October 14, 1922] 



NA TURE 



53i 



Calendar of Industrial Pioneers. 



October 15, 1889. Sir Daniel Gooch died. — An 

 eminent locomotive engineer and industrial ad- 

 ministrator, Gooch served an apprenticeship in 

 Stephenson's works at Newcastle, and at the age of 

 twenty-one became locomotive superintendent to 

 the Great Western Railway. He invented the Gooch 

 link gear, experimented on the resistance of the 

 atmosphere to trains in motion, designed a self- 

 registering dynamometer, and built many fine broad- 

 gauge engines. After resigning his position, he 

 played an important part in the establishment of 

 telegraphic communication between England and 

 America, and from 1865 to 1887 was chairman of 

 the Great Western Railway. 



October 17, 1907. Gustav Adolf Zeuner died. — 

 Born in Chemnitz, November 30, 1828, and educated 

 at the Mining Academy at Freiberg, Zeuner as a 

 professor of engineering did important work at 

 Zurich, Freiburg, and Dresden, while his writings 

 were highly valued by engineers. He founded the 

 German journal Zivilingeniear, and he was widely 

 known for his works on value gear and on technical 

 thermodynamics. 



October 18, 1903. Gordon McKay died. — The most 

 successful inventor of boot-sewing machinery, McKay, 

 who was bom in Massachusetts in 18 18, made an 

 immense fortune which he bequeathed to Harvard 

 University for science professorships and laboratories. 



October 18, 1918. Marcel Deprez died. — For nearly 

 forty years Deprez devoted himself to the applica- 

 tion of electricity to industrial purposes. He solved 

 many of the problems connected with the trans- 

 mission of high-tension electricity, invented the 

 compound winding for dynamos and devised measuring 

 instruments. From 1890 he was professor of in- 

 dustrial electricity at the Conservatoire des Arts et 

 Metiers. 



October 19, 1749. William Ged died. — The inventor 

 of stereotyping, Ged was born in 1690 and became a 

 goldsmith in Edinburgh. In 1725 he took out a 

 patent for developing Van de Mey's idea of sub- 

 stituting for movable type solid plates cast from 

 type, and four years later he endeavoured without 

 success to introduce his methods in London. His 

 subsequent career was one of disappointment, and he 

 died in poverty. 



October 19, 1897. George Pullman died. — Pullman, 

 to whom the world owes the modern railway carriage, 

 was born in 1831 in New York State, and in 1859 

 settled at Chicago, where he began experimenting on 

 the construction of sleeping-cars, his first successful 

 car, the " Pioneer," being built in 1863 at a cost of 

 3000/. -4000/. The Pullman Palace Car Company 

 was founded in 1867 ; extensive works were laid out 

 in 1879, and at the time of Pullman's death more 

 than 15,000 men were employed in them. The 

 sleeping-car was introduced into England in 1875. 



October 21, 1896. James Henry Greathead died. — 

 Trained as a civil engineer under Barlow, Greathead 

 devised the " Greathead " shield, which has since 

 been extensively used for driving tunnels. 



October 21, 1902. Sidney Howe Short died. — 

 Regarded as one of the most brilliant electrical 

 engineers of his day, Short was a native of Columbus, 

 Ohio, where he was born, October 8, 1858. Educated 

 at the Ohio State University, at the age of twenty 

 he succeeded Mendenhall as professor of physics 

 there, and two years afterwards removed to Denver, 

 Colorado. Resigning his chair in 1885, he took up 

 practical work and did pioneer work in connexion 

 with electric railways. E. C. S. 



NO. 2763, VOL. I to] 



Societies and Academies. 



Swansea. 

 Institute of Metals, September 22. — F. L. Brady: 

 The structure of eutcctics. An attempt has been made 

 to correlate the micro-structure of solidified eutectics, 

 mainly those between metals and metallic compounds, 

 with the physical properties of the component metals. 

 The surface tension of the molten metal and the 

 cohesive force acting during crystallisation seem to be 

 the main forces influencing the final structure. The 

 eutectics examined fall into three classes : " globular," 

 " lamellar," and " angular." The structures agree 

 with what would be expected from theoretical con- 

 siderations of the effects of surface tension and 

 cohesion. — M. Cook : The antimony-bismuth system. 

 The two metals form an isomorphous series of alloys. 

 The liquidus curve is perfectly smooth and the solidus 

 is horizontal at 270 ° C. up to 60 per cent, of antimony, 

 after which it rises steeply to the freezing-point of 

 antimony. Chill-cast and slowly cooled specimens 

 reveal duplex structures, but with prolonged anneal- 

 ing — 55° hours at 275° C. — the alloys become 

 homogeneous. Twin crystals and peculiar banded 

 effects were observed in some of the annealed speci- 

 mens. Possibly the twin crystals are formed during 

 solidification of the alloy by stresses due to expansion, 

 and grew on annealing. The nature of the " bands " 

 has not been definitely ascertained, though they are 

 not considered to be slipbands. — A. Jefferson : The 

 cause of red stains on silver-plated work. The 

 Sheffield Silver Trade Technical Society appointed a 

 committee to examine this subject. It was established 

 experimentally that the red stain is caused by the 

 indiscriminate use of rouge in the finishing and 

 polishing processes, through the absorption of the 

 rouge into the open pores of the heated surface, the 

 heat being evolved by the friction of the hand or 

 finishing " dolly." — Q. A, Mansuri : fntermetallic 

 actions. The system thallium-arsenic. By thermal 

 and microscopic analysis it was shown that thallium 

 and arsenic do not act chemically with each other 

 nor do they form solid solutions ; they alloy in all 

 proportions. Arsenic dissolves in molten thallium 

 and lowers its freezing-point until a solution of S-oi 

 per cent, arsenic freezes at the eutectic temperature 

 of 215 C. Then the freezing-points of the alloys 

 rise gradually to 240 C. All alloys containing from 

 13 to about 40 per cent, arsenic begin to freeze at 

 240 J C. and are made up of two layers — the upper 

 layer rich in arsenic while the lower rich in thallium. 

 Beyond 40 per cent, arsenic, to nearly pure arsenic, 

 the solution is uniform and the two layers disappear. 

 By heating such substances in evacuated, sealed glass 

 tubes and applying the hot junction of the couple 

 in close contact with the outside of the glass tube, 

 the couple is almost as sensitive as when dipped in 

 the molten substance. — F. Johnson and W. Grantley 

 Jones : New forms of apparatus for determining the 

 linear shrinkage and for bottom-pouring of cast 

 metals and alloys, accompanied by data on the 

 shrinkage and hardness of cast copper-zinc alloys. 

 The shrinkage values of chill-cast copper-zinc alloys 

 were higher in general than those obtained for sand- 

 cast bars by previous investigators. Pure electrolytic 

 metals were used, and most of the alloys were poured 

 at a temperature interval of approximately 115° C. 

 above their liquidi, the mould being kept at a constant 

 temperature by a jacket of water maintained at the 

 boiling-point. " The bottom-pouring apparatus has 

 the advantage of (a) control of pouring temperature ; 

 (6) facility for registering temperature of metal ; (c) 

 absence of delay between attainment of required 

 pouring-temperature and release of metal into the 



