•58 



NA TURE 



IDecemker 19. 1901 



NOTES. 



Messages from Newfoundland announce that Mr. Marconi 

 has succeeded in signalling from England to America by wire- 

 less telegraph. Detailed information is not yet available, but it 

 is said that the signals which were received at St. John's, three 

 on Thursday and one on Friday last, though faint were unmis- 

 takable, and that Mr. Marconi intends to come immediately to 

 England to increase the power of his transmitters at Poldhu, 

 Cornwall, in order to establish more satisfactory communication 

 across the Atlantic. According to later information the Anglo- 

 American Telegraph Company have given Mr. Marconi notice 

 to remove his instruments from the Colony, as they possess a 

 fifty years' telegraphic monopoly, of which there are still two 

 years to run. This will involve the removal of his experimental 

 station to Nova Scotia or to some other convenient place on the 

 American coast line, and may, perhaps, somewhat delay further 

 experiments. It is to be hoped, however, that we shall before 

 long see a further developme;it of Mr. Marconi's remarkable 

 achievement, upon which if confirmed by subsequent results he 

 cannot be too warmly congratulated. It is interesting to com- 

 pare the possible rapid development of wireless telegraphy in 

 Mr. Marconi's hands with that of the ordinary telegraph. The 

 first Atlantic cable was not laid until five-and-twenty years after 

 the invention of the telegraph by Gauss and Weber. The 

 earliest proposal to use Hertz waves for signalling was made 

 in 1891, and Mr. Marconi began his experiments four or five 

 years later ; at that time he was able to signal two or three 

 miles, and now, after five years' work, he claims to have suc- 

 ceeded in increasing this distance a thousandfold. 



Geologists and geographers will be glad to learn that they 

 may soon expect the publication of a new map of Iceland on 

 which Mr. Thoroddsen, whose labours in his native island are 

 so well known, has been engaged for twenty years. It is on a 

 scale of 1/600,000, or about twenty English miles to the inch, and 

 thus affords at a glance an excellent picture of the general 

 physical structure and geological characters of the country. But 

 t is also replete with details which are expressed in symbols 

 that take up little space and are readily intelligible. The map, 

 of which we have seen a proof copy, is excellently engraved and 

 printed in colours at Copenhagen, and will be issued under the 

 auspices of the Carlsberg Fund. The title and table of signs 

 and colours are in English. 



Convinced that increased knowledge of the methods of 

 education on the Continent and in America, with special regard 

 to their bearing on questions of commerce and industry, is 

 required in England, Mr. Alfred Mosely, C.M.G., has offered 

 to defray the whole expense of a commission of inquiry, which 

 would visit parts of the Continent and of America to study 

 the question. At a meeting held on Monday, under the pre- 

 sidency of Lord Keay, Chairman of the London School Board, 

 to confer with Mr. Mosely, it was decided that the inquiry 

 should take place in the autumn of 1902. It is understood 

 that the promoters of the inquiry will endeavour to secure the 

 co-operation of a number of public men representing various 

 types of educational authorities and also the interests of industry 

 and commerce. 



The full text of President Roosevelt's message to the U.S. 

 Senate and House of Representatives has now been received, 

 and we are glad to notice that it contains the following references 

 to the valuable assistance given by the Smithsonian Institution 

 to scientific progress :— " The advancement of the highest 

 interests of national science and learning and the custody of 

 objects of art and of the valuable results of scientific expeditions 

 conducted by the United Stales have been committed to the 

 Smithsonian Institution. In furtherance of its declared purpose 

 NO. 1677, VOL. 65] 



— for the ' increase and diffusion of knowledge among men ' — 

 the Congress has from time to time given it other important 

 functions. Such trusts have been executed by the Institution 

 with notable fidelity. There .should be no hall in the work of 

 the Institution, in accordance with the plans which its secretary 

 has presented, for the preservation of the vanishing races of great 

 North American animals in the National Zoological Park. The 

 urgent needs of the National Museum are recommended to the 

 favourable consideration of the Congress." 



The Imperial Leopold Caroline Academy of Science at Halle 

 will celebrate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its 

 foundation on January I, 1902. 



The first meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in the 

 new year will be held on the afternoon of January 8, when Dr. 

 Vaughan Cornish will give a lecture on " Waves," adapted to 

 young people. At the ordinary meeting on January 13 Dr. 

 Logan Jack will give an account of his recent expedition from 

 Shanghai to Bhamo, and on January 27 Mr. Stanley Gardiner 

 will lecture on the Maldive Islands. 



The council of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy 

 announce that a gold medal and premium of the value of fifty 

 guineas, presented by the Consolidatsd Gold Fields of South 

 Africa, Limited, will be awarded annually to the author of the 

 paper of highest merit contributed to the Transactions by any 

 member, associate, or student of the Institution, during the 

 preceding session, upon the mining, treatment, or reduction of 

 gold ores. The first award will be made in June, 1902, and 

 succeeding awards in June in each year. 



An exhibition of burners and appliances connected with the 

 use of gas for illumination and other purposes was opened at the 

 Crystal Palace on Saturday. A development of the Welsbach 

 incandescent light is the inverted burner, on which the cone is 

 fixed in a downward position. It consists of a Bunsen burner 

 fitted with a regulator for the supply of gas and attached to a 

 cone of white china, which acts both as a radiator and as a 

 reflector. Hitherto the difficulty has been to get the Bunsen 

 Ijurner to burn downwards on account of its liability to 

 strike back. This difficulty the manufacturers of the burner 

 claim to have overcome. The construction of the burner, with 

 the globe fixed, closely resembles in api>earance the hanging 

 globe of the electric light, and, as there is nothing below the 

 light, no shadow is thrown. A new invention in street lamps is 

 exhibited. This is a high-pressure lamp for burning ordinary 

 gas by the method of a self-intensifying action of combustion, 

 and is said to produce a light of from 300 to 500 candle-power 

 from one burner. There are two stands in the show which 

 exhibit the acetylene light. These are interesting on account 

 of the use which is now being made of that gas, not only for 

 motorcar lights, but also for the illumination of omnibuses in 

 London. 



An exhibition of electrical appliances was opened at the 

 Royal Aquarium on Monday. The exhibits include many in- 

 genious electrical instruments and accessories, such as switch- 

 boards, electrical heating and cooking devices, generators, 

 accumulators, Rontgen-ray outfits, lamps, electric clocks, 

 anemometers and electric meters. Mr. W. Langdon, the pre- 

 sident of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, who was to 

 have performed the opening ceremony, was unable to be present, 

 owing to his work in connection with the interruption of the 

 telegraphs by the recent gale, but he sent a statement, in the 

 course of which he said that exhibitions were performing good 

 educational work, because they gave the manufacturer an oppor- 

 tunity of bringing his achievements before the public and those 

 interested in their use, and enabled the visitor to obtain a more 

 complete knowledge uf the use of what was to be seen. If 



