August 31, 1900,] 



SCIENCE. 



339 



great trunk line which it was intended to 

 construct in Southern and Central China, 

 and to give some account of the immense 

 mineral wealth which lies there almost un- 

 developed. The paper will be illustrated 

 by many beautiful lantern slides reproduced 

 from photographs. For Saturday there are 

 down two papers, dealing with the great 

 staple industry of Bradford and Yorkshire 

 — textile manufacture. They will describe 

 the more modern methods of mechanical 

 and photo-mechanical designing for textile 

 fabrics, and will be read by Professor 

 Beaumont and Mr. Barker, who are both 

 engaged locally in the technical teaching 

 of textile work. Monday, as usual, will 

 be given up to the electrical engineers. 

 First on the program for the day comes 

 the reading of the final report of the 

 Small Screw Gauge Committee, which has 

 now practically decided which form of 

 thread it will advocate. Mr. A. Mallock 

 will then deliver a paper paper on ' Eesis- 

 tance and Acceleration of Trains — Meas- 

 urement of the Tractive Force,' in which 

 he proposes to give an account of the recent 

 experiments made by him on electric and 

 other railways to determine the accelera- 

 tion, the tractive force, and the running 

 resistance to which trains are subjected. 

 This will be followed by some interesting 

 particulars about the ' Liverpool and Man- 

 chester Electric High Speed Eailway,' 

 contributed by Sir William Preece. Mr. 

 Gibbings will deal with ' The Design and 

 Location of Electric Generating Stations ' 

 on a large scale for supplying electric power 

 and lighting to large districts, and Mr. 

 Barker will describe ' A Maximum Demand 

 Meter,' the joint invention of himself and 

 Professor Ewing. Tuesday, the last day 

 on which the section meets, will begin with 

 a paper by Mr. J. G. W. Aldridge, entitled 

 ' The Automobile for Electric Street Trac- 

 tion.' It is hoped that the cinematograph 

 will be used — for the first time, it is be- 



lieved, at a British Association meeting — - 

 to illustrate this paper, which will deal 

 with an actual service in operation in 

 Paris, and Avill show how, under certain 

 conditions, a tramway service may be or- 

 ganized without the usual tramway lines. 

 Professor Goodman will describe ' A New 

 Form of Corimeter for measuring the Wet- 

 ness of Steam,' which he has himself in- 

 vented. Two other papers are of consider- 

 able importance. In the first, Professor 

 Arnold of Sheffield, will deal with what he 

 terms ' the internal architecture of steel,' 

 and will develop his theories on the ulti- 

 mate molecular structure of steel and the 

 micrographic analysis of steel in physical 

 researches. The second, by Mr. E. K. 

 Clark, of the firm of Messrs. Kitson & 

 Co., will deal, under the title of 'Shop 

 Buildings,' with modern engineering, work- 

 shop buildings, and methods of laying them 

 out and organizing the work in them. 



Professor John Rhys, who will preside 

 over Section H (Anthropology), will prob- 

 ably deal in his address with the early 

 ethnology of the British Isles, approaching 

 the subject from the sides of language and 

 folklore. It is hoped that other contribu- 

 tions to this subject, which are anticipated, 

 may give opportunities of discussing some 

 of the vexed questions which it includes. 

 A discussion is also proposed on the subject 

 of ' Animal-cults : their Eelation to Totem- 

 ism,' which has been variously interpreted of 

 late years ; and on the present state of our 

 knowledge of the origin of writing in the 

 Mediterranean. Mr. Arthur Evans will 

 describe the pictographic system of writing 

 of which he has disinterred numerous 

 specimens at Knossos in Crete ; and Mr. F. 

 Griffith offers a paper on the development 

 of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Dr. Haddon 

 will describe the results of the recent Cam- 

 bridge expedition to Sarawak ; and Mr. 

 David Boyle, of Toronto, has a paper on 

 recent revivals of native religious beliefs 



