July 22. 1909] 



NATURE 



109 



The seventh annual report of the director ot the Bureau 

 of Science, Manila, shows what the Americans are 

 accomplishing in the Philippines. One of the most press- 

 ing needs has been to obtain a sufificient medical staff to 

 cope with the infectious and epidemic diseases and the 

 pernicious superstitions of the natives relating thereto. 

 At present there is but one doctor to every 430 square 

 miles of territory in the Philippines, and many towns even 

 of some importance have no resident medical man. In 

 these circumstances the medical school is training intelli- 

 gent natives, and is making efforts to secure sufficient 

 numbers of students to remedy the deficiency, .■\nthropo- 

 morphic measurements of Filipinos and of Igorots are 

 made, and other studies have been undertaken to throw 

 light on the histories of the natives. In addition, a large 

 amount of work is recorded on the natural resources of 

 the island — -sugar, fibres, essential oils, &c. It is stated 

 that the fruit of Pitiosporiim resiniferum, Hemsl., 

 commonly known as the petroleum nut, yielded on dis- 

 tillation 7 per cent, of heptane. 



" A Short Guide to the Museum of Practical Geology, 

 Jermyn Street, London, S.W.," has been issued anony- 

 mously at the price of one penny. It seems strange that the 

 names of the curator and director are not attached, but we 

 may take it for granted that they are responsible, as the 

 guide is " sold only at the museum." It will undoubtedly 

 prove of great service to visitors in directing attention to 

 the many objects of scientific interest and practical import- 

 ance that are exhibited, and in giving so far as possible 

 within the compass of forty-eight pages a good deal of 

 explanatory information. The last handbook to the museum, 

 prepared by Mr. Rudler, the former curator, was issued in 

 i8g6, and since that date many alterations and improve- 

 ments have been made. The removal of the fine collection 

 of British pottery and porcelain, though lamented by many 

 students, was necessary for the proper display of further 

 raw materials in place of manufactured articles. Thus the 

 exhibition of British minerals has been considerably ex- 

 tended, and the practical applications of geology have been 

 more fully illustrated by examples of brick clays, road 

 stones, &c. The map department has received special atten- 

 tion, and illustrations are displayed of the mode of prepara- 

 tion of the Geological Survey sheets on the scales of six 

 inches and one inch to a mile. Instructive models of the 

 Isle of Purbcck and of the complicated district of Assynt, in 

 Sutherlandshire, have also been introduced. Plans showing 

 the arrangement of the specimens on the several floors of 

 the museum form an exceedingly useful feature in this new 

 guide. 



We have received from the Philippine Weather Bureau 

 reports by the Rev. J. Coronas of two severe typhoons 

 experienced in 1908. The first, called the Hong Kong 

 typhoon of July 27 and 28, resembled in its leading char- 

 acteristics the destructive storm of September 18, 1906. 

 The Manila Observatory was able to announce its appear- 

 ance to the north of Luzon on the morning of July 26 ; it 

 increased in speed in the China Sea, where its velocity of 

 translation was about Sh miles an hour, and about 144 miles 

 when it struck Hong Kong, but once in China it began to 

 fill up, as is generally the case. The Hong Kong Observa- 

 tory carefully watched the progress of the storm, and gave 

 timely warning of its approach. The second storm, called 

 the Tatlac typhoon of September 18 to 27, from the wreck 

 of the ship of that name, was first announced on the morn- 

 ing of September 20, being then near the Western Carolines. 

 When it reached the Philippines its velocity was about 

 fifteen miles an hour. The storm was most violent at 

 Borongan (Samar), and reduced that town to a heap of 

 NO. 2073, VOL. 81] 



ruins ; it reached the northern part of Indo-China on 

 September 27. An eye-witness at Borongan states that the 

 roof of the town church was " blown up like a huge kite," 

 while the convent was " simply crushed down " soon after- 

 wards, showing that there were ascending and descending 

 currents on the same side of the centre, the winds being in 

 both cases from the same direction. The area of destructive 

 winds had an average radius of about fifty miles. The 

 full reports, with diagrams, are published in the bulletins 

 of the Weather Bureau. 



We have received a reprint of the article " London by 

 Night," by Mr. H. Wild, which appeared in Photography 

 and Focus in March last. It contains four very realistic 

 reproductions of photographs of London streets taken at 

 night by mean.s of the illumination provided by the ordinary 

 artificial lights. The photographs were taken on rapid 

 quarter plates of several makes by means of a portrait 

 lens (Dallmeyer's 2B) with an exposure of about half a 

 second, and they will bear enlargement up to 15x12 inches. 

 They open up a field in photography which was undreamt 

 of a few years ago. 



The June number of Le Radium contains an article by 

 M. Moulin on the most probable value of the atomic charge 

 c of electricity according to the most trustworthy of the 

 observations made up to the present time. The three 

 methods which M. Moulin discusses are : — First, the con- 

 densation method adopted by Sir J. Thomson and his pupils, 

 and by Profs. Millikan and Begeman in America ; second, 

 the direct measurement of the charge on the particle, by 

 Prof. Rutherford and Dr. Geiger ; and third, the calculation 

 of the number N of molecules in a gram molecule, based on 

 the measurements of the Brownian movements by Prof. 

 Porrin. The first and third of these methods agree in 

 giving for e the value 4-1X10-'° electrostatic units, while 

 the second gives 4-6, a high result which M. Moulin attri- 

 butes to the want of uniformity in the layer of radium C 

 with which Messrs. Rutherford and Geiger worked. His 

 final conclusion is that the most probable value of e is 

 4-1X10-'° electrostatic units, and of N 7x10°^ 



It is well known that reaction steam turbines have a 

 lower efficiency at the high-pressure end than at the low- 

 pressure end. This is caused by the relatively small area of 

 blades at the high-pressure end and the proportionally high 

 percentage of clearance which permits of excessive leakage 

 of steam round the blades. Published tests of a large 

 marine turbine show an cfliciency ratio of the high-pressure 

 turbine of 55 per cent, at full power, as against 63 per 

 cent, for the low-pressure turbine, in spite of the adoption of 

 lower steam and blade speeds in the high-pressure turbine, 

 thus securing a higher ratio of blade area to clearance area 

 for the purpose of reducing leakage. In the Melms- 

 Pfenninger turbine, illustrated in Engineering for July 9, 

 a successful attempt is made to combine the advantages of 

 the impulse type for the high-pressure end with the re- 

 action type for the intermediate and low-pressure sections. 

 An important feature of this turbine is the adoption of a 

 drum construction for the impulse section, in which it 

 differs from the wheel construction usual in turbines of 

 the Curtis type. The remainder of the turbine is of the 

 well-known Parsons type. The makers say that they have 

 found it practicable to work with a clearance of but 10 mils, 

 between the nearest points of the opposed fixed and moving 

 surfaces. 



The steamer Tortiiguero, which was launched from the 

 shipbuilding yard of Messrs. Alexander Stephen and Sons, 

 Ltd., at Linthouse, on the Clyde, on March 24, and sailed 

 on April 22, represents the latest practice in the transport 



