November 21, 1901] 



NA TURE 



59 



endured from sand-flies, centipedes and mosquitoes 

 on certain islands, and from monstrous cockroaches 

 on board the vessels in which they made some local 

 trips. R- L. 



NOTES. 



The close attention which the Emperor of Germany gives to 

 scientific and technical subjects, and the personal interest he 

 takes in the work of men who study them, have been shown on 

 many occasions. The latest instance occurred on Monday, 

 when, attended by a large naval staff, he was present at the annual 

 general meeting of the Society of Naval Architects, founded 

 three years ago on the plan of our own Instituiion of Naval 

 Architects. The Tinus correspondent at Berlin states that the 

 chief item in the programme was a lecture by Geheimrath 

 Brinkmann on the changes which have been adopted in the 

 disposition of guns in battleships and the results of these changes 

 upon naval architecture. The lecturer pointed out the reasons 

 which had caused the arrangement of the guns with the sole 

 object of firing broadsides to be superseded. He spoke of the 

 beginningsof independent systems of construction in Italy, in the 

 United States and, to a certain extent, in Germany. In the 

 course of the discussion reference was made to the advantage 

 which Germany enjoyed in having the opportunity of constructing 

 an entirely new navy while profiting by the e.'iperience of older 

 naval powers, and it was pointed out that, as regards materials, 

 German steel was excelled by none. To the surprise of the 

 audience, the Emperor ascended the platform, and after beckon- 

 ing all who were present to remain seated, spoke upon the 

 subject of the influences of military requirements uppn the 

 development of naval construction and the disposition of artillery 

 on ships. The presence of the Emperor at scientific and 

 technical meetings is itself a mark of sympathy with their aims ; 

 and when, in addition, he .shows himself keenly interested in 

 the subjects discussed, the influence upon the public mind must 

 be very great. To this influence must partly be ascribed the 

 regard in which scientific investigation is held in Germany. 



Considerable interest attaches to a circular said to have 

 been issued by the Italian War Office to the veterinary surgeons 

 of the Italian Army. The circular recommends to their atten- 

 tion a new treatment for the so-called foot and mouth disease 

 of cattle. The treatment was announced some little time ago 

 by Prof Bacelli, and consists in the intravenous injection of a 

 solution of perchloride of mercury and sodium chloride. The 

 intravenous injection of powerful antiseptics for specific diseases 

 is, of course, not new. Quite recently intravenous injections 

 of formic aldehyde were used, apparently with success, in the 

 treatment of human pulmonary tuberculosis. We have not, up 

 to the present, had access to the actual communication either of 

 Prof Bacelli or of Dr. Guzzi, who appears to have been the 

 first to actually use the remedy in question ; but it appears that 

 the injected fluid consisted of i gramme of perchloride of 

 mercury, 75 grammes of sodium chloride and I litre of water, 

 and that of this solution first 30, then 50, then 70, and subse- 

 quently 100 cubic centimetres were injected. As the body- 

 weight of the animals in question is unknown, an accurate 

 estimation of the dose given is impossible. The ultimate 

 remedial agent is the albuminate of mercury. The addition to 

 the injecting fluid of the sodium chloride renders this substance 

 more soluble, and also tends to prevent the precipitation of pro- 

 teids by the perchloride, and hence the formation of emboli. 

 The animals treated all appear to have been cured of the disease. 

 From the general standpoint, these results, if accurate, are of 

 interest in that they afford another instance of the possibility, by 

 the intravenous injection of an antiseptic, of destroying, or at any 

 rate influencing, the materies morbi without injuring the host. 

 NO. 1673, VOL. 65] 



A coRRESPOiNDENT informs us that the tercentenary of Tycho 

 Brahe's death was celebrated in Basle, Switzerland, where Tycho 

 settled for a time and revived interest in astronomical science. 

 The Society of Naturalists of Basle met, with several other 

 scientific societies, on October 23 in the Bernoullianum to listen 

 to a lecture by Prof Fritz Burckhardt on Tycho in Switzerland. 

 A facsimile was shown of the letter, the original of which is 

 preserved in the university library of Basle, with which Baron 

 Hoffmann introduced Kepler to Tycho. 



Mr. A. J. Evans, F.R.S., keeper of the Ashmolean Museum 

 at Oxford, has been elected a corresponding meinber of the 

 Munich Academy cf Sciences. 



We learn from the British Medical Jotcrnal that on January 

 I, 1902, the Imperial Leopold Caroline Academy of Sciences, 

 which has its headquarters at Halle, will celebrate the one 

 hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its foundation. The Academy 

 is the oldest scientific society in Germany. 



The seventh annual conference of hop growers will be held 

 at the South-Eastern Agricultural College, Wye, on Wednesday, 

 November 27. Colonel A. M. Brookfield, M.P., will preside, 

 and reports will be presented on experiments conducted during 

 1901 on the manuring, drying, training and cultivation of 

 hops. 



The adoption of the metric or decimal system of coinage, 

 weights and measures in South Africa was advocated by 

 Mr. Hutchins in a paper read before the South African 

 Philosophical Society on October 2. It was shown that with 

 very slight modifications the present coins and measures could 

 be adapted to the decimal system. At the close of the meeting 

 it was decided that a committee, consisting of Sir David Gill, 

 Dr. Muir, Dr. Beattie, Prof. Thomson, Dr. Crawford, Mr. 

 Littlewood and Mr. Hutchins (with power to add to their 

 number), should prepare a report on the advisability of intro- 

 ducing or legalising the metric system of weights, measures and 

 coinage in South Africa. 



Mr. J. Stirling, Government Geologist and Mining Repre- 

 sentative of Victoria, gave a lecture at the Imperial Institute on 

 Monday on " Brown Coal-beds of Victoria, their Characters,. 

 Extent and Commercial Value." The question of utilising the 

 large deposits of tertiary fuel known to exist in the Latrobe 

 Valley, Gippsland, at Newport near Melbourne, Lai Lai near 

 Ballarat, Dean's Marsh near Geelong, and at other places in 

 Victoria, to commercial advantage in the interests of the State, is 

 of considerable importance at the present time, when each 

 portion of the Australian Commonwealth is taking stock of its 

 natural resources. Geological sections run across the Latrobe 

 Valley from north to south have disclosed the phenomenal thick- 

 ness of the Morewell beds. A bore put down by the Govern- 

 ment at Maryvale, near Morewell town, has proved 7S0 feet of 

 brown-coal, in beds more than 260 feet in thickness. The chemical 

 analyses of this fuel, taken from the bore at different levels down 

 to 987 feet from the surface, have shown that its heat-giving 

 qualities increase with the depth, there being from 3675 per 

 cent, of fixed carbon in the upper beds and 48 30 per cent, in 

 the lower. Six hundred square miles of these tertiary brown- 

 coal beds are known to exist in Victoria, of which 300 square 

 miles, with 31,144,390,000 tons of the fuel, occur in the 

 Latrobe Valley. From his intimate knowledge of these brown- 

 coal deposits, and from the recent studies he has made on the 

 Continent of Europe of the methods there adopted of utilising 

 brown-coal by manufacturing it into briquettes, distilling paraffin 

 and oils from it and producing various by-products, for all of 

 which this class of fuel was especially adapted, Mr. Stirling has 

 arrived at the opinion that Victoria possesses the makings of an 



