September 29, 1910] 



NATURE 



403 



January number deals with the disastrous flood during that 

 month in the Upper Darling tributaries, owing to 

 abnormally heavy rains, atiributed by Mr. H. A. Hunt to 

 the joint action of an anticyclonic area over the southern 

 half, and a monsoonal depression operating in the 

 northern half, of the continent. In the Namoi basin 

 several places recorded more than 12 inches of rain between 

 January 11 and 15, and at Bingara, in the area of the 

 river Gwydir, 19-44 inches were registered, the normal for 

 the whole month being 35 inches. The report slates that, 

 generally speaking, the amount of damage was inestim- 

 able, but the deposit left by the subsidence of the water 

 has rendered the soil fertile over a vast area. 



We have received copies of several papers which have 

 been published recently by members of the staff of the 

 Reichsanstalt at Charlottenburg, amongst them one on 

 the thermal expansion of metals, bv Dr. E. Griineisen, 

 which appeared in the Annalen der Physik for August 5. 

 The first part of the paper deals with the observations of 

 expansion of platinum, palladium, copper, silver, 

 aluminium, iron, nickel, and iridium made previously at 

 the Reichsanstalt by Holborn, Day, Scheel and others, 

 and the second part with observations made by the author 

 on magnesium, zinc, cadmium, antimony, iridium, gold, 

 lead, and bismuth by comparison of the expansion of a 

 bar of each metal with that of a platinum standard bar 

 by a method analogous to the double-mirror method of 

 determining the bending of a beam. With the exception 

 of zinc, cadmium, and f)ossibly tin, the whole of the metals 

 which have regular expansions confirm Thiesen's law 

 that the rate of expansion is proportional to a power of 

 the absolute temperature. The author finds that the 

 power lies between o-ob and o-j, and is a periodic function 

 of the atomic weight of the metal. 



Engineering for September 23 contains a photograph of 

 submarine " D i," which is the largest vessel of its class 

 belonging to the British Navy. An interesting develop- 

 ment in this vessel consists in the application of wireless 

 telegraphy to submarine work. Successful experiments 

 have been carried out recently with this vessel in Torbay, 

 the crusier Ronavcnture establishing and maintaining com- 

 munication with the ■' D I " when submerged. The 

 " D I " replied from below the surface. The installation 

 was tested when the submarine was submerged to a depth 

 just sufficient to keep the periscope above water, i.e. 

 about one-half of the telegraphy mast was below water. 

 T'he possibilities of such a development are considerable, 

 as not only could the actions of submarines be directed 

 by these means from larger vessels, but a flotilla of sub- 

 marines will be able to use the system for the purpose of 

 communicating among themselves when submerged, their 

 value in naval warfare being thus considerably improved. 



The progress of the great Barren Jack dam in .Australia 

 is described in the Engineer for September 23. This dam 

 will be one of the largest in the world when finished. 

 The design in plan gives a length of 784 feet, curved to 

 a radius of 1200 feet, and a maximum height of 240 feet. 

 The structure is of cyclopean concrete ; the base is 163 

 feet wide and 20 feet high, with vertical sides, and this level 

 has now been reached. The catchment area embraces 

 5000 square miles, mostly of hard shale formation, and 

 much of it mountainous, which is snow-fed in winter. 

 The maximum depth 'of water behind the dam will be 

 224 feet, and the capacity will be 33,380 millions of cubic 

 feet. Nature has furnished a gorge in hills of granite, 

 providing the best site and best materials for a dam, 

 NO. 2135, VOL. 84] 



behind which is an unfailing supply of rainfall ; a natural 

 220-mile channel, and, at the proper place, a foundation 

 for a distributing weir. That advantage is now being 

 taken of this almost ready-made but long neglected irriga- 

 tion opportunity is a matter for congratulation. It is not 

 intended to wait for the completion of the work before 

 putting it to use. The building contract provides for the 

 wall reaching a height of no feet in -August, 191 1, when 

 storage will be started, so as to ensure irrigation in the 

 summer of iqii-12. The remainder of the dam is to be 

 finished in .August, 1913. 



We have received from Ozonair, Ltd., of 95 \'ictoria 

 Stieet, a catalogue of apparatus suitable for laboratory 

 and research work. Four arrangements are desciibed 

 ranging in cost from 15/. to 100/. for alternating, and from 

 75/. to 1 10/. for direct current, for a complete installation 

 operated from the street mains. It is claimed that the 

 yield of ozone is greater than that of any other generator, 

 and that the purity of the efliuent is unapproached. 



\ REPORT on recent progress in the chemistry of the 

 sugars, by Mr. J. S. Hepburn, appears in the Journal of 

 the Franklin Institute for .August. This paper reviews 

 the work of Emil Fischer upon sugars and ferments, 

 describes the synthesis of monoses, disaccharides, and 

 glucosides, and discusses the fermentation of the sugars, 

 the action of the various inverting enzymes, and the lock- 

 and-key theory of enzyme action. The splitting of racemic 

 sugar derivatives into their active components and 

 asymmetric syntheses within the sugar are also considered. 

 RefeVences are given to original papers, of which no fewer 

 than seventy-four are by Prof. Emil Fischer and his 

 colleagues or pupils. 



.A SUPPLEMENT of eighty-four pages to the Columbia 

 University Quarterly gives an account of the Charles 

 Frederick Chandler testimonial, presented on the occasion 

 of his retirement from the positions of head of the depart- 

 ment of chemistry and dean of the School of Mines of 

 Columbia University. Prof. Chandler has been a college 

 teacher during fifty-four years, and his retirement marked 

 the close of his forty-sixth year of service at Columbia. 

 -A bibliography of fiity publications testifies to the fact 

 that his keen interest in pure science was allied with much 

 work of a public and philanthropic kind. His work on 

 behalf of public health in New A'ork was of the utmost 

 value, and the story of his midnight raid upon the cattle 

 stalls of \\"ashington Market, as set forth in the Columbia 

 Quarterly, will form a fascinating feature in some future 

 history of municipal cleansing ; the ingenious methods by 

 which in the following years he overcame the prejudice 

 of the poorer people against the isolation of small-pox 

 cases is an eloquent testimony to his versatile ability. 



Two important crystallographic papers, by Prof. .Arm- 

 strong and Messrs. Colgate and Rodd, have recently 

 appeared in the Journal of the Chemical Society.:- The 

 investigation has been in progress since 1892. The work 

 now described includes the crystallographic examination 

 of no fewer than twenty-nine derivatives of the p-d'i- 

 halogenbenzenesulphonic acids ; but considerable progress 

 has already been made in the study of the five similar 

 series of isomeric acids in which the two halogens occupy 

 the (frtho and meta positions relatively to one another. 

 The series now described is comparatively simple in its 

 crystallographic properties ; almost all the compounds 

 belong to one of the two types of close-packed arrange- 

 ment which Barlow and Pope have indicated for the 

 benzene molecule, namely, the rhombohedral arrangement. 



