6i6 



NATURE 



{April 29, 1880 



A study of this paper may perhaps throw some light on 

 the corresponding problems in the manufacture of steel. 



Mr. Larsen's paper on the Permanent Way of Street 

 Tramways is an eminently technical production, and deals 

 with the forms of rails and nature of sleepers and cross- 

 ties necessary to secure not only a good and permanent 

 road for the present system of traffic, but also one which 

 can be readily adapted to steam traction, whenever 

 sufficiently perfect steam traction shall have been intro- 

 duced to take the place of horses. 



Tramways have not hitherto succeeded in earning 

 the sympathy of those sections of the public who travel 

 in cabs and carriages. Owing to the peculiar kind of 

 rail used, and the imperfect manner in which the tram- 

 way proper has been combined with the paving of the 

 ordinary road, street vehicles have experienced a very 

 nasty and injurious species of wrench and jolt, when 

 crossing the rails, which, besides being very uncomfortable 

 to the occupier of the carriage, is also extremely injurious 

 to his wheels. In addition to this drawback the earlier 

 tramways were laid on a very bad system. They rapidly 

 got out of order. Owing to the spikes which fastened 

 down the rails having been driven down from the upper 

 side, the rain used to percolate downwards between the 

 spike and its holding in the sleeper, so that the wood of 

 the latter became soft, and spike and rail consequently 

 worked loose. In fact, in the older tramways it was the 

 exception to find a rail in good order. The difficulty of 

 setting the paving stones properly in the neighbourhood 

 of the longitudinal timber sleepers was so great that 

 the surface of the roadway almost invariably settled 

 down thereabouts into a continuous longitudinal depres- 

 sion, which in wet weather became a stagnant ditch, 

 not only unsightly, but extremely inconvenient to foot 

 passengers and ordinary traffic. Mr. Larsen in his paper 

 describes the various inventions and contrivances brought 

 out by himself and other engineers for the purpose of 

 remedying these drawbacks, and of making the permanent 

 way so secure and rigid that it can be used at any time 

 for steam traction. 



The author does not refer to one of the greatest 

 novelties in permanent-way construction, viz., the glass 

 sleepers brought out by Mr. Lindsay Buckill and Mr. W. 

 Siemens of Dresden. These sleepers have been laid 

 down for some time past on a section of one of the 

 Metropolitan tramway lines, and appear to have answered 

 their purpose most successfully. The fact that glass, 

 proverbially the most brittle of substances, could be used 

 for such a purpose, might strike most people with surprise ; 

 but readers of Dr. Schott' s paper, referred to above, will 

 have learned that by suitable tempering glass may be 

 made, mass for mass, stronger than steel, and practically 

 unbreakable. We understand that the success attained 

 in the construction of glass sleepers has recently been so 

 great that it is now proposed to make broad longitudinal 

 sleepers with a groove in the upper surface which shall 

 combine in themselves the functions of rail and sleeper, 

 and do away with the necessity for separate iron rails 

 with their fastenings, joints, and other concomitant 

 complications. 



Mr. Henry Davey's paper on water-pressure engines 

 for mining purposes would scarcely be understood without 

 reference to the diagrams and illustrations made use of 

 by the author. Its character is moreover so essentially 

 technical as to render it unsuited for reproduction in this 

 journal. 



NOTES 

 We take the following from the Times : — The following are 

 the names of the fifteen candidates for the Fellowship of the 

 Royal Society selected by the Council and recommended for 

 election (Thursday, June 3, is the day appointed for the elec- 

 tion) :— Dr. Clifford Allbutt, Prof. J. Attfield, Mr. H. E. Blan- 



ford, the Rev. W. H. Dallinger, Mr. Thiselton Dyer, Lieut. - 

 Col. Godwin-Austen, the Bishop of Limerick, Prof. D. E. 

 Hughes, Mr. H. M. Jeffery, Prof. F. M'Coy, Mr. J. F. Moulton^ 

 Prof. C. Niven, Dr. J. Rae, Prof. J. E. Reynolds, Dr. W. A. 

 Tilden, 



Prof. Eayley Balfour returned last week from Socotra, 

 with considerable botanical and zoological collections made 

 during his necessarily very brief visit. He obtained dried 

 specimens of 500 species of flowering plants, and four cases of 

 living specimens, besides a large plant of the Dracana, which 

 yields the dragon's blood of Socotra, and which, till recently, 

 was quite unknown to science. He attempted to convey with 

 him through Italy a small case of succulent plants of special 

 interest, but it was .'topped at the Custom House at Brindisi, 

 and unless it finds '.its way to England by the sea route, its 

 contents are of course lost. 



AVe regret to learn of the death, after a short illness, of Mr. 

 W. H. Holloway, F.G.S., of the Geological Survey of England 

 and Wales. 



The Portuguese Naturalist Anchietta has recently sent from 

 Africa 2,000 specimens of birds and 1,000 reptiles, fishes, insects, 

 and other animals, besides numerous specimens of plants and rare 

 minerals. They are intended for the Polytechnic Museum of 

 Lisbon. 



The Newcastle Chronicle announces the death, at Gosport, of 

 Mr. Thomas Atthey, a naturalist of considerable reputation. 

 Although living in comparative obscurity and quiet, he was well 

 known and highly esteemed in learned circles for his researches 

 in and contributions to that branch of science to which he was 

 so much attached, his position being very much akin to that of 

 Thomas Edwards. 



The Irish Farmers' Gazette understands that Prof. Baldwin is 

 about to retire on a well-earned pension from the appointment 

 he has so ably filled for many years as Superintendent of the 

 Agricultural Department of the National Board, Dublin. 



The Dharwar correspondent of the Bombay Gazette gives a 

 graphic account of a thunderstorm which occurred on March 24 

 last, and was accompanied by a fall of some very heavy hailstones. 

 "The storm," the correspondent states, " was ushered in by the fall 

 of some extremely heavy hail, several of the largest stones, which 

 were spherical in shape, measuring no less than nine or ten inches 

 in circumjaence. He did not himself see these] monster hail- 

 stones, but he vouches for the accuracy of this statement. He 

 picked up several hailstones, however, himself, which were the 

 size of Tangier oranges. [Accompanying this storm of hail 

 were thunder and lightning, both on a grand scale, the latter at 

 times being very vivid. After the hail came a heavy downpour 

 of rain, and the whole affair was over by about 8 p.m. One 

 piece of ice was picked up about five inches long and pointed at 

 one end." The correspondent who sends us this writes : " It is 

 a pity that these remarkable hailstones were not more closely 

 examined and measured. Of course there are cases on record of 

 still larger stones having fallen, especially in tropical countries." 



The programme of the annual meeting of the Iron and Steel 

 Institute, to be held on May 5, 6, and 7, has just been issued. 

 The Bessemer medal for 1880 is to be presented to Sir Joseph 

 Whitworth, and among the papers to be read and discussed are 

 the following : — " On Hardening Steel, its Causes and Effects ; " 

 " Physical Changes occurring in Iron and Steel at High Tem- 

 peratures;" " Manufacture of Bessemer Steel and Ingot Iron 

 from Phosphoric Pig;" " Dephosphorisation of Iron at the 

 Hordeworks, Germany;" "Reactions in the Open-hearth 

 Process;" "Improved Method of Utilising By-products in the 



