June 17, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



831 



poses. On the main floor is a well-selected 

 library of about 4,000 volumes, which, is opera- 

 ted on the open-shelf system. In the rear are 

 reading tables, and on the second floor is a 

 small reference library and a reading room fur- 

 nished with newspapers and magazines. 



Among the books recently sold from the 

 Ashburnham library was a copy of Pliny's 

 ^Historia Naturalis,' lib. xxxvii., printed upon 

 vellum by Jenson at Venice in 1472, for £190. 



The Macmillan Company announce the early 

 publication of a book on 'Animal Intelligence ' 

 by Professor Wesley Mills, of McGill Univer- 

 sity. Dr. F. S. Hofiman, professor of philoso- 

 phy in Union College, has in the press of 

 Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons a work entitled 

 'The Sphere of Science.' 



A RAILWAY to extend entirely across North- 

 ern Sweden and Norway from the north end of 

 the Gulf of Finland, northwest to Ofoten, on 

 the Atlantic about 120 miles north of the Arctic 

 circle, is proposed. The line will be about 300 

 miles long, and will, it is said, be farther north 

 than any part of the new railroad to Archangel. 



At the meeting of the Institute of Civil En- 

 gineers on April 5th, Mr. A. H. Preece gave an 

 account of the present state of electricity supply 

 in London. According to an abstract in Na- 

 ture, Mr. Preece said that there are now in Lon- 

 don eleven important companies and flve ves- 

 tries supplying electricity, and three other com- 

 panies and three vestries are taking steps 

 to start works. Five companies and three 

 vestries supply the alternating current, and the 

 remainder use direct-current systems. The 

 direct-current systems are divisible into two 

 classes — the high-pressure and the low-pres- 

 ■sure. In the former rotary transformers are 

 used to reduce the high pressure to a low pres- 

 sure, while the latter produces and distributes 

 •electricity at the same pressure at which it is 

 ■supplied to consumers. The direct-current sys- 

 tems are applicable to compact areas, and, with 

 the use of high pressure, to scattered or isolated 

 ■compact areas. The chief advantages of the 

 direct-current system are the possibility of 

 using storage-batteries, which can not be em- 

 ployed with the alternating- current systems, 

 greater efliciency in distribution and greater 



adaptability to motive power. The favorite 

 methods of distributing electricity are to trans- 

 mit current at a high pressure in heavily-insu- 

 lated cables in iron pipes, and current at a low 

 pressure in insulated cable in stoneware con- 

 duits, or in cables heavily armoured and laid 

 direct in the ground. Rubber is now little used; 

 paper and jute, impregnated with insulating 

 compounds, having been extensively adopted. 

 The electric-supply industry is rapidly growing, 

 and no less than 40,000 h.p. is now being in- 

 stalled in London in order to meet the demand 

 for electricity in the immediate future. 



From a statement compiled by Statistician 

 Parker, of the United States Geological Survey, 

 it is shown that the total output of coal in the 

 United States in 1897 amounted approximately 

 to 198,250,000 short tons, with an aggregate 

 value of $198,100,000, a fraction less than $1 a 

 ton. Compared with 1896, this shows an in- 

 crease in tonnage of 6,270,000 tons. The in- 

 crease in the value of the product was only $1,- 

 700,000. The amount of coal produced in 1897 

 was the largest on record. The average value 

 a ton was the lowest ever known, continuing the 

 declining tendency which has been shown with- 

 out any reaction. 



Volume VI. oi Mineral Indtistry, now in press, 

 will show that the total value of the min- 

 eral production of the United States in 1897 

 was $746,230,982 (or, excluding duplication, 

 $678,966,644), against $737,958,761 in 1896. 

 The values given are generally at the mines or 

 works ; but with a few of the principal metals, 

 such as lead, copper or zinc, this is not pos- 

 sible, and their values are taken at the leading 

 markets. The total value of the output in 1896 

 exceeded that of the mineral and metal pro- 

 duction of all Continental Europe, and nearly 

 doubled that of the United Kingdom, the value 

 of whose mineral output in 1896 was, in round 

 figures, about $340,000,000, while that of Ger- 

 many was about $800,000,000, that of France 

 about $110,000,000, and that of Belgium $100- 

 000,000. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 

 Me. Philip D. Armour has given an addi- 

 tional endowment fund of $500,000 to the Ar- 



