June 13, 1907] 



NA TURE 



157 



rent involves the solution during a difficult manufac- 

 ture of two simultaneous equations, and the per- 

 centage of lamps correctly solving- them is small. It 

 is the unavoidable outfalls which play such havoc 

 with his balance-sheet, so that it is small wonder 

 if the lamp-maker is tempted to be a trifle lax in his 

 rating. If cooperation existed and station engineers 

 would see the sweet reasonableness of adjusting their 

 supply voltages in different districts or different towns, 

 so as to afford a market for all the lamps a manufac- 

 turer produces, it would be possible for him to turn 

 out a better article at a lower price with undeniable 

 advantage to the industry generally. 



The information concerning the new lamps is much 

 more meagre and conjectural. It would seem that the 

 osmium lamp is already moribund or dead, and that we 

 have onlv to reckon with the tantalum and tungsten 

 filament lamps, the former taking 2 to 2-5 watts and 

 the latter i to i'2 watts per candle. The tungsten 

 lamp appears to have a brilliant future before it. A 

 lamp working at a little more than i watt per candle 

 brings electric lighting almost to the level of gas for 

 cheapness. The light units, though at present large (30 

 candles and upwards), are no larger than the gas 

 mantle units, and so it may reasonably be supposed 

 that the public will not object to them, though they 

 undoubtedlv do away with one of the benefits of 

 electric light. The chief drawback in England is the 

 low voltage, the lamps being at present only suitable 

 for voltages of about 100. It is conceivable, should 

 lamp-makers fail in producing a high-voltage tungsten 

 filament lamp, that engineers will change back to low 

 voltage, in spite of the eagerness with which they 

 struggled to enforce the change to high voltage a 

 few vears ago. The competition of gas is exces- 

 sivelv severe, and in some wav must be met ; at pre- 

 sent the tungsten lamp offers the only means of meet- 

 ing it in interior lighting. 



The next few years promise to be of exceptional 

 interest so far as the development of electric lighting 

 is concerned ; a radical improvement has long been 

 wanting, and there seems every reason to believe 

 that it has at last been made. The present condition 

 of affairs is full of possibilities, and no one can say 

 what the position will be a few years hence. Per- 

 haps to his interesting account of the birth of the 

 carbon filament lamp M. Rodet may be able to add in 

 his next edition the melancholy tale of its death. 



Maurice Solomon. 



DR. MAXWELL T. MASTERS, F.R.S. 

 'T'HE botanical and horticultural world has sus- 

 *■ tained a severe loss by the death on May 30 of 

 Dr. Maxwell T. Masters, the well-known editor of 

 the Gardener's Chronicle, and the author of many 

 botanical works. 



Dr. Masters was born in 1833, and was educated 

 at King's College, subsequently removing to Oxford, 

 where he became sub-curator of the Fielding Herb- 

 arium under Dr. Daubeny. He was botanical lecturer 

 at St. George's Hospital from 1855 to 1868, and was 

 elected to the fellowship of the Royal Society in 1870. 

 He was a corresponding member of the Institute of 

 France, and was also an officer of the Order of 

 Leopold. He achieved distinction in his earlier days 

 by the publication of his "Vegetable Teratology," a 

 most valuable work, which has been translated into 

 several European languages. But his most definite 

 contributions to botany in later years were those deal- 

 ing with the Coniferae, a difficult group which had 

 lone interested him, and in which he displayed a re- 

 markable and detailed knowledge. He contributed 

 many papers on the structure and taxonomy of the 



\0. 1963, VOL. 76] 



species to the publications of the Linnean and Hor- 

 ticultural Societies. 



But it is especially in matters appertaining to hor- 

 ticulture that he wil'l be best known to most people. 

 His position as editor of the Gardener's Chronicle 

 gave him considerable influence, and he alwavs used 

 his best efforts with single-hearted devotion to pro- 

 mote the welfare of horticulture and to look after the 

 interests of those who were engaged in gardening as 

 the practical business of their lives. 



He always took the keenest interest in the Royal 

 Horticultural Society, and for many years presided 

 over the Scientific Committee. 



He will be sorely missed by a large circle of friends, 

 as well as by many others in the gardening world, to 

 whom his name has become almost a household word. 



NOTES. 

 At the meeting of the council of the British Association 

 on Friday last, June 7, Mr. Francis Darwin, F.R.S., was 

 unanimously nominated to the office of president for the 

 year 1908-9. 



We have to deplore the deaths at Cambridge, on Friday 

 last, June 7, of Prof. Alfred Newton, F.R.S. , professor of 

 zoology and comparative anatomy in the University, and 

 Dr. e' J. Routh F.R.S. 



The ladies' soiree of the Royal Society will be held at 

 Burlington House on Wednesday next, June 19. 



Sir Willi.im Perkin, F.R.S., has been elected president 

 of the Faraday Society for the session 1907-8. 



Twelve tablets were unveiled in the Hall of Fame of 

 New Vork University on Memorial Day, May 30, among 

 them being one in memory of Maria Mitchell, the astro 

 nomer, and another in memory of Louis Agassiz. 



Dr. N.ansen, president of the Social and Political 

 Education League, will deliver his presidential address, on 

 "Science and Ethical Ideas," at University College, 

 Gower Street, on June 26. Sir Oliver Lodge will preside. 



Reuter reports that a typhoon occurred in the Caroline 

 Islands in the latter part of March and devastated the 

 Olcai group of those islands. A great wave swept the 

 land and buried it under a layer of sand. 



We learn from Science that Dr. C. R. Wieland, of the 

 Peabodv Museum, Vale University, has left America for 

 a stay of five months in Europe, where he will visit the 

 plant collections of northern and southern Europe for a 

 special study of cycads. The results of his investigations 

 will be published in his second volume on cycads. 



A meeting of the International Council for the Explor- 

 ation of the Sea is being held in London during the present 

 week. In the absence through illness of the president of 

 the council. Dr. W. Herwig, his place is being taken by 

 the vice-president, Dr. Otto Pettersson, of Stockholm. 

 Among the members of the council and experts now present 

 in London are Dr. P. P. C. Hoek, general secretary, and 

 his assistant. Dr. H. M. Kyle ; Dr. Lewald, Prof. 

 Kriimmel, Prof. Brandt, Prof. Heincke, Dr. Hcnking, and 

 Dr. Ehrenbaum, from Germany ; Mr. A. Hamman and 

 Prof. Gilson (Belgium) ; Captain Drechsel, Mr. Martin 

 Knudsen, and Dr. C. G. J. Petersen (Denmark) ; Dr. 

 Homen and Mr. J. A. Sandman (Finland) ; Prof. Nansen, 

 Dr. Hjort. and Dr. Helland Hansen (Norway) ; Prof. 

 Max Weber, Dr. Redeke, and Dr. Wind (Holland) : Prof: 

 Otto Pettersson, Dr. F. Trybom, and Mr. G. Ekman 

 (Sweden) ; Mr. Waiter Archer, Prof. D'Arcy Thompson, 

 Dr. Mill, Dr. Garstang, Dr. Masterman, Dr. H. Reid, 

 Mr. E. W. L. Holt, Dr. Wemyss Fulton, Dr. E. J. Allen, 



