August 19, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



221 



(3) The aquaria in the tank house are intended 

 for experiments in fish hatching and fish rear- 

 ing, and it is only by express permission of the 

 Director or the Resident Assistant that that they 

 may be used for private investigations. (4) 

 Laboratory accommodation and lodging in the 

 house are given free of charge to those duly 

 qualified workers or students whose applica- 

 tions have been accepted, and who have been 

 assigned a place in the Laboratory. Meals are 

 provided for those working in the Hatchery at 

 at a fixed charge. (5) The Resident Assistant 

 will be ready to give assistance to workers at 

 the Hatchery, and to provide them with ma- 

 terial for their investigations so far as it does 

 not interfere with his routine duties and his 

 ' fisheries ' work. (6) All dishes, jars, bottles, 

 tubes and other vessels in the Laboratory may 

 be used freely, but must not be taken away 

 from the Laboratory. If any workers desire to 

 make, preserve and take away collections of 

 marine animals and plants they must provide 

 their own bottles and preservatives for the pur- 

 pose. (7) The fish and other specimens in the 

 tank room are the property of the institution 

 and must not be used or disturbed by workers 

 in the Laboratory. (8) Each worker in the 

 Laboratory is required to send a short account 

 of his work done at the institution, and of the 

 results he has attained, to the Director befoi-e 

 the 1st of December (at latest), in order that it 

 may be entered in the Annual Report to the 

 Sea-Fisheries Committee. 



At the summer meeting of the British Insti- 

 tution of Mechanical Engineers, which com- 

 menced at Derby on July 26th, Mr. E. Ristori 

 read a paper on aluminum manufacture, with a 

 description of the rolling mills at Milton, Staf- 

 fordshire. According to the report in the Lon- 

 don Times, the writer of the paper stated that 

 at the Belfast meeting in 1896 a paper was read 

 which fully described the method adopted for 

 the preparation of pure alumina (oxide of 

 aluminium) from bauxite. Since that time the 

 British Aluminium Company had enlarged their 

 works at Larne, and great improvements had 

 been introduced into the process of manufacture. 

 The finished product was a very finely divided 

 powder, and in order to ship it to Foyers it had 

 been found advisable to pack the alumina in 



hermetically-sealed steel drums. The oxide 

 was reduced by the Heroult process and the 

 metal run out of the electrolytic baths into in- 

 got moulds. In this form the aluminium was 

 quite pure enough for certain purposes, and 

 much of it was therefore sold without further 

 treatment; but it was not suitable for the pro- 

 duction of tubes, rods, etc. The crude ingots 

 were therefore sent to Milton, where they were 

 refined until the metal attained a purity of 

 99.6 per cent. With certain limitations im- 

 posed by the chemical and physical pecu- 

 liarities of the material, aluminium could be 

 worked much like the other industrial metals 

 handled at the present day. Aluminium could 

 be forged hot or cold, and, in comparison with 

 other metals, it ranked third in order for mal- 

 leability and sixth for ductility. Sheets had 

 been hammered as thin as one forty-thousandth 

 of an inch. In turning the edge of the tool soon 

 became blunt, and the cutting speed should be 

 high. In its purest form aluminium was very 

 soft, and not of great service in those arts 

 in which much rigidity and strength were 

 required. One casting alloy having a specific 

 gravity of 2.9 was largely used just now, and 

 its composition was still kept secret. It had 

 been found to produce remarkably clean cast- • 

 ings which required very little machining to 

 finish up, and it took a high polish. Another 

 alloy contained nothing but aluminium and a 

 small proportion of copper, but it was not one 

 of the materials generally recommended. The 

 two alloys particularly recommended as among 

 the best yet made were both ternary alloys, 

 and next to the aluminium tungsten was the 

 leading ingredient in each. In one of them 

 copper was present to a small extent, and in 

 the other nickel, and both had given astonish- 

 ing results as regards strength and elongation. 

 Samples of rolled sheets or rods made of these 

 alloys had shown as much as 20 to 22 tons ten- 

 sile strength per square inch, with 5 to 10 per 

 cent, elongation in four inches. Aluminium 

 bronzes were undoubtedly superior in strength 

 and they were especially suitable for marine 

 engineering. The writer gave a great many 

 illustrations of the uses of aluminium, and, 

 speaking broadly, he said that the metal 

 or one of its light alloys should, to a large 



