May 22, 1913] 



NATURE 



303 



point of the work of the preceding year. A general 

 description of the country, with facts concerning its 

 geology, climate, flora, and fauna, was furnished by 

 Lieut. Edwards, and some idea as to the extreme 

 difficulties attendant upon exploration, and particularly 

 upon careful survey, in this region, was afforded by 

 hi-, account. Progress, whether along the rivers or 

 through the forests, meets with continual opposition 

 from nature in one form or another; insect pests 

 attack the travellers and their animals, and food sup- 

 plies are often far from easy to keep up. 



The measurements made last year by Prof. McClel- 

 land and Mr. Kennedy of the number and mobility 

 of the large ions present in the atmosphere cast some 

 doubt on the generally accepted interpretation of the 

 records of the various types of instruments intended 

 to measure the ionisation in the atmosphere at any 

 time. The number of small ions of mobility about 

 i-6 cm. per second in a field of 1 volt per cm. may 

 be taken as 1500 per c.c. in normal circumstances, 

 while the authors find that the air of Dublin has in 

 it about ten times as many large ions of mobilities 

 of the order of 1/3000 cm. per second. There is 

 strong evidence that they consist of a nucleus, origin- 

 ally uncharged, which attracts to itself one of the 

 small, more mobile ions. The nucleus itself probably 

 consists of an invisible drop of water, which it is 

 known may exist in air even when the air is unsaturated. 

 Further investigation is, however, necessary before 

 the absence of ions of intermediate sizes can be satis- 

 factorily accounted for. The description of the methods 

 of measurement adopted will be found in the Decem- 

 ber, 1912, number of the Proceedings of the Royal 

 Irish Academy. 



In No. 15 of the Revue Scientifique is published an 

 address delivered by Prof. Victor Grignard on the 

 occasion of the presentation to him at Stockholm of 

 the Nobel prize. In this address he gives a brief 

 summary of the different types of synthesis by means 

 of magnesium, with which his name is associated, 

 and which have led to extremely fruitful developments 

 in the domain of organic chemistry. During the past 

 ten years no fewer than seven hundred papers have 

 appeared dealing with the "Grignard reaction," whilst 

 in practice it has found important application in the 

 commercial synthesis of such drugs as stovaine and 

 alypine, which have many advantages over cocaine, 

 and^ of many compounds of importance in perfumery. 



We have received from the Agricultural Experiment 

 Stations of the Louisiana State University a copy 

 of Technical Bulletin No. 135, which contains a report 

 of investigations carried out by Dr. W. E. Cross and 

 others on methods of analysis of sugar-cane products. 

 The report includes a number of papers, of which 

 the following are the most important : — The deter- 

 mination of dry substance by means of the refracto- 

 tneter ; the application of dry basic lead acetate defe- 

 cation to sugar-house analysis ; a rapid method for the 

 estimation of glucose in juices; a modification of the 

 Clerget method of determining glucose in molasses ; 

 the effect of urea and betaine on the rate of inversion 

 of cane-sugar by hydrochloric acid ; and the direct 

 estimation of cane-sugar in presence of reducing 

 sugars. Useful tables are appended to the report. 

 NO. 2273, VOL. 91] 



In the current number of the Comptes rendus (Maj 

 13), Ph. Barbier and R. Locquin give a new method 

 for stepping down the series of the fatty acids. Start- 

 ing with the acid R.CH..CO.OH, they convert this 

 into the methyl (or ethyl) ester, and treat this with 

 two molecules of magnesium methyl iodide, forming 

 the tertiary alcohol R.CH,.C(OH)(CH 3 ) = . This, or 

 the hydrocarbon R.CH = .C(CH ,), formed by dehydra- 

 tion, on oxidation with chromic acid, gives acetone 

 and the acid R.CO,H, the next lower homologue of 

 R.CH,.CG\H. The ketone R.CrL.CO.CH, may 

 also be used as the starting point for the production 

 of the same acid, R.CCKH. The reaction is a general 

 one, and can be applied with success to dibasic acids ; 

 thus j3-methyladipic acid gives methyl-succinic acid. 



A lecture on the economics of engineering, de- 

 livered by Major W. J. A. O'Meara, C.M.G., at 

 Faraday House, on February 26, has reached us in the 

 form of a reprint from The Royal Engineering 

 Journal for April. It is an excellent thing that the 

 application of the principles of economics to individual 

 trades should be considered, and Major O'Meara has 

 done well to choose that of engineering for his lecture, 

 since it plays so important a part in the production 

 of the national wealth. He confines himself largely 

 to electrical engineering, and deals mainly with the 

 efficiency of management and organisation. He also 

 deals shortly with the question of markets, showing 

 the special and peculiar conditions attaching to this 

 branch of the industry, and just touches very briefly 

 on one or two other points. The main question treated 

 in his lecture is divided into three sections — organisa- 

 tion, management, and technical aspects — and each of 

 them is considered in reference to the conditions 

 which conduce to the maximum efficiency. The 

 former, for instance, deals with the establishment of 

 a "direct chain of command" among those responsible 

 for the work, the proper choice of officers for the 

 various departments, the proper subdivision of the 

 work, to render possible among other things the easy 

 ascertainment of the costs of each class of work. 

 Technical aspects, again, include economy in mate- 

 rials, design, the operating of plant, and methods of 

 execution, in connection with which the necessity of 

 avoiding, so far as possible, the dismissal of skilled 

 workmen is forcibly urged. Indeed, brief though it 

 is, the paper is highly suggestive, and arouses the 

 hope that in the future Major O'Meara will give us a 

 full and detailed treatment on these line* of the whole 

 engineering trade. 



Some novel towing tests conducted at the experi- 

 mental tank in the Navy Yard at Washington form 

 the subject of an illustrated article in The Engineer 

 for May 16. The questions to be investigated were 

 whether existing piers in the Hudson River should 

 be lengthened to meet the demands of bigger liners, 

 and also to settle the problem of granting renewed 

 permission for the continuance of two temporary ex- 

 tensions of 100 ft. each beyond the pierhead line- 

 approved by the Secretary of War in i8q;. These 

 questions involved the reproduction in the tank of 

 both shore lines of the Hudson River throughout the 

 berthing section of the big Transatlantic steamers, 



