-called " Badner Tegel." Lastly, the peculiar fauna begins 

 at a depth of about 200 metres, although the temperature at this 

 depth is about 23° C, and is sufficiently high to allow of the 

 growth of coral reefs. 



Van der Waals's equation was undoubtedly an important 

 step in obtaining a more approximate representation by a 

 mathematical formula of the isothermal lines of fluids than was 

 given by Boyle's law or similar formula. The further modifica- 

 tions proposed by Clausius, Tait and others, including, recently, 

 Amagat, all tend to show that such formula; are at best to be 

 treated as mere approximations. The next step in advance, 

 consisting in the expression of the equation of state of gases by 

 means of series, forms the subject of a paper, by Dr. H. Kamer- 

 lingh Onnes, in the Communications from the Leyden Physical 

 Laboratory, No, 61. Various forms of series were tried, and the 

 most convenient was found to be an expansion oi pv in descend- 

 ing powers of v. For the coefficients of these powers, which are, 

 of course, functions of the temperature, series involving the 

 temperature and its reciprocal as well as exponential functions 

 of the reciprocal of the temperature were chosen. A closely 

 allied subject, namely the precise isothermal of hydrogen at 

 20° C. up to 60 atmospheres, is dealt with by Mr. J. C. 

 Schalkwijk in the preceding number of the Communications. 



The eleventh volume of the Deutsches Meteorologisches 

 Jahrbuch, by Prof. Paul Bergholz, contains the meteorological 

 observations of the town of Bremen for the past year. The 

 volume is divided into six sections, the first two of which deal 

 with the hourly and daily readings of the various meteorological 

 instruments throughout the year, and the third with the results 

 from the different rainfall stations for the same period. Part iv. 

 contains the mean values of the readings of the self-recording 

 instruments for the years 1896-1900 and 1891-1900, while 

 part V. includes similar information from observations made 

 three times a day. Of perhaps the greatest interest is the sixth 



