August 15, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



227 



the air are based. He has also invented im- 

 portant instruments for measuring and auto- 

 matically recording rainfall, snowfall, sun- 

 shine, atmospheric pressure, evaporation, etc. 

 He has made extensive studies in, and written 

 on, the use of kites for ascertaining meteoro- 

 logical conditions in the free air, the registra- 

 tion of earthquakes, the measurement of evapo- 

 ration, solar radiation, etc. He was detailed 

 for special purposes to the Cotton States and 

 International Exposition at Atlanta in 1895, 

 to the Tennessee Centennial Exposition at 

 Nashville in 1897, and to the Jamestown Ex- 

 position in 1907. In Eebruary, 1900, he was 

 appointed a representative of the Department 

 of Agriculture at the Meteorological Congress 

 held in connection with the International Ex- 

 position at Paris. For some time he has been 

 in charge of the instrument division of the 

 Weather Bureau, an important branch of the 

 department. 



The British secretary of state for the colo- 

 nies has nominated a committee to report: (1) 

 Upon the present knowledge available on the 

 questions of the parts played by wild animals 

 and tsetse flies in Africa in the maintenance 

 and spread of trypanosome infections of man 

 and stock. (2) Whether it is necessary and 

 feasible to carry out an experiment of game 

 destruction in a localized area in order to gain 

 further knowledge on these questions, and, if 

 so, to decide the locality, probable cost, and 

 other details of such an experiment, and to 

 provide a scheme for its conduct. (3) Whether 

 it is advisable to attempt the extermination 

 of wild animals, either generally or locally, 

 with a view of checking the trypanosome 

 diseases of man and stock. (4) Whether 

 any other measures should be taken in order 

 to obtain means of controlling these diseases. 

 The committee will be composed as follows: 

 Lord Desart (chairman) ; Mr. E. E. Austen, 

 British Museum (Natural History) ; Dr. A. G. 

 Bagshawe, Director of the Tropical Diseases 

 Bureau; Dr. Andrew Balfour, late director of 

 the Wellcome Research Laboratories, Gordon 

 College, Khartum; Sir John Eose Bradford, 

 secretary of the Royal Society; Mr. E. North 

 Buxton; Dr. W. A. Chappie, M.P.; Sir Mac- 



kenzie D. Chalmers; Lieutenant-Colonel Sir 

 W. B. Leishman, professor of pathology, Royal 

 Army Medical College ; Sir Edmund G. Loder, 

 vice-president of the Zoological Society; Dr. 

 C. J. Martin, F.R.S., director of the Lister 

 Institute of Preventive Medicine ; Mr. J. Dun- 

 can Millar, M.P. ; Dr. P. Chalmers Mitchell, 

 secretary of the Zoological Society; Professor 

 R. Newstead, Liverpool University; Mr. H. J. 

 Read, of the Colonial Office ; the Hon. L. Wal- 

 ter Rothschild; Sir Stewart Stockman, chief 

 veterinary oifice, Board of Agriculture and 

 Fisheries; Mr. A. C. C. Parkinson, of the 

 Colonial Ofiice, will act as secretary. 



The production of coal in 1912 reached the 

 great total of 534,466,580 short tons, valued at 

 the mines at $695,606,071, according to a state- 

 ment by Edward W. Parker, coal statistician, 

 just issued by the United States Geological 

 Survey. This year the report on the coal in- 

 dustry of the United States begins the fourth 

 decade in which coal statistics have been pub- 

 lished annually by the Geological Survey. In 

 1882, the first year of this period, the total coal 

 production of the United States had reached 

 what was then considered about high-water 

 mark— 103,551,189 short tons. In 1912 the 

 production of bituminous coal alone in the 

 state of Pennsylvania exceeded that figure by 

 nearly 60 per cent, and the combined produc- 

 tion of bituminous coal and anthracite in 

 Pennsylvania in 1912 was two and one quarter 

 times the total production of the United States 

 in 1882. The total coal production of the 

 United States in 1912 was more than five times 

 that of 1882. In 1882 the United States was a 

 poor second among the coal-producing coun- 

 tries of the world. Great Britain having an 

 output exceeding that of this country by nearly 

 70 per cent. The United States supplanted 

 Great Britain as the premier coal-producing 

 country in 1899, and in 1912 it was as far 

 ahead of Great Britain as that country was 

 ahead of the United States in 1882. The 

 United States at present is contributing 40 

 per cent, of the world's supply of coal and is 

 consuming over 99 per cent, of its own produc- 

 tion. In 1912 the production of coal in the 

 United States not only surpassed all previous 



