September 3, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



217 



of the total resistance due the load. As the result 

 of some experiments, " it is found that the friction 

 of the high-speed non-condensing engine, such as 

 is used in electric lighting, is, under standard con- 

 ditions, practically constant at all loads, but is 

 variable both with speed of engine, and with 

 steam pressure.'' 



Dr. Thurston exhibited a photograph, and de- 

 scribed the great dynamo recently designed by Mr. 

 C. F. Brush, for the Cowles electrical smelting and 

 aluminium company of Cleveland, Ohio, and 

 Lockport, N. Y. 



Two papers were read on civil engineering sub- 

 jects, one with reference to the improvement of 

 harbor and river channels, by Prof. Lewis M. Havipt, 

 and the other upon the difficulties met with in the 

 Panama canal, and the rights which France will 

 be disposed to assume in that connection. 



Professor Haupt mamtained that all structures 

 of any considerable magnitude and weight, intend- 

 ed to regulate currents, and wliich rested on, or 

 depended upon, sandy or alluvial bottoms for their 

 support, violated to a greater or less extent the 

 fundamental requkements that they should not 

 oppose the ingress of the tide, nor injuriously 

 modify the currents ; also that dikes or jetties were 

 to a great extent below the zero plane or plane of 

 action of waves of translation, and were dependent 

 for their strength upon their mass, and that this 

 was frequently composed of individual fragments 

 of small dimensions, not cemented. It was stated 

 that all such constructions occupy a large volume, 

 produce great pressure and leverage, are wasteful 

 of time and materials, result in serious modifica- 

 tion in the regimen of rivers or harbors, are un- 

 necessarily expensive, and if improperly located, 

 they cannot be readily changed. In contrast with 

 this, the professor then suggested a solution, con- 

 sisting of a floating system of deflectors intended 

 to be attached to buoys or floats, and anchored to 

 heavy moorings, composed of ground chains, held 

 in place by screw discs sunk considerably below the 

 bottom, and proceeded to describe his system. 



As a set-off to the papers of more certain value, 

 and perhaps for purposes of recreation, the section 

 listened to a paper detailing observations and 

 experiments, mixed up with some remarkable 

 theories upon the flight of birds, and the serious 

 business of the meeting being over, a last session 

 was devoted to a continuance of the discussion 

 thereon. A letter to the following effect received 

 from a meraber explains to some extent this action 

 of the section : "In order that this investigation 

 may not be dropped, you may announce that if 

 the gentleman will successfully reproduce before 

 the section the experiments for which he vouches, 

 i.e., if his apparatus, without moving mechanism 



or outside assistance, supports itself in still air, and 

 moves against a current of air without falling, I 

 will give fifty dollars as a prize for the best paper 

 on the subject, at the next meeting." 



An extract from the abstract furnished will also 

 explain to a sufficient extent, for any one ac- 

 quainted with the laws of mechanics, the supposed 

 peculiar action of gravity in favor of soaring birds. 

 According to the abstract, ' explanations of soaring 

 flight ' have been failures, and the ' gravity of the 

 bird's mass ' must be resolved ' by the plane of the 

 wings under the law of fluid pressures, and 

 Newton's third law of motion,' in consequence of 

 which ' artificial birds or effigies ' * will imitate the 

 soaring birds,' and 'move against the wind in- 

 definitely ! ' The abstract concludes with some- 

 thing like a new law in mechanics : " The gravitat- 

 ing force is a continuous motive power when 

 forcing a properly constructed plane to work on 

 air in a certain definite manner, of which the 

 soaring birds are examples." We have often 

 brooded, in that part of our imagination devoted 

 to the figures of mathematics and plus and minus 

 quantities, over the iileasure it would afford to 

 physicists, and ordinary people, could some way be 

 found of changing at will the algebraic sign of 

 gravity or producing negative mass, so that a body 

 might fall upward, but we were scarcely i^repared 

 to hear that it could be accomplished by so simple 

 a device as a bird's wing, rough in one direction 

 and smooth in the other, — but the section no 

 doubt needed recreation. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTION OF ECO- 

 NOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 



The programme of this section was popular and 

 varied, as usual, for, besides contributions strictly 

 statistical and bearing upon social and political 

 economics, it is customary to refer to the section 

 all papers which are philosophic rather than tech- 

 nically scientific, or which, although based upon 

 sound science, are in an especially popular form. 

 The casual visitor, after being wearied, puzzled, 

 and confounded in the rooms of the other sections, 

 usually finds in this one something interesting and 

 instructive, and its audiences are largely local in 

 character. The Buffalo sessions have been no 

 exception to the rule. The meetings of this sec- 

 tion have been well attended, and while the stand- 

 ard of the papers read has been hardly equal to 

 that of last year, when Mr. Atkinson so well led 

 the way, the average has been good, and the sec- 

 tion has been comparatively free from the attacks 

 of socialistic and economic cranks, to which it is 

 especially subject. 



Following appropriately the address of Vice- 



