494 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 300. 



advisability of granting tlie license. The reply 

 of the College was that, while these experi- 

 ments were absolutely necessary to the ad- 

 vance of pharmacology, the granting of such 

 licenses to commercial firms was very unde- 

 sirable. The standardization of antitoxins 

 should be done in a government laboratory 

 into which the question of money-making did 

 not enter. 



The results of measurements of various 

 rivers and the observations of height have been 

 published by the U. S. Geological Survey in a 

 series of Water-Supply Papers, Nos. 35 to 39, 

 inclusive, arbitrary division into five parts 

 being necessary by the requirements of law 

 limiting these papers to 100 pages each. They 

 are as follows : 



No. 35 (Part I.) rivers flowing into the Atlantic 

 Ocean from Maine to Virginia. 



No. 36 (Part II.) rivers flowing into the Atlantic 

 south of Virginia. 



No. 37 (Part III.) rivers flowing from the eastern 

 Rooky Mountain area. 



No. 38 (Part IV.) rivers tributary to the Colorado, 

 the interior basin, and Columbia River. 



No. 39 (Part V.) California streams, and rating 

 tables. 



Application for these papers should be made 

 to Members of Congress, by whom 4000 copies 

 of the 5000 printed are distributed, or to the 

 Director of the U. S. Geological Survey, Wash- 

 ington, D. C. 



In an article in Nature on latitude- variation, 

 earth-magnetism and solar activity Dr. J. 

 Halm summarizes his conclusions as follows : 

 (1) The changes in the motion of the pole of 

 rotation round the pole of figure are in an inti- 

 mate connection with the variations of the 

 earth magnetic forces. (2) Inasmuch as the 

 latter phenomena are in a close relation with 

 the state of solar activity, the motion of the 

 pole is also indirectly dependent on the dynam- 

 ical changes taking place at the sun's surface. 

 (3) The distance between the instantaneous and 

 mean poles decreases with increasing intensity 

 of earth-magnetic disturbance. (4) The length 

 of the period of latitude- variation increases 

 with increasing intensity of earth-magnetic dis- 

 turbance. (5) In strict analogy with the phe- 

 nomena of aurorse and of magnetic disturbance. 



the influence of the eleven-years' period of sun- 

 spots, as well as of the ' great ' period, is clearly 

 exhibited in the phenomenon of latitude-varia- 

 tion ; and the same deviations from the solar 

 curve as are manifested by the aurorae are also 

 evident in the motion of the pole. (6) The 

 half yearly period of the earth-magnetic phe- 

 nomena influences the motion of the pole of 

 rotation in such a way that its path, instead of 

 being circular, assumes the form of an ellipse, 

 having the mean pole at its center. (7) The 

 half-yearly period also explains the conspicuous 

 fact of a rotation of the axes of the ellipse in a 

 direction opposite to that of the motion of the 

 pole. 



Judge Townsend in the U. S. Circuit Court 

 for the District of Connecticut has handed down 

 a decision sustaining Mr. Tesla's patents for the 

 rotating magnetic field, but the case will doubt- 

 less be appealed to the Supreme Court. The 

 learned judge described the progress of electrical 

 knowledge as follows : " The search lights shed 

 by defendant's exhibits upon the history of this 

 art only serve to illumine the inventive concep- 

 tion of Tesla. The Arago rotation taught the 

 schoolboy fifty years ago to make a plaything 

 which embodied the principle that a ' rotating 

 field could be used to rotate an armature.' 

 Baily dreamed of the application of the Arago 

 theory by means of a confessedly impossible con- 

 struction. Deprez worked out a problem which 

 involved the development of the general theory 

 in providing an indicator for a ship's compass. 

 Siemens failed to disclose the ' suitable modifi- 

 cation ' whereby his electric light machine 

 might be transferred into a motor, and Bradley 

 is almost equally vague. Eminent electricians 

 united in the view that by reason of reversals 

 of direction and rapidity of alternations an al- 

 ternating current motor was impracticable, and 

 the future belonged to the commutated con- 

 tinuous current. It remained to the genius of 

 Tesla to capture the unruly, unrestrained and 

 hitherto opposing elements in the field of na- 

 ture and art and to harness them to draw the 

 machines of man. It was he who first showed 

 how to transform the toy of Arago into an en- 

 gine of power ; the ' laboratory experiment ' of 

 Baily into a practically successful motor ; the 

 indicator into a driver : he first conceived the 



