May 23, 1912] 
NATURE ) 
09 
of the Nile not only to Lake Chad, but to the 
Upper Niger, and is found within the Niger bend. 
But in all that vast region of the western Sudan | 
no form of wild horse is met with. 
There are persistent stories from Arabs to the 
effect that there is a wild ass like that of Ethiopia 
in the western Sahara, and Mungo Park mentions 
seeing wild asses in northern Senegambia, but 
so far no proof has come to hand in the shape 
of skulls and skins. Amongst the fossils of 
Algeria are equine skulls very like that of the 
zebra. It is possible, therefore, that in late 
Pliocene or early Pleistocene times there was a 
zebra type existing in Northern Africa, but why 
the striped horses have since restricted their range 
to the easternmost and southern portion of Africa, 
and do not, like so many of the antelopes and the 
rhinoceros, extend their range westward of the 
Nile, is an unsolved problem. 
H. H. Jounston. 
NEW AUTOMATIC TELEPHONE 
EXCHANGE. 
Ae interesting experiment has just been 
started in the new telephone exchange at 
Epsom. This exchange is the first in the United 
Kingdom to be installed on the automatic plan. 
In this system the subscriber, by means of an 
attachment to his telephone, himself selects and 
calls up the desired number, instead of com- 
municating his wants to the exchange operator 
and being “put through” by her. The exchange 
operator is thus dispensed with. 
The mechanism at the subscriber’s telephone 
simply consists of a means by which a set of con- 
tacts are closed or separated a certain number of 
times—determined by the actual figures of the 
number required. These operations result in a 
series of impulses (or of breaks in an otherwise 
permanent current) over the telephone line and 
through the mechanism of the exchange. The 
movement of this mechanism puts the two lines 
into electrical connection. If the required sub- 
scriber be already engaged, the caller’s apparatus 
returns to zero and gives him the well-known 
signal. Under the system the meter does not 
record a charge against the person telephoning 
until the required subscriber has answered. The 
whole system was described in detail in our issue 
of October 12 last year. 
The system is complete as regards its own 
exchange, but when a subscriber on another ex- 
change is required, a little more complication is 
introduced. At present such calls are dealt with 
by an operator. A slight extension of the prin- 
ciple is to allot a certain number of lines to the 
main exchanges and to number these with the 
subscribers. A caller then simply gets through 
to the required exchange automatically, and then 
asks for the number required in the usual way. 
The working and development of the exchange 
| many such will miss him. ; 
| favourite of those brother officers with whom he 
MAJOR-GENERAL E. R. FESTING, 
C.B., F.R:S. 
A LARGE circle of friends, both amongst his 
. late colleagues and followers of science and 
and art, will be grieved to hear of the death of 
Major-General E. R. Festing (late R.E.) on 
Thursday last, May 16, from heart failure. 
Festing was born in 1839, and was educated at 
Carshalton during the headmastership of Prichett. 
He was transferred to the Royal Military Academy 
at Woolwich, and from there was gazetted as a 
lieutenant in the Royal Engineers when he was 
only fifteen years of age. His teachers often held 
up Festing as a worthy example to follow. He 
learnt thoroughly all he had to learn whilst under 
tuition, and he had the reputation of being ‘a cal- 
culating boy” from his early youth. The present 
writer has often had opportunities of knowing that 
in Festing’s later years this power of mental 
arithmetic had not deserted him. In 1857 the young 
lieutenant of seventeen was sent to India as one 
of the officers of a company of sappers and miners, 
| in which capacity he served under Sir Hugh Rose 
until 1859. On his return from India he was 
selected by Sir Henry Cole as. deputy general 
superintendent at South Kensington. On the re- 
organisation of the museum he was appointed 
assistant director of the Science Museum, with 
charge of the Works Department under Sir Philip 
Owen. On this officer’s retirement he was ap- 
| pointed director of the Science Museum, which 
office he held until his own retirement in 1904. 
For his services to the Department he was created 
a C.B. in 1900. 
Festing was one who was universally beloved 
by his colleagues and by the subordinates who 
served under him. He was strict, but absolutely 
just, and was no self-seeker. He was always 
ready to further the welfare of his men, or to 
assist in aiding the science teaching or research 
with which he daily came in contact at the Royal 
College of Science. He himself was a man of 
science, and carried out many investigations, the 
gist of which is to be found in the pages of the 
Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal 
Society, of which he was elected a Fellow in 
1886. Electrical science was perhaps what he 
loved best, though other departments of physics 
generally attracted him. hie : 
Brought into contact, by his position, with 
inventors, men of science, and artists, when they 
had gauged Festing’s worth they soon became 
his friends instead of mere acquaintances, and 
He was a general 
had served in India or elsewhere, as he was with 
those younger ones of his corps who, when in 
London or its neighbourhood, found a warm 
' welcome at his home. 
will be watched with great interest by all tele- | 
phone users. 
NO. 2221, VOL. 89] 
Festing leaves a widow, two sons, and a 
daughter. The elder son is in the Ceylon Civil 
Service, and the other in the Artillery, whilst the 
daughter is well known as an author. 
