February io, 1910] 



NA TURE 



439 



19° and 24°. Very large amounts of wood and wet hay 

 were burned, but, the air bcuig dry and calm, the smoke 

 rose straight upwards, and although three large fires were 

 maintained between 20 and 30 feet of a certain tree, the 

 temperature in the vicinity of the ^ree remained for some 

 hours about 20°. Prof. McAdie's conclusion is that a 

 pioper cover spread some feet above the surface is the 

 most effective means of protection of plants. When neces- 

 sary, this may be siTpplemented by the use of small stoves, 

 &c., placed on the ground. 



A NEW form of watch-glass clip has been submitted for 

 inspection by Messrs. J. J. Griffin and Son, Ltd., of 

 Kingsvvay, London. It consists of two small metal rods 

 joined by steel spring wire to form a holder, of lenticular 

 section, which can slide over a pair of w-atch-glasses 

 having their edges in contact. When desired, it can also 

 be used for a single glass. The hold is very firm, and 

 the clip is easily affixed and detached ; it is also lighter, 

 neater, and less cumbersome than the older brass con- 

 trivances. Within limits, the same clip will serve for 

 different size# of glass ; but two sizes of clip are recom- 

 mended for ordinary use, namely, those taking glasses up 

 to I5 inches and up to 2^ inches in diameter respectively. 



The December (1909) number of the Journal of the 

 Institution of Electrical Engineers contains a paper read 

 before the institution in May last by th^ president, Mr. 

 W. M. Mordey, on some tests of the Mansbridge paper 

 condensers described in these columns a year ago, and of 

 the Moscicki glass condenser, or engineering form of the 

 Leyden jar. Mr. Mordey finds that the losses on 

 alternating current circuits only amount to about o-6 per 

 cent, in the case of the Mansbridge and i per cent, in 

 that of the Moscicki condenser, the former being tested 

 up to 500 and the latter up to 10,000 volts. In these 

 circumstances the author points out that the general intro- 

 duction of condensers on alternating circuits to compensate 

 for the lag of current due to inductive loads becomes a 

 possibility of the near future. 



The agenda paper of the general meeting of the Soci^t^ 

 fran^aise de Physique on January 21 contains, in addition 

 to the business items and resumes of the papers read at 

 the last meeting, a balance sheet for the session 1908-9. 

 From it we gather that the society now has about 1500 

 members, almost equally divided between Paris, the rest 

 of France, and foreign countries. The subscriptions for 

 the year amount to 600/., and the society has 10,000!. 

 invested in French railways. The cost of printing the 

 quarterly Bulletin des Seances, a volume of 300-400 pages 

 per annum, and the fortnightly agenda and rdsutni of 

 papers read, is about 140/., and the cost of distribution 

 of these publications to the members amounts to 130!. 

 We offer the society our congratulations on its strong 

 position and on the excellent work it is doing. 



The reconstruction of the Tyne North Pier, which has 

 just been completed, forms the subject of illustrated 

 articles in Engineering and in the Engineer for January 28. 

 The importance and difficulty of the work executed by the 

 contractors, Messrs. Sir John Jackson, Ltd., under the 

 direction of Sir John Wolfe Barry and Messrs. Coode, 

 Son, and Matthews, may be understood from the fact that, 

 in exceptional storms, waves 35 feet in height from 

 trough to crest have been recorded at the mouth of the 

 Tyne, and, owing to the deep water, are propagated almost 

 so far as the pier itself. The old pier met its death-blow 

 during the great gale of January, 1S97, when no feet of 

 the wall on the seaward side fell outwards. .\s recon- I 

 NO. 2102, VOL. 82] 



structed, the \orth Pier is 2900 feet long, and the entrance 

 to the harbour is now 1180 feet wide. From the foundations 

 on the shale, which was dressed level by divers, the pier 

 has been built of concrete blocks, with granite facing on 

 the outer courses. The depth of foundation below low 

 water of spring tides varied from 28 feet to 44J feet, being, 

 on the average, about 20 feet more than in the old struc- 

 ture. The width at quay-level is 37 feet, and at low-water 

 level 50 feet. Access is obtained during stormy weather to 

 the lighthouse and machinery for blowing the fog signal 

 at the pier-head through a tunnel, which is constructed 

 under the promenade. 



A DESCRIPTION' is given in Engineering for January 28 

 of the system of photographic surveying from balloons 

 devised by Captain Scheimpflug, of Vienna. The inventor's 

 experiments have been going on for some years, and formed 

 the subject of a lecture recently given by him before the 

 Physical Society of Frankfort-on-Main. Briefly, the 

 panorama camera consists of a central camera having a 

 horizontal plate and seven inclined lateral cameras 

 surrounding the former. The cameras are rigidly con- 

 nected with one another, and the shutters are released 

 simultaneously, so that a very large field is secured. Hori- 

 zontal projections of the inclined negatives are produced by 

 means of a special apparatus, when the resulting panorama 

 views show a centre heptagon surrounded by seven other 

 trapezoidal photographic sheets. The diameter of country 

 represented will be about five times the height of the 

 balloon and camera at the moment of exposure. Photo- 

 graphs are taken at rapid intervals while flying over the 

 ground, and it is desirable that the resulting views overlap 

 by more than half. The nadirs of successive photographs 

 will then be discernible on the same plate. Heights can 

 be obtained from the photographs by means of another 

 apparatus — the zone transformer. The inventor estimates 

 that a survey of German South-west Africa by his system 

 could be accomplished in fifteen years at a cost of 

 2,000,000/., as compared with a plane-table survey, which 

 would occupy 150 years at an estimated cost of 10,000,000!. 

 There certainly seems to be a field for photographic survey- 

 ing from airships. 



Three new volumes, Nos. 6-8, have been added to the 

 series of books on Egypt and Chaldaea published by 

 Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner and Co., Ltd. 

 They form a second edition, revised and enlarged, of part 

 of Dr. Budge's work on the " Book of the Dead," pub- 

 lished under the title of " The Chapters of Coming Forth 

 by Day." The subtitle describes the volumes as an English 

 translation of the chapters, hymns, &c., of the Thebart 

 rcscension, with introduction, notes, &c. The first edition 

 of Dr. Budge's work, of which the present translations 

 formed the third volume, was reviewed at length in our 

 issue for February 10, 1898 (vol. Ivii., p. 337). The trans- 

 lation given in the present series is not merely a reprint 

 from the original issue, for it has been carefully revised 

 and compared with the original texts, and many brief 

 explanatory notes have been added. More than four 

 hundred vignettes, taken from the best papyri, have been 

 reproduced in these volumes at the heads of the chapters, 

 the general contents of w-hich the ancient Egyptian scribes 

 and artists intended them to illustrate. These translations 

 form a representative collection of the various compositions 

 which the Egyptians inscribed upon the walls of tombs 

 and sarcophagi, coffins and funeral stel;E, papyri and 

 amulets, in order to ensure the well-being of their dead 

 in the world beyond the grave. The price of each of the 

 present volumes is 5s. net. 



