222 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. YIII. No. 190. 



extent, replace copper, tin and nickel. Its 

 use in shipbuilding was growing rapidly. 



The report has been issued as a Parliamentary 

 paper of a visit of inspection made to French 

 matohworks at Aubervilliers, Pantin and Mar- 

 seilles during June by Dr. Thomas Oliver, of 

 Newcastle, one of the experts appointed by the 

 Home Secretary to inquire into the matter of 

 lead poisoning in the potteries and also into the 

 dangers incidental to Inciter match making. 

 The following are Dr. Oliver's general im- 

 pressions and deductions : (1) Until recently the 

 match-makers in certain of the French factories 

 suffered severely from phosphorus poisoning ; 

 that at the present time there is apparently a 

 reduction in the severer forms of the illness. (2) 

 That the reduction in the amount of illness is 

 attributable to greater care exercised in the 

 selection of the workpeople ; raising the age of 

 their admission into the factory ; medical ex- 

 amination on entrance ; subsequent close super- 

 vision ; repeated dental examination ; personal 

 cleanliness on the part of the workers ; early 

 suspension on the appearance of symptoms of 

 ill-health ; improved methods of manufacture. 

 (3) That the French government, aware of the 

 dangers of match-making, is furthering, by all 

 possible means, new methods of manufacture, 

 and, with this object in view, retains in its ser- 

 vice chemists and inventors who are continu- 

 ally making experiments. (4) That the gov- 

 ernment has to some extent already succeeded 

 in manufacturing a match capable of striking 

 anywhere, yet free from white phosphorus, but 

 that until now the manufacture of this match is 

 not an industry. 



The Loudon Times gave last year an account 

 of some satisfactory tests carried out on wood 

 which, by a process of American origin, had 

 been rendered incombustible, or, at least, in- 

 capable of sustaining and conveying flame. It 

 now states that the first works in Europe for 

 the application of this process, erected by the 

 British Non-Flammable Wood Company near 

 the Middlesex end of Wandsworth-bridge, were 

 recently opened, when a number of visitors 

 witnessed another practical demonstration of 

 the enormous power to resist fire possessed by 

 ' non-flammable ' wood in comparison with 



ordinary timber. The process may be said, 

 roughly, to consist of removing the natural 

 juices of the wood and replacing them with 

 certain substances which not only make it fire- 

 proof, but also have antiseptic properties that 

 prevent decay. The operation is effected in 

 retorts or cylinders, the largest of which are 

 105 feet long by 7 feet in diameter. The wood 

 having been run in on trollies, the air-tight 

 door is closed and the contents subjected -to 

 heat and the action of a high vacuum. This 

 treatment is continued till the volatile and fer- 

 mentable constituents have been withdrawn, 

 the time required to attain this result varying 

 with the character of the wood. The next 

 step is to fill the cylinder with the fire-proofing 

 solution, the exact composition of which is kept 

 secret, and force it into the wood under hy- 

 draulic pressui-e, the amount of which again 

 differs for diflerent woods, but may reach 150 

 pounds to the square inch or more. When 

 thoroughly impregnated with the salts the 

 timber is taken out of the cylinders, restacked 

 on the trollies, and put into the drying-kiln — a 

 room through which hot air is continuallj'' cir- 

 culated by powerful fans, and which is fitted 

 with apparatus to condense the vapors given 

 off by the wood. Here it remains till it is 

 thoroughly dried— in the case of a load of aver- 

 age thickness about a month. It is then ready 

 for delivery and use. It may be mentioned 

 that the British company claims, as the result 

 of exhaustive experiment, to have improved 

 materially on the original American process by 

 getting rid of certain disadvantages connected 

 with moisture and corrosion. 



A SELECT committee of the House of Com- 

 mons has been appointed to inquire into the 

 working of the telephone service. It appears 

 from testimony given before the committee that, 

 while as a whole Great Britain is in advance of 

 Germany in the use of the telephone, many 

 German cities use the instrument more than 

 cities of the same size in Great Britain. Thus 

 Glasgow, with a population of 656,000, had 

 7,612 telephone instruments; Cologne, with a 

 population of 292,887, had 4,113 instruments; 

 Liverpool, with a population of 860,000, had 

 10,935 instruments ; and Hamburg, with a pop- 

 ulation of 573,792, had 13,561 instruments. 



