May 9, 1912] 
NATURE . 247 
method, with which he has dealt 
“Science et Hypothése’’ and ‘‘La Valeur de la 
Science.” There is no mathematician living of 
greater eminence, and probably none whose writings 
cover so wide a field. It is the historic custom of the 
French Academy to number amongst its members one 
or two of the members of the Academy of Sciences 
whose reputation is best known to the world at large, 
in his books, 
ings and a few tiny, spherical bubbles. A simple and 
trustworthy test of this kind is very important on 
account of the great disparity between the prices of 
the two kinds of rubies. Men of science may con- 
sider the synthetical stones of greater interest; the 
| general public views them otherwise. 
and after the death of M. Berthelot (though not, we | 
believe, as his successor) M. Poincaré was appointed 
to that body. 
mond Poincaré, the French Premier. 
Tue Bill for the Protection of Ancient Monuments, 
introduced by Earl Beauchamp, has now passed its 
second reading in the House of Lords. The provision 
by which the right of pre-emption of valuable sites 
in the event of sale is reserved to the State was 
opposed by Lord Curzon in an impressive speech, in 
which he urged that the example of the destruction 
of historical buildings like Temple Bar and Tatter- 
shall Castle justified the extension of the powers at 
present possessed by the Government in such matters. 
But he pointed out the improbability of the Treasury 
granting funds for the purchase of such monuments, 
and he urged that the Society for the Protection of 
Ancient Buildings, which had been in existence for 
nearly forty years, should have a representative on 
the Advisory Board, and that a subordinate board 
should be formed in Scotland to report to London. 
Further additions to the staff of inspectors were also 
advisable. He made the startling suggestion that, as 
matters stand at present, the vicar and churchwardens 
of Stratford-on-Avon might remove the bust of Shake- 
speare from the church under their control. The 
Archbishop of Canterbury remarked that a faculty 
was necessary in the event of such a proposal, but 
he seemed to be inclined to admit that more rigid 
supervision over restorations and the disposal of church 
plate and stained glass should be provided through the 
diocesan courts. 
In a recent letter to The Times, apropos of a case 
in the Law Courts, Dr. G. F. Herbert Smith com- | 
mented on the difficulty with which jewellers are 
confronted owing to the success that has been achieved 
in the manufacture of rubies. In the case in ques- 
tion the stones were styled reconstructed, but they 
were no doubt synthetical stones formed by the fusion 
of alumina powder by the method described by Prof. 
A. Verneuil in 1904. The former term is properly 
restricted to the cloudy, inferior stones resulting from 
the fusion of fragments of natural rubies. In both 
processes the colouring agent is chromic oxide. 
According to one witness, an expert jeweller could 
immediately detect a reconstructed ruby, because it 
had-a different colour and lustre. 
M. Poincaré is a cousin of M. Ray- | 
ApRIL, with its total rainfall of o’o2 in. at Green- 
wich, is not only the driest April on record, but it is 
drier than any month at any period of the year during 
the last 100 years. The absolute drought at Green- 
wich, which has now been brought to a close, con- 
tinued for twenty-three days, from April 10 to May 2, 
which is the same length of time as the longest 
drought in the memorable summer last year, when 
no rain fell from July 1 to 23. The London area has 
only experienced about five droughts of a longer period 
during the Jast fifty years. The aggregate rainfall 
at Greenwich from March 24 to May 3, a period of 
forty-one days, was only o’1o in., and the total fall 
from March 24 to May 6, a period of forty-four days, 
yields o'29 in. The partial drought, not exceeding 
o’or in. per day, may be prolonged into May, but it 
cannot claim to be thrown further back into March. 
Some further results yielded by the observations pub- 
lished in the Daily Weather Report of the Meteoro- 
logical Office show Oxford to have experienced an 
absolute drought for twenty-three days, and a partial 
drought from March 24 to May 3, with o'r8 in. of 
rain, whilst the total to May 2, a period of forty-one 
days, only measured 0’07 in. At Nottingham the abso- 
lute drought continued for twenty-two days, from April 
11 to May 2; at Jersey twenty-two days, from April 12 
to May 3; at Bath, twenty-one days, from April 13 
to May 3, and the aggregate fall at Bath from March 
24 to May 6, a period of forty-four days, is 0°57 in. 
The copious rains during the early part of March and 
throughout the past winter naturally rendered the 
recent drought far less serious than many previous 
| spring droughts of somewhat recent years. An en- 
tirely different type of weather seems now to have set 
in, and the conditions have become favourable to a 
series of disturbances arriving over us from the Atlan- 
tic, so that fairly copious rains may be anticipated. 
One of the chief objections to the Daylight Saving 
Bill is the dislocation the scheme would effect in the 
zone system of time reckoning established by inter- 
national conferences held successively in Rome and 
Washington thirty years ago. Mr. W. Ellis, F.R.S., 
refers particularly to this point in a short article in 
the March number of The Horological Journal. At 
present the prime meridian of Greenwich regulates 
the time of the civilised world. If the clocks of Great 
Britain are put forward one hour in summer, as pro- 
| posed by the Bill, they will not show Greenwich time, 
| but mid-European time; that is to say, our prime 
While possibly true | 
of the reconstructed, it is certainly not true of the | 
synthetical stones. 
of the molecular constitution the latter have the same 
lustre as natural rubies, and, although the artificial 
stones are usually made of one particular shade of 
Owing to the essential identity | 
red, yet the same tint is common in natural stones. | 
Discrimination is, however, easy, because the syn- 
thetical rubies invariably contain faint curved mark- 
NO. 2219, VOL. 89] 
meridian, accepted by nations as regulating the time 
of the world, will be discarded by us for five months 
in every year, in total disregard of existing well- 
considered and well-established international relations. 
An Act to enforce the alteration of clocks by putting 
them forward for one hour in summer would introduce 
confusion in a scientific system and disturb accepted 
international standards. We cannot believe that such 
a proposal will ever be seriously entertained by Par- 
