hel 
 . 
Nov, 24, 1870] 
NATURE 
73 

This principle of construction seems to apply the iron 
to the utmost possible advantage in resisting the force of 
the exploding charge. There is an eloquent testimony to 
the excellence of the system in one of the first guns made 
on the Fraser principle, which was tested to destruction 
in the preliminary trials that took place before the system 
was adopted, and is now to be seen in the cemezery, or place 
where such guns are preserved for inspection in the Royal 
Arsenal. This gun, a 64-pounder, having fired a greater 
weight of powder and shot than any other of its own size, 
and latterly with charges increased till it was destroyed, 
burst in this way: part of the tube, which was worn 
through, and the coil round the front of the tube came 
out and left the entire mass of the trunnion and breech- 
piece uninjured, so that not only would this bursting have 
done no injury to those who served the gun, but if a new 
tube and fore-part were put in, the trial might have com- 
menced again. 
Welding a coil, however large, is a much easier and less 
expensive process than forging and hammering into shape 
a mass of iron of much smaller size. However, the great 
size of the coils of Fraser guns of large calibre necessi- 
tated the employment of correspondingly large furnaces 
and machinery. These difficulties have been very 
successfully overcome in the Royal Gun Factories. The 
furnaces have been enlarged from a cubical content of 60 
feet to 600 feet. At present a gun is being made of 35 
tons weight, which will hurl a shot of 7oolb. weight with 
a charge of 1201b. of powder (the battering charge for the 
ordinary 25-ton 600-pounder being 7olb.) All the coils for 
this enormous weapon have been welded without accident 
or hindrance. In one case as much as 28 tons of iron 
have been heated in one piece in the furnace, seized by 
the tongs, and placed in a glowing mass beneath the 
hammer. This is an achievement unprecedented in iron 
manufacture, and which reflects the highest credit on this 
most important Government department. Nowhere else, 
and for no other purpose, have such gigantic masses of 
metal to be heated and manipulated. 
Figs. 3 and 4 show the parts of an Armstrong gun, and 
of a Fraser gun, before they are put together. Both are 
300-pounders, and the engravings have been made from 
photographs of the actual guns. 


NOTES 
WE are in a position to state that the arrangements of the 
Eclipse Expedition are rapidly progressing,—thanks to the 
untiring labours of the strong Organising Committee, which 
meets almost daily. As we stated before, the Government are 
bringing all their power to bear in favour of the work, and, 
should the weather be favourable, we may expect such a series 
of observations as has never been made of an eclipsed sun, As 
at present arranged, there will be four parties. Beginning with 
Spain, we have one to Cadiz, in charge of the Rey. S. J. Perry, 
and one to Gibraltar, under Captain Noble. The English branch 
of the Anglo-American Expedition will be under the charge 
of Mr. Lockyer; while there will be a fourth small expe- 
dition, under the charge of Mr. Huggins, to Oran ; the Cadiz, 
Gibraltar, and Oran parties will leave Portsmouth on the 5th of 
December in the U7-gent. The Sicilian party will leave London 
on the night of the 7th by the Brenner pass, a ship of war meeting 
them at Naples. Although not a single official astronomer has 
olunteered to go, there will be lack of neither skill, disci- 
pline, nor organisation ; and arrangements are already being made 
which will ensure a full and early publication by the Organising 
Committee of the scientific resultsobtained. Printed instructions 
are being prepared by the Committee for each class of obser- 
vations. So much for the English Government Expedition. 
With regard to the American one, we may add that it has been 

no less strongly and carefully organised, with the distinct advan- 
tages that astronomy is more cultivated in America than it is here, 
that the official observatories are fully represented, and that as 
all the observers were present at the Eclipse in 1869, they there- 
fore may be regarded as veterans. Professors Young, Pickering, 
Newcomb, Peters, Watson, Harkness, and others are at present 
in London, and are daily affording most valuable information to 
the Organising Committee and the various observers. 
THE following memorial to Her Majesty’s Government of 
the danger to which the scientific, literary, and art collections of 
Paris are now exposed, has been forwarded to the Earl of Grah- 
ville from the University of Dublin :—‘‘ We, the undersigned, Pro- 
vost, Fellows, and Scholars of Trinity College, and Professors of 
the University of Dublin, desire to express our satisfaction with 
the efforts miade by Her Majesty’s Government to restore peacé 
in Europe, and out earnest hope—shared, we believe, by thé 
nation at large—that these efforts may be eventually successful: 
But if, unhappily, our desire should not be realised, your nié- 
morialists venture to urge that the interposition of Her Majesty’s 
Government may be directed to preserve, if possible, the great 
scientific, literary, and art collections of Patis, which are, in truth, 
the property of the whole civilised world. It is impossible to 
contemplate calmly the irreparable loss which the destruction of 
these collections, or even any serious injury to them, would in- 
flict upon students of every nation. To avert, if possible, such a 
calamity, is now the duty of all; it is more especially the duty 
of every scientific and literary institution. Your memorialists 
would, therefore, in the name of our ancient University, earnestly 
entreat Her Majesty’s Government to interpose their good offices 
with the belligerents, for the purpose of saving these matchless 
treasures from a danger which the fate of the Library of Stras- 
burg proyes to be only too real.” 
WE understand that Dr. Neil Arnott, in addition to his recent 
munificent donations to the Universities, has just presented 500/. 
to the Aberdeen Mechanics’ Institution, to aid in maintaining 
lectures in Physical Science. 
ArT the examination for Foundation Scholarships, held in the 
week after Easter, 1871, one or more scholarships will be obtain- 
able by proficiency in the Natural Sciences, at Trinity College, 
Cambridge. Should one scholarship only be so assigned, prefe- 
rence will be given to the candidate who shows the greatest pro- 
ficiency in physiology and the allied subjects. The Examination 
in the Natural Sciences is open to all undergraduate members o 
the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The value of the 
scholarship is about S0/. per annum for five or six years. 
Dr. MICHAEL FosrTer (the newly-appointed Preelector of Phy- 
siology at Trinity College, Cambridge) commenced on the ryth 
inst. his course of lectures ina part of the new museums, which has 
been temporarily fitted up as a Physiological Laboratory. He 
gave a lucid and able exposition of the three great factors of 
life—contractility, as evinced chiefly in muscles ; irritability, as 
evinced chiefly in the nervous system ; and secretion. Dilatin;s 
upon the much-vexed question, how far these are attributable 
to physical agencies, or are to be referred to another agency 
called ‘‘ Life,” he compared the latter view to a fortress 
closely besieged by an able band of investigators who are 
ever narrowing its area, and pressing the physical forces closer 
and closer upon it. But it has not yet capitulated. No one has 
a right to say that it will or will not capitulate; and till it has 
done so we are perfectly justified in regarding it as an entity, as 
a something to be taken into account in the investigation and 
the attempts at the explanation of living processes. He should 
still, therefore, use the term without committing himself to eithey 
view. He gave definitions of Physiology and Morpholegy. He 
spoke of the enormous importance of vivisection to the advance 
