February 27, 1913] 



NATURE 



ro9 



ture," especially the section on the possibilities of the 

 use of statistics, delivered by Dr. W. N. Shaw at 

 Cambridg'e, and printed in the Journal of the Scottish 

 Meteorological Society (vol. xvi., No. xxix.) Mr. 

 Clayton pays a well-merited tribute to the " splendid 

 pioneer work" of Rotch, Teisserenc de Bort, Hilde- 

 brandsson, and of Sir Norman and Dr. Lockyer, but 

 he points out that an organisation on a very large 

 scale is required, employing meteorologists from all 

 over the world, cooperating with all Government 

 institutions, yet having an individual existence and a 

 permanent endowment. 



In his second Cantor lecture before the Royal 

 Societv of Arts, on the methods of economising heat, 

 Mr. C. R. Darling referred to the great saving which 

 might be effected if engineers would devote more 

 attention to the physical laws and methods of heat 

 insulation. Data are now available which enable the 

 heat losses in the case of furnaces, and the heat gains 

 in the case of refrigerating plant, to be reduced mate- 

 rially. The two problems must be kept distinct, as 

 the materials which may be best at one temperature 

 are seldom the best at another temperature, owing- to 

 the great change of heat-insulating properties of sub- 

 stances with temperature. 



The National Electric Lamp .Association of Cleve- 

 land. Ohio, has just published No. i of an Abstract 

 Bulletin which contains abstracts of all the scientific 

 papers issued from the physical laboratory of the 

 association from its inception in 1908 to the present 

 time. The full papers are already available in the 

 proceedings of scientific societies or in the technical 

 Press, but the abstracts of twenty-eight papers which 

 the present number of the bulletin contains will be of 

 great use to those who require the results of the 

 investigations without the experimental details. We 

 have had occasion to refer to some of these results, 

 and we only propose here to direct attention to the 

 wide ground covered by the abstracts, which are all 

 prepared by the authors themselves. Several of them 

 deal with the selective radiation from incandescent 

 metals, many with photometry of lights of the same 

 or different colours, a number with the efficiencies of 

 lamps, and several with visual acuity. The asso- 

 ciation is to be congratulated on the scientific value 

 of the work which is turned out from its physical 

 laboratory. 



Notices have recently appeared in the daily Press 

 .ind The Scientific American regarding an invention 

 bv M. Moreau, of Paris, which, according to the 

 accounts, is claimed to be a solution of the problem 

 of automatic stability for aeroplanes. The main 

 feature would appear to be that the aviator sits in a 

 kind of swing, described as a pendulum seat, operat- 

 ing on the rudder for vertical steering, although it 

 is stated that the seat can also be fixed by means 

 of a brake. This arrangement may facilitate per- 

 sonal control, and in this respect, experience may 

 prove it to be successful, but it can scarcely be likely 

 to secure "stability." Suspension of the aviator's seat 

 is statically equivalent to raising the centre ot gravity 

 of the system, while, on the other hand, any pendulum 

 NO. 2261, VOL. 90] 



arrangement increases the number of possible oscil- 

 lations and adds to the difficulty of satisfying the 

 conditions of stability. So little has been done in 

 applying the principles of rigid d^-anmics to aero- 

 planes that any attempt of this kind must be regarded 

 as highly doubtful from a theoretical point of viev^f. 

 At the present time even Newton's laws of motion 

 are quite disregarded in many writings and experi- 

 ments on aviation. The "ideal pendulum," which is 

 supposed to maintain a fixed direction without oscil- 

 lating, has no more existence than the perfectly smooth 

 body of our text-books. Failing an efficient study of 

 the dynamics of the problem, the safest course in 

 experimenting with pendulums is to damp their oscil- 

 lations as much as possible. Perhaps the aviator 

 himself damps the oscillations, in which case this mav 

 be a practical and successful way out of the difficul- 

 ties. 



No. I of vol. v. of the Journal of the College of 

 Agriculture, Tokyo, contains a number of exception- 

 ally interesting papers. Prof. U. Suzuki and S. 

 Matsunaga show that nicotinic acid occurs together 

 with oryzenin in rice bran; this observation is of 

 special interest, as, apparently, it is the first time that 

 nicotinic acid has been observed in plant material, 

 although a homologue, picolinecarboxylic acid was 

 isolated by Schreiner and Sliorey some years back 

 from soils rich in humus. Mr. T. Yabuta has studied 

 a new organic acid which is formed by the action of 

 Aspergillus oryzae on steamed rice in the manufac- 

 ture of "koji," and to which the name " koji-acid " 

 is given ; it is not identical with any acid yet obtained 

 from the lower fungi, and is apparently also formed 

 by some other Aspergillus species, but not by Peni- 

 cillium or Mucor. There is an interesting paper by 

 Mr. S. Muramatsu on the preparation of "natto," 

 a vegetable cheese obtained by fermenting boiled soya 

 beans, and the nature of the micro-organisms involved 

 in the change, whilst Mr. R. Inouye contributes an 

 important study of the chemical composition of the 

 silkworm at different stages of its metamorphosis. 



The Builder for February 21 refers to the announce- 

 ment that Prof. Boni has found that three large lifts 

 were in operation at the Imperial Palace on the Pala- 

 tine Hill in ancient Rome. Modern refinements of 

 mechanism and finish were lacking, but the fact that 

 machinery of this kind was employed affords addi- 

 tional evidence of the engineering genius of the 

 Romans. Roman houses were heated in the first 

 century by means of hot air proceeding from furnace- 

 rooms and circulating under floors and inside the 

 walls. Excavations in Pompeii have brought to light 

 a house with well-designed hot and cold water ser- 

 vice on a plan closely resembling modern installations. 

 Instances such as these emphasise the point that 

 modern achievements depend upon improved appli- 

 ances and increased scientific knowledge rather than 

 upon superior intellectual capacity. 



Mr. J. D. Potter has published separately, at the 

 price of 2s. 6d. net, the " New Log and Versine Alti- 

 tude Tables," from "The 'Newest' Navigation Alti- 

 tude and Azimuth Tables for Facilitating the Deter- 



