Septkmuek 13, 1906J 



NA TURE 



501 



the works of the Cargo Fleet Iron Co., Ltd. The whole 

 of the plant at these works has been recently remodelled 

 and fitted with the latest labour-saving devices and plant 

 for recovery of by-products ; the Talbot continuous steel 

 process, which was introduced to the notice of English 

 metallurgists only in 1900, has been adopted, and at the 

 Cargo Fleet Works each of the three furnaces holds about 

 175 tons of molten steel. 



On Tuesday, August 7, the section began its proceed- 

 ings with a paper by Prof. W. E. Dalby on experiments 

 illustrating the balancing of engines. The beautiful work- 

 ing models which Prof. Dalby has designed to illustrate 

 the principles which underlie the problem of balancing 

 various types of engines were shown in operation, and, as 

 the president remarked during the discussion, it was a 

 pily that the London County Council had not made use 

 of the author's services in this field of engineering research 

 before it began the design of a large generating station 

 not half a mile away from Greenwich Observatory. 



Mr. G. Stoney then read a paper on recent advances in 

 steam turbines, land and marine. The figures given by 

 the author showed how wonderful had been the advance 

 since Mr. C. A. Parsons built his first turbo-dynamo of 

 about 10 h.p. in 1884 ; at the present time 6000 kw. 

 generators arc in course of construction, while turbines 

 of 10,000 kw. are proposed for the great power scheme 

 to supply electric energy in bulk for London. The use 

 of large turbine blowing engines in metallurgical work has 

 also rapidly developed during the past three or four years, 

 while for marine purposes the tot.-il horse-power of turbines, 

 either completed or on order, now approaches 1,000,000. 

 Mr. Stoney also described the " vacuum augmenter," a 

 device for increasing the vacuum in the condenser without 

 increasing unduly the volume of the circulating water by 

 the use of a steam jet placed in a contracted pipe between 

 the condenser and the air pump, which compresses the 

 .lir and vapour from the condenser and delivers it to the 

 air pump through a small auxiliary condenser. 



The next paper was by -Mr. J. Smith, on an application 

 of stream-line apparatus to the determination of the direc- 

 tion and approximate magnitude of the principal stresses 

 in certain portions of the structure of ships ; this valuable 

 paper was, the president stated, one of the first fruits of 

 the laboratory of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich. 

 The author showed that a strain diagram of the deck of a 

 ship very closely approximated to the stream-line shown 

 by Prof. Hele-Shaw's well-known apparatus, in which a 

 very thin film of water is compelled to flow between two 

 sheets of glass. 



In the afternoon the section had a joint meeting with 

 the physical and educational sections, and a discussion 

 on the teaching of mechanics was opened by a paper by 

 Mr. C. E. .Ashford, headmaster of the Royal Naval College, 

 Dartmouth. In his paper Mr. Ashford pointed out that 

 there was a serious danger that school science might be- 

 come as academic as classics, and he directed attention to 

 the absolute necessity of employing for laboratory experi- 

 mental work, not toys, but apparatus such as screw- 

 jacks, Weston's blocks, &c., and also to the great need 

 of experiments for showing the phenomena of kinetics ; 

 several new pieces of apparatus designed for this purpose 

 by the staff at the college were described and illustrated. 



Wednesday, .August 8, the last day of the meeting, was 

 an unusually busy one for the section ; no fewer than 

 six papers were dealt with. Prof. Ashcroft described, and 

 showed in operation, the Central Technical College lecture 

 table testing machine, an exceedingly ingenious and 

 beautiful piece of apparatus ; Prof. Ashcroft has adopted, 

 with, however, considerable simplifications, the plan first 

 devised by Prof. Kennedy, of using a " spring bar " to 

 measure the loads upon the specimen under test, and to 

 give one of the two necessary motions to the recording 

 apparatus, thus overcoming the difficulties unavoidable 

 when an attempt is made to keep the steelyard of the 

 testing machine floating during the final drawing-down 

 stage prior to fracture. 



The next paper was one by Prof. J. B. Henderson, on 

 recent advances in our knowledge of radiation phenomena 

 and their bearing on the optical measurement of tempera- 

 ture. After discussing the four laws of radiation from an 



VO. 1924, VOL. 74] 



ideal black body, the author dealt with pyrometers based 

 on these laws, such as Fury's, and the optical thermometer 

 <if Ilolborn and Kurlbaum. 



Mr. S. Cowper Coles read a paper on electropositive 

 coatings for the protection of iron and steel from corrosion, 

 and showed a number of beautiful examples of electro- 

 deposition. In the discussion Colonel Crompton stated that 

 ihe processes invented by the author had solved a very 

 difficult problem in connection with the piston rods of 

 steam engines using very high-pressure steam, for it was 

 now possible to give these rods a very hard, incorrodible 

 surface without any sacrifice of strength. 



In a paper on suction-gas plants. Prof. Dalby dealt with 

 the principles underlying the design of such plants, and 

 then described a number of plants which were entered for 

 the recent trials in connection with the Roj'al Agricultural 

 Society's show at Derby, and the methods of starting such 

 plants. In reply to the discussion. Prof. Dalby stated that 

 a 15 h.p. engine would use about 07 lb. anthracite coal 

 per B.H.P. during running, or, if allowance is made for 

 lighting up and standing by, about i-o lb. per B.H.P. hour. 



Mr. W. A. Scoble, in a paper on the strength and 

 behaviour of ductile materials under combined stress, de- 

 scribed the results of a series of tests of steel bars with 

 a distribution similar to that which occurs most frequently 

 in practice, as obtained under combined bending and twist- 

 ing ; the experiments showed conclusively that the maximum 

 principal stress and the maximum shear both varied 

 through a wide range, the point used as a criterion of 

 strength being the yield point. 



The section concluded its business with the reading of a 

 paper by Mr. D. Mackenzie, on waterproof roads as a 

 solution of the dust problem. The various processes at 

 present in use were described and their deficiencies pointed 

 out. Tar alone was most unsatisfactory ; at the end of 

 twelve months it had entirely disappeared ; the best 

 material, he considered, was "tarmac," made from blast- 

 furnace slag brol<en when hot and immediately immersed 

 in hot tar ; only forge pig slag should be used for this 

 purpose. 



It was a great pleasure to see the section so well 

 attended, especially when it is remembered that the early 

 days of the meeting clashed with the summer meeting of 

 the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. No doubt much 

 of the increased interest shown in the work of the section 

 was due to the personal popularity of its distinguished 

 president. T. H. B. 



EDUCATION AT THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 



A MONG the " growing points " mentioned by Prof. 

 M. E. Sadler in his address were the keenness of 

 intelligent workmen to make the elementary schools 

 better, the demand by adult workers for an education 

 touched by imagination, humanity, and civic idealism, 

 the encouragement of education by employers of labour, 

 educational experiments carefully planned and systematic- 

 ally watched (e.g. in practical courses of study and corporal 

 training in higher elementary schools for ages twelve to 

 fifteen, and in the actual results of postponing the beginning 

 of Latin until twelve years of age), and the need for con- 

 tinuation schools to check the drift into the physical and 

 intellectual disorder of the unemployed. A full report 

 of Prof. Sadler's address appears in the School World for 

 September. 



The list of schools and other institutions to which visits 

 had been arranged included the Yorkshire School for the 

 Blind, the classes in domestic economy for employees at 

 Messrs. Rowntree's Cocoa Works, the British Botanical 

 -Association, with its extensive arrangements for the supply 

 of botanical material, and two hospitals for the insane, 

 the latter typifying the help which the schools may expect 

 to receive from all contributions to mental science. 



Health at School and Physical Education are topics 

 which seem amenable to scientific treatment, and as such 

 were very properly placed in the forefront of the programme. 

 Sir Edward Brabrook presented the report on the con- 

 ditions of health essential to the carrying on of the work 

 of instruction in schools. This report deals with hearing. 



