2.'8 



jVA TURE 



[July 6. 1905 



or meta] case, in such a way that it. cannot shift about, and 

 with a sufficient quantity of some absorbent material (such 

 as sawdust or cotton wool) so packed about the receptacle 

 as absolutely to prevent any possible leakage from the 

 packet in the event of damage to the receptacle. The 

 packet must also be marked " Fragile with care." 



An exhibition of the results obtained last vear by Prof. 

 Flinders Petrie and his coadjutors in the field of Egyptian 

 archaeology was opened at University College, Gower 

 Street, on Thursday last, and will remain on view for a 

 month. Last winter excavations were carried on in the 

 peninsula of Sinai. At Sarabit el Khadem the mines were 

 of turquoise, and no copper was found. The interesting 

 feature on this site is the evidence of the Semitic— not 

 Egyptian— worship which was practised. The whole region 

 IS scattered over with shelters for pilgrims, usually con- 

 taining a Bethel stone, some of which have Egvptian in- 

 scriptions of the twelfth dynasty. The pilgrims came for 

 oracular dreams like Jacob's, and the shelters are only in 

 the region of the temple. They are quite distinct from 

 the miners' dwellings, such as are common at Wady 

 Maghara. This Bethel custom is a special feature of 

 Semitic belief, and is quite unknown in Egvpt. The 

 temple at Sarabit was originally a sacred cave— perhaps 

 as early as Seneferu. It was carved by Amenemhat III., 

 and furnished with altars for the worship of Hathor. In 

 front of it. on the edge of the hill, was an enormous mass 

 of ashes of burnt offerings, showing the burnt sacrifices 

 on high places familiar to Semitic worship. The temple 

 was extended over these burnt offerings bv Tahutmes III 

 and other kings until Sety I. Of the 'temple itself a 

 beautiful and instructive model is shown, the scale being 

 one-fiftieth. The whole length of the building is nearly 

 250 feet. Though it has been known since the time of 

 Niebuhr, no clearance had been made; but now many new 

 features have been brought to light from under the rubbish 

 The primitive shrine of Hathor was a rock cave and the 

 discovery of a hawk with the finelv cut name of Seneferu 

 makes it probable that the shrine is as old as the third 

 dynasty. 



It is announced in the Electrician that as a result of 

 the successful experiments with the De Forest wireless 

 telegraphy in moving trains, the Chicago and Alton Rail- 

 way will supply wireless telegraphy apparatus on its two 

 express trains running daily between Chicago and St. 

 Louis, and ultimately on its whole system. Messages were 

 received while the train was running at fifty miles per 

 hour. For some time while the train was approaching 

 the Mississippi River above the elevated stretch leading to 

 Merchants' Bridge, the increase in strength of the signals 

 was very marked, but when the train entered the frame- 

 work of the bridge it was found that signals became 

 almost imperceptible owing to the screening action of the 

 bridge. It was observed also that the signals were 

 stronger when the train was broadside on to the trans- 

 mitting station and running at right angles to it. The 

 fact that the radiations were following the course of the 

 river in preference to overland paths was very marked as 

 the train pulled out of .Alton, Illinois. At one point the 

 track runs within a few hundred feet of the river, and at 

 this point the signals from St. Louis, thirty miles away, 

 which, had just previously become very weak, were in- 

 creased in intensity to a surprising degree. No difficulty 

 seems to have been experienced even when the train was 

 many miles from the transmitting station and was thread- 

 ing through the yards and sidings of Chicago, completely 

 NO. 1862, VOL. 72] 



hidden by large elevators and steel structures of every 

 description. 



The New York correspondent of the Lancet states that 

 a subcommittee of twenty-one coloured physicians and 

 clergymen has been organised by the New York Charity 

 Organisation Society's Committee on the Prevention of 

 Tuberculosis to fight tuberculosis among the coloured 

 people of New Y'ork. The New York health board is 

 cooperating with the movement, and has placed its dis- 

 pensary under the supervision of the medical members of 

 the subcommittee for three evenings a week. A course of 

 illustrated lectures treating of tuberculosis will be given 

 shortly in the churches for coloured congregations. It is 

 stated that there are between 60,000 and 65,000 coloured 

 persons in New York city, and that their death-rate from 

 tuberculosis is 533 per 1000, as against 2-37 per 1000 

 among the whites. 



The first part of the Home Office " Mines and Quarries : 

 General Report and Statistics for 1904 " has just been 

 issued. The total number of persons employed at the 

 mines of the United Kingdom was 877,057, of whom 

 847,553 worked at the 3333 mines under the Coal Mines 

 Act and 29,504 at the 673 mines under the Metalliferous 

 Mines Act. The total number at coal mines is the highest 

 recorded since 1873, and that at metalliferous mines the 

 lowest. The output included 232,428,272 tons of coal, 

 3,043,045 tons of fireclay, 7,557,733 tons of ironstone, and 

 2,333,062 tons of oil shale. The coal production is the 

 highest recorded. The deaths from accidents amounted to 

 1055 in collieries and 35 in metalliferous mines, the death 

 rate per 1000 persons employed being 1-24 in the former 

 case and 1-19 in the latter. It is gratifying to note that 

 the former rate has never been lower. 



No. 21 of the Publications of the Earthquake Investi- 

 gation Committee (Tokyo) contains a lengthy paper by Prof. 

 Omori on horizontal pendulum observations at Tokyo ; the 

 most interesting of the results is the conclusion that the 

 first movement is usually towards the origin in the case 

 of near or moderately distant earthquakes, but in a small 

 proportion of the records it is away from the origin. The 

 author attributes this difference to a distinction in the 

 cause of the earthquakes, the first type being due to the 

 sudden collapse of a subterranean cavity, or the crushing 

 down of a horizontal stratum, and the second type to the 

 sudden splitting asunder or widening of a vertical cavity 

 by the expansive action of steam or gases. In another 

 part of the paper, however, he points out that in the case 

 of artificial earthquakes caused by explosions, the first 

 movement is outwards if these take place on the surface 

 of the ground, but inwards if the explosive is buried at 

 some little depth. Other points which are commented 

 on are the resemblance between the records of earthquakes 

 of similar intensity and originating in the same region, 

 and the occasional occurrence of long-period undulations 

 combined with shorter-period vibrations in the first phase 

 of distant earthquakes. 



The investigations of the relation between variation of 

 barometric pressure and sea level on the coast of Japan, 

 which were noticed in Nature of November 3, 1904, has 

 been continued by Prof. Omori, who shows, in the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Tokyo Pliysicomathematical Society (vol. 

 ii.. No. 20), that the relationship found on the Pacific 

 extends to the western coasts of Japan, so that all round 

 these islands the rise of sea-level is greater than that due 

 to the local diminution of barometric pressure alone. The 

 consequence of this is that a low barometer means a 



