July 3, 1913] 



NATURE 



459 



Father Jose Algue, head of the Weather Bureau of the 

 Philippine Government, of the typhoon which lasted 

 from May 4 to May 10, and caused great destruction 

 over a large area. The first warning of this typhoon 

 was given by the observatory of the Weather Bureau 

 on May 4, and it was sent to the observatories of 

 Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, and to the secondary 

 station of the eastern Visavas. Frequently during 

 each of the succeeding days throughout which the 

 typhoon raged Father Algue was able to keep in 

 touch with important observing stations, and to give 

 instructions as to the exhibition of appropriate signals 

 and information as to the progress of events. The 

 telegrams sent to Hong Kong and to the other ob- 

 servatories of the Far East gave an account of the 

 course of the typhoon within the archipelago ; thus, 

 for example, the telegram sent at 9.40 a.m. of May 6 

 read as follows : " The typhoon is at present close to 

 meridian 122 E. and parallel 12 N., moving 

 W.X.W.," while the message sent at 8.40 a.m. of 

 May 7 said: "The typhoon is close to meridian 120 

 E. and parallel 13 N., moving W.N.W." While the 

 vortex of the typhoon was crossing the islands of 

 Samar and Leyte the area of hurricane winds was 

 approximately fifty miles in diameter. Within this 

 area both the winds and the sea were extraordinarily 

 violent. The rapidity of the fall of the barometer 

 was so great in the China Sea that there was a fall 

 of 20 millimetres in one hour. 



Dr. L. W. Austin, of the United States Naval 

 Radiotelegraphic Laboratory, contributes, in the June 

 number of the Journal of the Washington Academy 

 of Science, a short article to the discussion of the 

 cause of the difference in strengths of day and night 

 signals. The data accumulated in his department 

 during the last three years render it improbable that 

 the difference is due to a decrease of absorption of 

 the waves in the upper atmosphere after the with- 

 drawal of the sun's rays. With arc oscillations it is 

 repeatedly found that when the night signals are weak 

 at the receiving station with the usual wave-length of 

 4100 metres, a change of the wave-length to 3950 

 metres strengthens them and vice versd. This, in the 

 author's opinion, points to an explanation depending 

 on the interference of waves travelling along near 

 the ground, with waves which have been reflected 

 from a surface forty or sixty miles up, at which the 

 conductivity of the atmosphere changes with more 

 or less suddenness. In the daytime this stratification 

 is broken up by convection and by the ionisation 

 produced by the sun's rays. 



In the Verhandlungen of the German Physical 

 Society for May 30, Dr. E. Goldstein, of the physical 

 laboratory of the Berlin Astronomical Observatory, 

 gives a preliminary account of a new line spectrum 

 belonging apparently to helium. It appears that Dr. 

 Goldstein first observed the spectrum in 1907, and in 

 the intervening years has obtained many specimens of 

 purified helium from Prof. Dorn, Sir W. Ramsay, 

 Drs. Heuse and Scheel, and others, and has con- 

 vinced himself that the lines are due to the helium 

 itself or to some other elementary gas, and not to 

 anv compound. The new spectrum is characterised 

 NO. 2279, VOL. 91] 



by the great number of close lines on each side of the 

 yellow helium line. Prolonged cooling in liquid air 

 has no effect on it, and up to a certain point increase 

 of pressure of the gas increases its intensity with 

 respect to the ordinary series spectrum. Dr. Gold- 

 stein regards the new spectrum as bearing the same 

 relation to the series spectrum as the second spectrum 

 of hydrogen bears to the series spectrum of that gas. 

 A photograph of the spectrum with the scale of wave- 

 lengths is given, but the author proposes to publish 

 his more accurate measurements in a subsequent 

 paper. 



We have received from the Norton Company, of 

 Worcester, Massachusetts, pamphlets describing 

 articles for laboratory use made with the material 

 "alundum." This substance is stated to be practic- 

 ally pure fused alumina, prepared from bauxite by 

 means of the electric furnace. Its high melting 

 point (2050 C.) renders it of value as a refractory 

 agent in high-temperature work, and the manufac- 

 turers claim that this property, together with good 

 thermal conductivity, makes alundum very efficient — 

 for example, as a material for cores and muffles in 

 electric furnaces. Crucibles, tubes, combustion boats, 

 and similar apparatus are also described. For 

 fashioning into articles the alundum is ground to 

 various degrees of fineness and mixed with what 

 are rather vaguely referred to as "materials of a 

 ceramic nature," the mixture being subsequently 

 fired. The finished products are therefore more or 

 less porous. Within limits, the porosity can be varied 

 to allow of the substance being used in making such 

 articles as filtering tubes, filter plates, and thimbles 

 for fat extraction. Sometimes the absorbent nature 

 of the material would be a drawback, but for many 

 purposes alundum products may prove useful in the 

 laboratory. 



In The Biochemical Bulletin (vol. ii., No. 6, p. 237) 

 Mr. Vernon Krieble, in a paper on the synthetic action 

 of emulsin, states that emulsin, freshly extracted from 

 sweet almonds, when allowed to act for three and a 

 half hours on amygdalin, gives rise to laevo-mandelo- 

 nitrile, whereas the emulsin from bitter almonds 

 gives a dextro-mandelonitrile. No experimental de- 

 tails are given in the brief note quoted ; these will 

 be published later. 



We have received a copy of a lecture recently 

 delivered before the Institute of Chemistry by Mr. 

 C. A. Hill, on the function and scope of the chemist 

 in a pharmaceutical works. Mr. Hill gives a useful 

 account of the nature of the manufacturing operations 

 involved in the preparation of pharmaceutical chem- 

 icals and drugs, and illustrates his descriptions by 

 means of photographs of actual plant; the character 

 of the analytical work in such an establishment is 

 described in general terms, and the possibilities of 

 investigation, either in connection with the improve- 

 ment of working processes or of a more purely 

 scientific character, are briefly indicated. 



Prof. Waldex has contributed to the June issue of 

 the Bulletin of the St. Petersburg Academy some 

 further data in reference to the relationship between 



