274 



SCIENCE. 



LN. S. Vol. V. No. 111. 



return as to street and road tramways during 

 the year ending June 30, 1896, signed by 

 Mr. Francis J. S. Hopwood, is just issued. It 

 shows that the total capital expended in Eng- 

 land and Wales during the year was £11,742,204, 

 as compared with £11,685,355 in the preceding 

 year. The total for the XTnited Kingdom was 

 £15,195,993, against £14,956,343. The length 

 of line open for public trafiic in the United 

 Kingdom was 1,009 miles, an increase of 27 

 miles on the preceding year. While the horses 

 used by the companies increased from 32,273 in 

 1894-95 to 35,621 in the succeeding year, the 

 number of locomotive engines belonging to the 

 companies decreased by two. The engines num- 

 bered 568 in 1895, as compared with 452 in 

 1896 and only 14 in 1878. The total number of 

 passengers carried on the tramways in the 

 United Kingdom during the year was 759,466,- 

 047, against 661,760,461 in the preceding year ; 

 the working expenses £3,105,511, against £2- 

 878,490 ; and the net receipts £1,046,505, 

 against £855,200. There were 37 tramways be- 

 longing to local authorities, with a total mileage 

 of 835 as compared with 116 belonging to other 

 than local authorities with a mileage of 673. 



The Annual General Meeting of the Royal 

 Meteorological Society was held on January 

 20th, Mr. E. Mawley, President, in the chair. 

 The Secretary read the report of the Coun- 

 cil, which showed that the Society had made 

 steady progress during the past year, there 

 being an increase of seventeen in the number 

 of Fellows. The President then delivered an 

 address on 'Shade Temperatui'es,' in whicli 

 he stated that of all meteorological observa- 

 tions there were none approaching in impor- 

 tance those made of the temperature of the 

 air, generally linown as ' Shade Temperature. ' 

 Indeed, the first question invariably aslied in 

 regard to almost any climate was as to its tem- 

 perature. Mr. Mawley traced the history of 

 the different methods of exposing thermometers 

 since the time that regular observations of the 

 weather had been made in this country. For 

 many years open screens were most favored by 

 meteorologists, that devised by Mr. J. Glaisher, 

 F.R.S., and the late Astronomer Royal (Sir G. 

 B. Airy) being the pattern principally used. In 

 1864 Mr. T. Stevenson, C.E., invented an ad- 



mirable form of closed screen with lowered 

 sides, which was considered preferable to the 

 open type of screen, and has now almost en- 

 tirely superseded the Glaisher Stand. In 1883 

 the Stevenson screen was considerably improved 

 by a committee of the Royal Meteorological 

 Society. Mr. Mawley then described his own 

 experiments at Croydon and Berkhamsted, as 

 regards this improved screen, known as the 

 Royal Meteorological Society's pattern. He 

 showed that the only two defects which had 

 been attributed to this form of thermometer 

 exposure were virtually non-existent, and there- 

 fore advised its general adoption both in this 

 country and on the Continent. Mr. Mawley 

 had recently made observations in the Steven- 

 son screen, and also in the screens used in 

 France and Germany, and the conclusion he 

 had come to was that the results obtained in 

 the Stevenson screen were not only the nearest 

 to the true air temperatures, but also more 

 likely to be strictly comparable witli tempera- 

 tures taken in a similar screen but with differ- 

 ent surroundings elsewhere. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 



The will of the late Mrs. Horatio Lyon, of 

 Springfield, Mass., gives, among other public 

 bequests, $10,000 to Monson Academy, $10,000 

 to Pomona College and $10,000 to Menden 

 Free Library. 



Harvard University has received from Mr. 

 J. Howard Nichols $5,000, to be used for the 

 founding of a new . scholarship, preference be- 

 ing given to a student from the State of Ala- 

 bama. 



The will of tho late Charles Willard, of 

 Battle Creek, Mich., leaves $40,000 to the Bap- 

 tist College at Kalamazoo, Mich., and $40,000 

 for a library building for the city schools at 

 Battle Creek, Mich. 



The new physiological and pathological la- 

 boratories of Queen's College, Belfast, were 

 formally declared open on January 19th, and 

 on the following day an address was made by 

 Lord Lister. The building contains two floors 

 about 80x40 feet in size, the lower one being 

 devoted to physiological and the upper to 

 pathological laboratories. 



