November 18, 1898.] 



SCIENCE, 



705 



are now extensively used hy the Post Office. 

 As a member of the committee instituted in 

 1869 by the government, in consequence of the 

 numerous failures of submarine enterprises, to 

 inquire into the question generally, he was of 

 great assistance to the cause of oceanic teleg- 

 raphy, and, in addition to the help he was able 

 to give the committee as au ordinary witness, 

 put in a valuable supplementary report on the 

 determinations of the laws of electric currents 

 in submarine cables, which embodied the results 

 of his own practical experience and experimen- 

 tal work. In 1860 he entered into partnership 

 with Sir Charles Bright, and many of the cable 

 enterprises carried out during the ensuing ten 

 years were under their supervision as consult- 

 ing engineers. A joint paper by them, con- 

 tributed to the British Association in 1861, was 

 the means of putting electrical measurement 

 on a firm basis. After it had been read. Sir 

 William Thomson, now Lord Kelvin, obtained 

 the appointment of a committee to devise a 

 national system of electrical units, and the re- 

 sult of its labors was the absolute system now 

 in universal use, the terms volt, ampere, ohm, 

 etc., being adopted according to suggestions 

 made in Bright and Clark's paper. The ' Ele- 

 mentary Treatise on Electrical Measurement,' 

 which has become a standard work, appeared 

 in 1868, and a few years later Mr. Clark, in 

 conjunction with Mr. R. Sabine, published 

 'Electrical Tables and Formulae.' In 1873 he 

 described the Clark standard voltaic cell, which 

 has proved of great value in promoting accu- 

 rate measurements of electrical potentials. 



The plan of appointing a commission to 

 study questions relating to the Colonial Botan- 

 ical Gardens and Experimental Stations of 

 France, which we noted last week, has been 

 carried into effect, and its scope has been ex- 

 tended to include gardens in France. M. Milne- 

 Edwai'ds, Director of the Paris Museum of 

 Natural History, has been appointed President 

 of the Commission. 



The general committee appointed to com- 

 memorate the thousandth anniversary of the 

 death of Alfred the Great have resolved, ' ' That 

 the national memorial decided on at the Man- 

 sion-house meeting of March 18th shall be at 



Winchester and consist of a statue of King 

 Alfred, together with a hall to be used as a 

 museum of early English history." It was esti- 

 mated that £30,000 would be required for this 

 purpose. 



The United States Civil Service Commission 

 announces that it has received information from 

 the War Department that the necessity for the 

 employment of electrical engineers at New 

 York City and Fort Caswell has practically 

 ceased for the present, and the Commission, 

 therefore, has canceled the examination an- 

 nounced to be held on December 6, 1898. 

 Hereafter the subject of electrical engineering 

 will be an optional subject in junior civil en- 

 gineer examinations for the Engineer Depart- 

 ment at Large (War Department), so that per- 

 sons qualified as electrical engineers may have 

 an opportunity to have their qualifications 

 tested. The junior civil engineer examination 

 will be given next spring. Applications and 

 information in regard thereto may be obtained 

 after January 15, 1899. 



The position of seed-testing clerk. Division of 

 Botany, Department of Agriculture, will be filled 

 by a civil service examination on December 

 6th. The chief subject of examination will be 

 practical questions and trials in seed-testing, 

 but the examination will also include structural 

 botany and translations from scientific botanical 

 German into English. 



The International Geodetic Conference met 

 at Stuttgart on October 3d for the first time 

 since its reorganization at Berlin in 1895. Fif- 

 teen States of the twenty-two belonging to the 

 Association were represented by otflcial dele- 

 gates. Probably the most important work ac- 

 complished was a- : ?nging for the erection and 

 conduct of six stations for the systematic study 

 of variations of latitude. These stations will 

 be at Cincinnati, Dover and Ukiah (Cal.), in 

 the United States ; Mizusawa, in Japan ; 

 Tschardjoui, in Central Asia, and Carloforte, 

 in Sicily. 



FOXJB further congresses have arranged meet- 

 ings in connection with the Paris Exposition of 

 1900 : A congress on railways, a congress on 

 navigation, a congress on the strength of 

 materials and a congress on appliances for 



