494 



NA TURE 



[September 14, 1905 



the United States. The preliminary report on the oper- 

 ations of the plant, drawn up by Messrs. E. W. Parker, 

 J. A. Holmes, and M. R. Campbell, the committee in 

 charge, has been issued as Bulletin No. 261 of the United 

 States Geological Survey, and is of far-reaching import- 

 ance in the solution of the fuel and power problems upon 

 which the varied industries of the United States depend. 

 Most of the American bituminous coals and lignites can, 

 it was found, be used as a source of power in a gas- 

 producing plant, the power efficiency of bituminous coals 

 when thus used being 25 times greater than their efficiency 

 when used in a steam-boiler plant. Some of the lignites 

 from undeveloped but e.xtensive deposits in North Dakota 

 and Texas showed unexpectedly high power-producing 

 qualities. It was found, too, that some of the American 

 coals and the slack produced in mining them could be made 

 into briquettes on a commercial basis. 



The weather over the British Islands has been very 

 unsettled during most part of the last week, rainfall being 

 very prevalent generally ; in the south of England and all 

 the western districts the amount was much above the 

 average. Strong gales occurred in many places, especially 

 on the western and southern coasts, and the sea has been 

 very rough at times. The Meteorological Office reports on 

 Tuesday showed a considerable improvement, with clear 

 sky over most parts of the kingdom, but a renewal of 

 unsettled weather was anticipated in the western and 

 northern districts. The rainfall from January i is still 

 below the average in most districts, the deficiency amount- 

 ing to about four inches in the north-east of England, but 

 in the north of Scotland and Ireland the fall is considerably 

 above the average. 



The assistant director of the .Meteorological Service of 

 Canada (Mr. B. C. Webber) has prepared a very useful 

 paper entitled " The Gales from the Great Lakes to the 

 Maritime Provinces." The tables show the number of 

 areas of low barometric pressure, and gales, with inform- 

 ation regarding them, for each month of thirty-one years 

 (1S74-1904). The results are published primarily for the 

 use of the forecast officials in the Dominion, but they are 

 valuable for reference by other persons. On the average, 

 November is the stormiest month on the Great Lakes,' 

 and January in the Maritime Provinces; December and 

 February also give a high percentage of storms. The 

 diminution in the number of gales in March and September 

 is opposed to the old idea of the stormy character of the 

 periods of the equinoxes. The author states that the 

 figures afford ample ground for suspicion that towards the 

 maximum of sun-spots there is a maximum of low pressure 

 areas, and that at the sun-spot minimum there is a paucity 

 of such areas. The work has, of course, been prepared 

 under the direction of Mr. R. F. Stupart, the director of 

 the service. 



We have received the Jahrbucher of the Austrian Central 

 Office for Meteorology and Terrestrial Magnetism for the 

 year 1903 ; the work consists of two large quarto volumes, 

 containing (i) carefully prepared results of 400 stations, 

 and (2) special discussions, including an important con- 

 tribution by M. Margueles on the energy of storms, being 

 an elaborate mathematical analysis of that branch of the 

 physics of the atmosphere ; a discussion of much interest 

 for weather prediction, by Dr. F. M. Exner, in connection 

 with the behaviour of the weather during conditions of 

 high atmospheric pressure to the north of the Alps, illus- 

 trated by a number of weather charts ; also comprehensive 

 researches relating to the formation and propagation of 

 thunder and hail storms, by K. Prohaska. We have before 

 NO. 1872, VOL. 721 



directed attention to the value of the observations made at 

 the high-level stations in the Austrian system ; thirty-two of 

 them have an altitude of 1000 to 1500 metres, fifteen others 

 from 1500 to 2500 metres, and the Sonnblick 3106 metres. 

 Meteorologists are much indebted to Dr. Pernter, the able 

 director of the service, for the publication in extenso of 

 the hourly results at some of these mountain stations. 



Mr. Wm. Butler, of 20 Crosby Road, Southport, whose 

 " swingcam " camera stand was referred to in Nature of 

 May 25 (p. 89), has sent us a series of twelve small prints 

 of photographs of the recent partial eclipse taken by his 

 son, who is only fifteen years of age, with the use of the 

 apparatus. The pictures are clear, and show several phases 

 of the partial eclipse very distinctly. 



A LIST of scientific papers published by the National 

 Physical Laboratory, or communicated by members of the 

 staff to scientific societies or institutions, or to the technical 

 journals, has just been issued. During 1900 and 1904, 

 thirty-three papers on work connected with the laboratory 

 were prepared and published by members of the staff, and 

 in addition eleven papers were published by members of 

 the staff independently. 



Messrs. M.acmillan .ind Co., Ltd., will publish shortly 

 "The Chemistry of the Proteids," by Dr. Gustav Mann, 

 of the physiological laboratory at Oxford. This book is 

 based upon the second edition of Dr. Cohnheim's " Chemie 

 der Eiweisskorper," and has been prepared with the 

 author's sanction. Dr. Cohnheim's work, which in its 

 second edition has been entirely re-modelled, is of special 

 interest to professional chemists, both organic and in- 

 organic, but particularly to biologists, including zoologists, 

 physiologists, and pathologists ; while among the special 

 features of Dr. Mann's book are, that for the first time 

 the chemical derivatives of albumins and proteids are so 

 arranged as to give a clear idea of the evolution from 

 simple into more complex compounds, and for the first 

 time also a very full account of the synthetic work of 

 Curtius and Fischer is given. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 



Nova Aquil.^ No. 2. — Very little further news of Nova 

 Aquilae is yet to hand, but Circular No. 79 of the Kiel 

 Centralstelle informs us that several visual observations 

 of the star's magnitude and position have been made. 



Prof. Max Wolf reports that, according to observations 

 made at the Kbnigstuhl Observatory on September 4, at 

 9h. 30-om. (Kiinigstuhl M.T.), the magnitude was 93. 

 The position was determined as R..\. = i8h. 54m. 24s., 

 dec. = -4° 39' (1855). 



A telephone message to Kiel from Dr. P. Guthnick on 

 September 6 gave the following positions : — 



1S55. R..A.. = i8h. 54m. 255., decl. = -4° 38' 8 

 1905. ,, i8h. 57ni. 4s., „ -4°34'-8 

 and stated that the magnitude on September 5 was about 

 10-2, whilst the star was of a yellowish colour. A star 

 of magnitude 10-5 precedes the Nova by los., and is 

 o'-7 north of it. As the present Nova is the second known 

 to have appeared in the constellation Aquila, it will be 

 designated, according to precedent, Nova Aquilae No. 2. 

 The first Nova AquiliE was discovered in July, 1900, on 

 one of the Draper memorial chart plates which had been 

 taken on July 3, 1899, and exhibited the character- 

 istic " Nova " bright-line spectrum. The object itself was 

 recorded for the first time, as a seventh magnitude star, on 

 a plate taken on April 21, 1899. 



Varlation of a Newly Discovered .Asteroid. — Accord- 

 ing to a telegram from the Kiel Centralstelle, Dr. Palisa 

 has found that the minor planet 1905 QY, which was dis- 

 covered by Prof. Max Wolf on .'\ugust~23, is subject to a 

 remarkable fluctuation of magnitude. When discovered, 



