338 
NATURE 
[May 30, 1912 
The distinctive features of Russian mining are the 
predominance of hand labour and a_ simplicity of 
equipment to admit of local repairs, and while more 
perfect methods based on mechanical principles are 
now under consideration, engineers are desirous, 
before throwing out, methods which have stood the 
test of time, of making certain that the more modern 
practice will be suited to the capacity of the labour 
available to operate it.—E. C. Hugon: A plant for 
the enrichment of pyritic blende concentrates. This 
is a description of a new plant recently erected at the 
Pierrefitte Mines, Hautes Pyrénées, France, in order 
to cope with the increasingly pyritic character of the 
ore encountered in a portion of the property hitherto 
untouched. The process adopted consisted of mag- 
netic separation preceded by a preliminary roast, 
which resulted, among other features, in presenting 
the advantages of a higher grade of concentrate, 
higher recoveries, a saving in carriage, and other 
economies. 
British Psychological Society, May 18.—Prof. J. Sully 
in the chair.—J. C. Fliigel: Illusions of reversible 
perspective and fluctuations of attention.—W. .H 
Winch: Spontaneous drawings of young children 
with typical examples. 
Royal Meteorological Society, May 22.—Dr. H. N. 
Dickson, president, in the chair.—C. J. P. Cave: 
The severe thunderstorm of March 11 in the east of 
Hampshire and the west of Sussex. The storm was 
not of the line-squall type, but was of the type of 
summer thunderstorms with very little movement, 
and, besides being severe, the storm appeared to be 
very local. As the result of information supplied by 
132 observers, Mr. Cave has been able thoroughly to 
investigate the storm. Actual thunderstorms appear 
to have occurred in five patches, viz:—(1) a small 
patch near Alresford; (2) an area stretching from 
Privett in Hampshire nearly to Fernhurst in Sussex, 
with its centre near Liss; (3) an area north-east of 
Haslemere; (4) a small patch north of Chilgrove; 
and (5) a patch near West Grinstead. Heavy rain 
occurred, especially in the Liss storm; nearly an inch 
and a half fell at Durford Farm, between Rogate 
and Petersfield, and at Borden wood, north of Chit- 
hurst. Hail also occurred at several places. One 
of the peculiarities of the storm was the intense dark- 
ness that occurred near the centre, which was accom- 
panied by black rain. The author believes this to be 
due to soot from London. He is also of opinion that 
the cause of the storm was the flowing of a cold 
current under a warmer one, as is the case with line- 
squalls.—E. S. Bruce: The automatic release of self- 
recording instruments from ballons-sondes. When a 
balloon is sent up with a meteorograph attached, it 
is doubtful whether these will be recovered, for they 
may not be seen at all, or they may fall into the 
sea. In order to diminish the chance of the record- 
ing instruments being lost, Mr. Bruce has devised a 
simple apparatus called the ‘‘meteoparachute,’’ which 
brings down the meteorograph from the balloon at 
any moment the observer chooses to fix before he 
sends the balloon up. 
’ 
MANCHESTER. 
Literary and Philosophical Society, May 7.—Prof. 
F. E. Weiss, president, in the chair.—Dr. Henry 
Wilde, F.R.S.: Search-lights. for the mercantile 
marine. One of the author’s early applications of 
the dynamo-electric machine was the projection of a 
beam of electric light to illuminate distant objects 
for naval and military purposes. In 1873. his inven- 
tions were sufficiently developed to enable him to 
submit them to the Admiralty, as a protection against 
torpedoes, when, after lengthened trials at Spithead 
NO. 2222, VOL. 89] 
| good photographs 
(1874-5) by a joint War Office and Admiralty com- 
mittee, they were definitely adopted, and a number 
of first-class battleships were equipped with search- 
lights. When attempts were made later to establish 
the search-light on merchant ships the Admiralty 
intervened and claimed the exclusive right to use 
the light, on the alleged ground that its brilliancy 
intertered with the navigation of other ships. The 
result is that at the present day none of the Atlantic 
liners are equipped with search-lights. ‘The lesson 
to be derived from the lamentable loss of the Titanic, 
and of the Oceana in March last, is that all ships of 
the mercantile marine above a_ specified tonnage 
should be equipped with one or more search-lights 
as now in permanent use in the Royal Navy.—F. 
Jones: The volatility of sulphur and its action on 
water. The volatility of sulphur in a current of 
steam has long been known. The author has 
volatilised sulphur at 1oo° C., but in absence of 
water. Crystals are slowly formed of two kinds. 
The bulk consists of aggregations of octahedral 
crystals elongated so as to appear needle-shaped, and 
there is a much smaller amount resembling 8-sulphur 
crystals, but differing from them in remaining per- 
manently transparent. These crystals are very pure, 
and were used to show that sulphur is volatile even 
at ordinary temperatures, since when it was sealed 
up in a tube with silver foil placed a few inches 
above it the latter became slowly blackened. The 
action of sulphur on water has been examined by 
many chemists with somewhat contradictory results, 
which the author thinks are partly due to the action 
of the water on the glass vessels used. By boiling 
sulphur with water in platinum and fused silican 
flasks, he finds that sulphuretted hydrogen is always 
evolved while thiosulphuric acid is present in the 
contents of the flask.—T. G. B. Osborn: A note on 
a submerged forest at Llanaber, Barmouth.—Miss 
Mary A. Johnstone ; Notes on a specimen of Calamites 
varians, var. insignis (Weiss).—T. A. Coward: The 
smelt in Rostherne Mere. The author referred to the 
permanent presence of the anadromous smelt in fresh 
water in Rostherne Mere. He mentioned the date 
at which it was first recorded, 1740, and differed from 
the opinion expressed that it was originally intro- 
duced artificially. During the last twenty years, or 
perhaps more, the smelt has, so far as he Ixnew, only 
been observed three times in Rostherne. 
Paris. 
Academy of Sciences, May 13.—M. Lippmann in the 
chair.—M. Lecornu: The flexure of a beam supported 
at one end.—Prince Albert of Monaco: The first cam- 
paign of MHirondelle IJ., and the twenty-fourth 
campaign of the complete series.—C. Guichard : 
Surfaces such that the osculating spheres to the lines 
of curvature of a series are tangential to a fixed 
sphere.—M. Schwendener was elected a _ foreign 
associate in succession to the late Lord Lister.—J. J. 
Landerer: The eclipse of the sun of April 17, 1912. 
The value adopted by the author for the lunar semi- 
diameter, 15’ 31-62”, in the calculation of the last two 
total eclipses in Spain was shown by the observa- 
tions of the eclipse of April 17 to be very close to the 
exact value.—Jules Baillaud: The variation of the 
relative intensities of the various radiations of the 
solar spectrum during the eclipse of April 17.—F. 
Croze and G. Demetresco: Photographs of the promin- 
ences and of the inner corona obtained at the 
Observatory of Paris during the eclipse of April 17. 
Full details are given of the results from three photo- 
graphs.—A. de La Baume Pluvinel and F. Baldet : 
The spectrum of Brooks’s comet, 1911c. Twenty-two 
of the spectrum of this comet 
