March 2-1, 1899.] 



SCIENCE. 



463 



its forty-third meeting on February 3d, under the 

 presidency of Dr. G6zilly. It was decided to 

 organize an International Congress of the Med- 

 ical Press, to be held in Paris in 1900, at the 

 same time as the other congresses wliich are to 

 take place there in that year. 



The beginning of an arboretum will be made 

 made at the University of Michigan this year, 

 under the direction of the pharmacy depart- 

 ment. The plan is to have specimens of as 

 many difierent kind of trees growing on the 

 University campus as will thrive in the latitude. 

 Special attention, however, will be given to the 

 securing of trees of medicinal or economic im- 

 portance. A few trees will be set out each 

 year, being selected and planted by the mem- 

 bers of the graduating classes of the pharmacy 

 department. 



The report of the committee appointed by 

 the Council of the Society of Arts to inquire 

 into the requisite conditions of safety in acety- 

 lene gas generators, and to report on the various 

 apparatus shown at the exhibition held at the 

 Imperial Institute, says the London Times, has 

 just been issued. The object of the exhibition, 

 which was undertaken with the approval of 

 Sir Vivian Majendie of the Home Office, and 

 of the London County Council, was to fa- 

 miliarize the public with the means of gener- 

 ating acetylene gas, and with the simple pre- 

 cautions with which its use at low pressures is as 

 safe as that of coal gas. The committee, feeling 

 that in the interests of the public it was advisable 

 carefully to test the various forms of generators 

 exhibited, appointed Professor Vivian B. Lewes 

 and Mr. Boverton Redwood as a sub-committee 

 to make a series of tests. As a result of these 

 tests the committee have advised the granting of 

 certificates to those generators which have com- 

 plied with the requirements of the various tests 

 to which they have been submitted, and which 

 have worked safely and satisfactorily during a 

 month's every-day use. The committee classi- 

 fied the generators into three groups : (1) those 

 in which the gas is generated by water being al- 

 lowed to drip or flow on to the carbide ; (2) those 

 in which the water is allowed to rise in contact 

 with the carbide, the rise being regulated by the 

 increase of pressure in the generating chamber ; 



(3) those in which the carbide drops into the 

 water. These are again subdivided into auto- 

 matic generators whose storage capacity is less 

 than the total volume which the charge of car- 

 bide is capable of generating, and which, there- 

 fore, require automatic regulation; and non-auto- 

 matic, whose holders can receive all the gas pro- 

 duced by the charge of carbide. The committee 

 consider that the tests have clearly demonstrated 

 that many types of acetylene gas apparatus can 

 be so constructed as with ordinary precautions 

 to be absolutely safe, and that lighting by 

 acetylene need be no more fraught with danger 

 than any other form of artificial lighting in 

 general use. The committee, however, feel it 

 their duty to state that, safe as they consider 

 acetylene gas to be, when generated in a prop- 

 erly-constructed apparatus outside the building 

 to be lighted, and in accordance with the rules 

 and suggestions contained in the report, they 

 consider the generation of gas within the house, 

 and the use of hand lamps, cycle lamps, etc., 

 to be not unattended by danger, except in 

 skilled hands. As to the storage of the carbide, 

 the Home Office regulations allow 51b. to be 

 kept without a license in lib. packages. The 

 committee recommend that the quantity, how- 

 ever small, should always be kept in a dry 

 place, and under lock and key. These precau- 

 tions, they think, may not be necessary when 

 its properties are fully understood, as it is no 

 more dangerous than many other substances in 

 daily use. 



The Reale Institute Lombardo announces in 

 its Rendiconti the award of its prizes which are 

 quoted in Nature as follows : The Cagnola 

 prize of 2,500 lire and a gold medal of 500 lire 

 has been awarded to Signer Angelo Battelli and 

 Signer Annibale Stefanini for their joint paper 

 containing a critical exposition of electric dis- 

 sociation considered principally in regard to 

 the experimental proofs of its deductions. 

 For the Kramer prize, on an essay rela- 

 ting to the use of condensers in the trans- 

 mission of electric energy by alternating cur- 

 rents and their construction for industrial 

 purposes, two competitors entered, and prizes 

 of 2, 500 lire and 1,500 lire respectively have 

 been awarded to Professor Luigi Lombardi, of 

 Turin, and Signer Giovanni Battista Folco, 



