NATURE 



[July 25, 1907 



across Africa from the western coast towards the great 

 north and south artery of the Cape to Cairo line. The 

 excellent reproductions of photographs illustrating the 

 article show the difficulty encountered in cutting the track 

 through the dense forest. 



Thf. following interesting details, referring more particu- 

 larly to the telegraphic weather service of the United 

 .States, are taken from the annual summary, iqo6, of the 

 Monthly Weather rtevicw. The Weather Bureau officials 

 issue forecasts for thirty-six and forty-eight hours in 

 advance daily for each State ; the materials necessary for 

 this service, including observations from about twenty 

 stations in the Atlantic and Western Europe, are received 

 by telegraph from about 200 stations in the morning, and 

 from a lesser number in the evening. .Storm-warning 

 telegrams are sent to lightships and vessels from all wire- 

 less telegraph stations of the navy department along the 

 coasts of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Me.\ico ; a 

 similar service has also been inaugurated with the Marconi 

 Company. The immense amount of information received 

 from some 4500 stations of different classes is e.xhibited 

 to the public in various ways. The daily issue of weather 

 maps in Washington is about 1625 copies; there are also 

 105 other places, which issue an aggregate of 25,000 maps 

 daily. The number of ships cooperating with the Bureau 

 in the department of marine meteorologv was 1771 during 

 the \ear in question. 



The Munich central meteorological station has for the 

 first time published the preliminary results of the observ- 

 ations made in unmanned balloons in Bavaria in connection 

 with the international ascents. The observations refer to 

 the year 1006, and were made under various conditions, 

 including periods of Fohn winds. The results will be 

 classified for the different types of weather in a later dis- 

 cussion. Below 3000 metres the mean gradient (A(/ioom.) 

 was — o°-57 C, which seems to point to a cooling effect 

 of the mountains on the surrounding air. The largest 

 gradients, -o"-?!, occurred at altitudes of 6000-8000 

 metres. The lowest point at which the upper inversion 

 occurred was 8000m., during a barometric depression; 

 the highest point was 13,300 m., during an anticyclone. 

 With one exception the temperature of the warm current 

 in the upper inversion lay between —51° and —58° C. 

 On December 5, in cyclonic conditions, a temperature of 

 — 72°.5 was recorded at 13,270 m.; above this altitude an 

 inversion occurred, and at the highest point, 14,170 m., a 

 temperature of — (i3°-5 was registered. 



The extensive use of flexible cord in electric light fittings 

 at the present time makes it of prime importance that 

 definite tests of the rubber on which their in.sulation 

 depends should be instituted. Prof. A. Schwartz has col- 

 lected together a large amount of information on the 

 subject, and has added the results of his own experiments 

 in his paper on " Flexibles " in the July number of the 

 Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers. He 

 considers that the diagram connecting stress and strain for 

 a complete cycle of stresses applied, which he calls a 

 " hysteresis " diagram, furnishes a better criterion of the 

 character of the rubber than any other lest in common use. 

 He is in favour of the use of pure as against vulcanised 

 rubber in flexible cords. 



The hope that the work of Dr. J. A. Marker at the 

 National Physical Laboratory, and of Drs. L. Holborn and 

 F. Henning at the Reichsanstalt, had definitely fixed 

 1710° C. as the melting point of platinum, has been rudely 

 shaken by the appearance of additional worlv liv Messrs. 

 NO. 1969, VOL. 76] 



C. W. Waidner and (i. K. Burgess in the May Bulletin of 

 the United .States Bureau of Standards, and by Drs. L. 

 Holbcrn and S. Valentiner in the Annalen dcr Physil; 

 (vol. xxii., p. I). The former, by the optical pyrometer 

 method, find the point is 1753° C, while the latter, by a 

 comparison of the optical scale with the nitrogen scale up 

 to i6on° C, have assigned 1789° C to the point. These 

 discrepancies show the necessity for further work before the 

 scale can be considered definitely fixed at these high 

 temperatures. 



The current number of the Quarterly lieview contains 

 two articles of interest to scientific readers. The first, 

 under the title "The Case for the Goat," urges the value 

 of the goat as a producer of milk. "It is not only that 

 the goat produces a relatively large quantity of milk, and 

 exceptionally rich milk, but . . . this milk may be drunk 

 practically without any risk of tubercular infection." The 

 second article, " Magic and Religion," by Mr. Edward 

 Clodd, gives in the form of a review of a number of recent 

 works on anthropology, an interesting summary of the 

 growth of the science, explaining by the way how other 

 branches of natural knowledge have assisted its growth, 

 and enumerating the more recent contributions to the 

 study. 



The Carnegie Institution of Washington has published 

 an " Index of Economic Material in Documents of the 

 States of the United States; Maine, 1820-1904." The 

 work was prepared for the department of economics and 

 sociology of the institution by Mr. .\delaide R. Hasse, of 

 the New York Public Library. The purpose of the volume 

 is to furnish a guide to the economic material contained 

 in the printed reports of administrative affairs, legislative 

 committees, and special commissions of the State of Maine 

 and in the messages of the governors to the legislature of 

 that State. The present volume will be followed by others, 

 each devoted to a single State. 



.Several new editions of important German scientific 

 works have recently been received. Prof. Otto Lummer 

 has a volume on optics in Muller-Pouillet's " Lehrbuch der 

 Physik und Meteorologie," the tenth revised edition of 

 which is in course of publication, under the editorship of 

 Prof. L. Pfaundler. The new edition is to be completed 

 in four volumes, and Prof. Lummer's work (price 15 marks), 

 though it runs into nearly nine hundred pages, is only the 

 third book of the first part of the second volume. The 

 publishers are Messrs. F. Vieweg and Son, Bfunswick. A 

 second revised edition of " Die Kathodenstrahlen," by 

 Prof. G. C. Schmidt, has also been published by Messrs. 

 \'ieweg and Son. The original work was briefly noticed 

 in Nature of June q, 1004 (vol. Kx., p. 124) ; its price is 

 3 marks. The fifth revised edition of Prof. A. Engler's 

 " Syllabus der Pflanzenfamilien " has been published by 

 Messrs. Borntraeger Bros., Berlin. Two volumes in the 

 Philosophische Bibliothek have been received from the 

 Diirr'schen Buchhandlung, Leipzig; No. 35 is the sixth 

 edition of the German translation of Hume's " Enquiry con- 

 cerning Human I'nderstanding," edited by Raoul Richter, 

 and No. 113 is a commentary on Kant's " Kritik der reinen 

 N'ernunft." by Prof. H. Cohen. Another philosophical 

 work is " Das Weltproblem von posilivistischen Stand- 

 punkte aus," by Joseph Petzoldt, published by B. C. 

 Teubner, Leipzig. From the same publisher we have 

 received a small volume by Prof. P. Maas, entitled 

 " Lebensbedingungen und Verbreltung der Ticre." Two 

 papers by A. S. Marggraf and F. C. .\chard, founders of 

 the beet sugar industry, form No. 159 of Oslwald's 

 " Klassiker der e.>;akten Wissenschaften, " published by W. 

 Engelmann, Leipzig. 



