April ■li,, 1884] 



NA TURE 



60' 



London this year. On Sunday afternoon, January 13, 

 about 4.5 p.m., while sitting in my rooms here along with 

 my wife and my brother, I was suddenly sensible of a 

 severe earthquake; I pulled out my watch to take the exact 

 time,and while I was in the act of drawing their attention to 

 thephenomenon, my wife, who has experienced with myself, 

 numerous shocks in the Malay Archipelago, exclaimed 

 also that an earthquake was occurring. My brother dis- 

 tinctly felt the shock, but was unaware what it was. It 

 was composed of two severe shocks, with an interval of 

 short duration between them. The house was quite still, 

 and nothing was passing in the street, nor for more than 

 twenty minutes did any carriage come along it. Being 

 accustomed for several years to observing earthquake 

 movements, I am perfectly confident of the occurrence 

 of an earthquake at that time ; and in the hope that some 

 other observer has noted the fact, I have sent this note 

 to Nature. Henry O. Forbes 



S7, Queen's Crescent, Haverstock Hill, N.W., 

 April 22 



Mr. E. B. Knobel, F.R.AS., F.G.S., writes to the 

 Times from Bocking, near Braintree : — " A sharp shock 

 of earthquake was experienced here at about 9.18 a.m. 

 this morning. .-\ slight trembling was first felt, followed 

 by an oscillation sufficient to make one stagger and cause 

 some alarm. Among the incidents which resulted, house 

 bells were set ringing, one or two doors of cottages burst 

 open, and clocks stopped. The safety-valve of a boiler 

 was lifted and steam blown oft' for an instant. The pheno- 

 menon lasted from two to three seconds, though perhaps 

 the latter e.stimate is slightly in excess of the true duration 

 of the oscillation. The following facts may be useful in 

 determining the direction of the wave. Three pendulum 

 clocks in different houses stopped, the line at right angles 

 to the plane of oscillation of the pendulum being in all 

 cases north-west and south-east. Pendent gaslights in a 

 factory were caused to sway in the same direction, north- 

 west and south-east. .A door was burst open, the posi- 

 tion of which when closed was north by west and south 

 by east. These facts would indicate a south-easterly 

 origin of the earthquake wave." 



A correspondent at Southend states that the wave 

 seemed to travel from north to south, while in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Oxford Street the direction seemed east to 

 west, and so also at Gray's Inn, where a correspondent felt 

 as if the bed were slipping from under him. Doubtless by 

 next week we shall have fuller and more precise details. 



NOTES 

 The final meeting of electricians to determine the practical 

 units of electricity and light assembles in Paris on the 28th inst., 

 when England will be represented by Sir William Thomson, 

 Messrs. Preece, Hughes, Adams, Jenkin, Foster, Graves, and 

 Hopkinson, and Capt. Abney. The Congress is expected to la.sl 

 for several days. 



Dr. Koch and the members of the German Commission sent 

 last autumn to Egypt and India to investigate the cause of cholera 

 have left Alexandria on their return to Europe. 



The Senate of Glasgow Uni\ersity have resolved to confer the 

 degree ofLL.D. on Prof. Osborne Reynolds, Victoria University, 

 and Mr. Thomas Muir, High School, Glasgow. 



At Ekhmeem, a large provincial town of Upper Egypt, situate 

 about half way between Assiout and Thebes, Prof. Maspero, 

 returning from his annual trip of inspection up the Nile, has just 

 found a hitherto undiscovered and unplundered necropolis of 

 immense extent. As far as has been yet ascertained, the necro- 

 polis dates from the Ptolemaic period ; but as the work of ex- 

 ploration proceeds, it will probably be fountl that it contains 

 more ancient quarters. The riches of tliis new burial field would 



meanwhile seem to be almost inexhaustible. Five great tomb ; 

 or catacombs already opened have yielded 120 mummies, and 

 within the short space of three hours Prof. Maspero verified the 

 sites of over 100 more similar catacombs, all absolutely intact. 

 The necropolis of Ekhmeem, at a rough estimate, cannot contain 

 fewer than five or six thousand embalmed dead. Of these per" 

 haps not more than 20 per cent, will turn out to be of archjeo- 

 logical or historical value ; but the harvest of papyri, jewels, and 

 other funeral treasures cannot fail to be of unprecedented extent. 

 Ekhmeem is the ancient Khemnis — the Panopolis of the Greeks. 

 Its architectural remains are insignificant. 



The Granton Zoological Station was formally opened last 

 week ; the ceremony was to have been performed by Prof. Ernst 

 Haeckel, but illness prevented him from coming to Edinburgh, 

 as he had intended, to be present at the tercentenary celebration. 



The annual meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute will be held 

 on Wednesday, April 30, and May \ and 2, at the Institution of Civil 

 Engineers, 25, Great George Street, commencing each day at 10.30 

 a.m. The list of papers and subjects for discussion is as follows : 

 — Adjourned discussions : (i) On the tin plate industry, by Mr. 

 E. Trubshaw, Llanelly ; (2) on the coal-washing machinery used 

 by the Bochumer Verein, by Mr. F. Baare, Bochum ; (3) on 

 the manufacture of anthracite pig iron, by Mr. J. Hartman, 

 Philadelphia, U.S.A. Adjourned papers : (l) On recent results 

 with gas puddling furnaces, by Mr. R. Smith-Casson, Brierly 

 Hill ; (2) on a new form of gas sampler, by Mr. J. E. Stead, 

 F.C.S., Middlesborough. New papers : (3) On the use of raw 

 coal in the blast furnace, by Mr. I. Lowthian Bell, F.R.S., &c., 

 Rounton Grange, Northallerton ; (4) on the behaviour of armour 

 of different kinds under fire, by Capt. C. Orde-Browne, Lecturer 

 on Armour at Woolwich ; (5) on recent progress in iron and 

 steel shipbuilding, by Mr. William John, Barrow-in-Furness ; 

 (6) on the most recent results obtained in the application and 

 utilisation of gaseous fuel, by Mr. W. S. Sutherland, Birmingham. 

 In addition we believe that a paper may be expected on the 

 important subject of iron or steel sleepers, as now used largely 

 in Germany, in place of the timber sleepers with which we are 

 all familiar ; and possibly papers on other subjects may be at the 

 last moment forthcoming. It will be seen that the programme 

 presents several features of interest. Mr. Lowthian Bell, we 

 have every reason to believe, will exhibit the conditions attend- 

 ing the use of raw coal instead of coke in the blast-furnace in a 

 clearer and more satisfactory form than has ever before been 

 achieved. Again, the great duel being fought out between 

 armour and guns is always a matter of keen interest, and Capt. 

 Orde-Browne's position as a skilled and yet independent ob- 

 server of the struggle gives him a special right to speak upon it. 

 He will be able to give the last results obtained with the com- 

 pound or steel-faced armour now coming so much into fashion. 

 The ordinary business of the meeting includes the election of 

 members, reading of the Council's report, and the presentation 

 of the Bessemer gold medals to Mr. E. P. Martin, late of Blaen- 

 avon, but now General Manager of the great works at Dowlais, 

 and to Mr. E. Windsor Richards, General Manager to Messrs. 

 Bolckow, Vaughan, and Co., Middlesborough, to whom we are 

 indebted for the practical realisation of the basic process of 

 steel-making. 



Col. Kincaid, Political .\gent, Bhopal, writes to us under 

 date March 30: — "We have had a renewal of the after-glow 

 here lately, but not nearly so intense as we had in September 

 October, November, and part of December. The natives of the 

 country have naturally been much exercised by the prolonged 

 phenomenon, and still believe it portends war and tumult." 

 Col. Kincaid also sends us an extract from Malcolm's "History 

 of Persia," referring to an " extraordinaiy change in the ap- 

 pearance of the sun" in the year 1 72 1, which greatly alarmed 

 the Persians of the period. 



