540 



NA rURE 



[April io, 1902 



Arrangements have now been made for the Nature- 

 Study Exhibition to be held at the Gardens of the Royal 

 Botanic Society, Regent's Park, on July 23 and following days. 

 It will be open to colleges and schools of every grade, and the 

 exhibits will include all that bears upon nature study. Various 

 technical instruction committees and other educational authori- 

 ties have already arranged to defray the cost of the conveyance 

 of exhibits from their respective areas, and preliminary exhi- 

 bitions for the purpose of selecting the best material to send are 

 being organised in several districts. Full particulars may be 

 obtained on application in writing to the hon. secretary, 

 Nature-Study PZxhibition, Royal Botanic Gardens, Regent's 

 Park, London, N.W. 



The annual general meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute 

 will be held on May 7 and S. At the opening meeting the 

 Bessemer gold medal for 1902 will be presented to his 

 Excellency F. A. Krupp, of Essen. Among the subjects to be 

 brought before the meeting are : — The nomenclature of metallo- 

 graphy ; the microstructure of hardened steel ; gas from wood 

 for use in the manufacture of steel ; the physical and chemical 

 properties of carbon in the hearth of the blastfurnace ; the 

 sulphur contents of slags and other metallurgical products ; and 

 Brinell's researches on the influence of chemical compo.sition on 

 the soundness of steel ingots. 



Sir S.\muei. Wii.ks, Bart., F.R.S., has been elected 

 president of the Ilampstead Scientific Society in succession to 

 the late Sir Richard Temple. 



The Times announces the death, at Munich, of the well- 

 known bacteriologist Prof. Hans Biichner, in the fifty-second 

 year of his age. Prof. Biichner, who was president of the 

 Hygienic Institute at Munich, rendered important services to 

 science in developing the modern theory of infectious disea.ses. 

 From the same source we learn of the death, at the age of 

 eighty-seven, of M, Emile-Jean Renou, founder, in 1873, of the 

 Saint Maur Meteorological Observatory. In 1S40 he was com- 

 missioned by the Government to explore Algeria, Morocco and 

 Tripoli, and he drew up the first geological map of Algeria. 



The Chemical News announces that the Fifth International 

 Congress of Applied Chemistry will be held at Berlin during the 

 Whitsuntide holidays in 1903, under the presidency of Dr. 

 Clemens Winkler. The House of the Imperial Parliament 

 (Reichstag) has been placed at the disposal of the Congress, and 

 Geheimrath Prof. Otto N. Witt has been nominated president 

 of the organising committee. Dr. Bottinger, member of the 

 German Parliament, acting as treasurer. A fund of about 3000/. 

 has already been collected by voluntary subscriptions from societies 

 and private individuals towards the expenses of the Congress. 



We Itarn from Science that at the February meeting of the 

 council of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers a 

 resolution, brought forward by the committee on standardisation, 

 in favour of the metric .system was un.inimously adopted. The 

 committee's report and resolution were as follows : — (l) The 

 metric system of weights and measures offers very great ad- 

 vantages by its simplicity, consistency and convenience in every- 

 day use, as well as in all engineering calculations and compula- 

 tions. (2) The.se advantages have already been demonstrated 

 by the universal adoption and entirely successful use of the 

 metric system in all civilised countries except Great Britain and 

 the United States. (3) All the electrical units in universal use, 

 such as the volt, ampere, ohm, watt, Si.c., are metric units. 

 (4) The industrial use of these electrical units would be much 

 facilitated by the general adoption of the metric system. (5) 

 This committee unanimously recommends the introduction of 

 the metric system into general use in the United States at as 

 early a date as possible without undue hardship to the industrial 

 NO. 1693, VOL. 65 J 



interests involved. (6) The committee favours such legislation 

 by Congress as shall .secure the adoption of the metric system 

 by each department of the National Government as speedily as 

 may be consistent with the public welfare. 



In a note contributed to the Aiti dei Liiicei, xi. 4, Signor 

 C. Somigliana shows that Lord Kelvin's method of images can 

 be applied to the solution of the equations of elasticity, under 

 certain conditions, for solids with plane boundaries. 



The Vienna SilziingsherichU contains a note by Dr. Josef 

 von Geitler on some experiments conducted for the purpose of 

 proving the action of kathode rays on a magnetic needle. It 

 now appears that a source of error has been discovered in the 

 heating of the brass tubes employed, where the rays fall on 

 them, and the consequent production of thermoelectric currents. 

 Unfortunately, the direction of these currents is such as to 

 deviate the magnet in the same direction as it would be 

 deviated by the rays themselves. It appears only possible by 

 means of quantitative measurements to ascertain whether any 

 portion of the observed effect exists over and above what is 

 directly attributable to the source of error in question. 



The "red rain" which fell in many parts of Italy and 

 extended as far as Vienna and other central European stations 

 on the evening of March 10, 1901, has been subsequently 

 studied by Prof. N. Passerini, and an account of the phenomena 

 is now given by him in the Bollctino mensitaU of the Italian 

 Meteorological Society. The phenomenon appears to have 

 travelled slowly from south to north, occurring at Palermo in 

 the night of March 9-10 and at Florence in the night of March 

 lo-li. Prof. Passerini found that the precipitation of the 

 earthy substance was accompanied with very little rain, and a 

 rough analysis showed it to contain about 44 per cent, of fine 

 sand, 32 per cent, of argill.-iceous matter, 12 per cent, of cal- 

 careous matter and about 10 per cent, of organic and volatile 

 substances destroyed by calcination. The red colour was 

 probably due to ferric hydrate. In the samples found in Pi.sa 

 and elsewhere, fragments of Diatomace^, as well as spores, are 

 said to have been observed. It is suggested that the material 

 deposited in this and other so-called " rains of blood ' that have 

 occurred at different times in Italy may probably have been 

 transported by a cyclonic disturbance, and may have had its 

 origin in the equatorial regions of Africa or America. 



The " Results of Rain, River and Evaporation Observations" 

 made in New South Wales during 1899 have been published by 

 Mr. II. C. Russell, Government Astronomer, and contain, as 

 usual, valuable observations for each month and tables showing 

 the records for various stations since 1S40. The number of 

 observing stations has risen to 1724, the observers being mostly 

 volunteers. The year 1899 is the fifth dry year in succession, 

 the shortage of rain for the whole colony being 21 percent., 

 but in a large area west of the Darling the rainfall was from 16 

 to 67 per cent, below the average. Six good years, 1889 to 

 1S94, had an average of 28 61 inches of rain, and live bad ones, 

 1895 to 1S99 inclusive, had an average of 2049 inches. Mr. 

 Russell remarks that only the richness of the soil and the 

 climate save the stock under such droughts, for even a shower 

 will often give a good growth of grass and be in time to save 

 the stock. The crops in 1899 were to a large extent saved, 

 except in the western districts, by the rains which fell between 

 June and October. 



The Meteorological Service of Manila, which, under the 

 superintendence of the Observatory at that place, has for many 

 years published valuable annual summaries, has been reorganised 

 on the lines of the United Slates Weather Bureau. From the 

 beginning of the year 1901, the new Philippine Weather 

 Bureau has issued monthly bulletins, containing data deduced 



