November 1, 1901.] 



SCIENCE, 



703 



rally facilitate matters and aid them in making 

 a successful meeting when the British Associa- 

 tion came there. Their primary object would 

 be to found an association as far as it was practi- 

 cally possible on the lines of the British Asso- 

 ciation. The formation of the association having 

 been decided upon by formal vote, the title was 

 discussed, ' South African ' being carried by 31 

 votes against 19 for 'African.' 



The Spanish minister of education has or- 

 dered that hereafter all museums shall be open 

 the year round free, and any one allowed to 

 make copies of photographs. He also requested 

 teachers to take their pupils frequently to the 

 museums. 



A REPORT of the committee of the metric 

 system has been presented to the British Asso- 

 ciation of Chambers of Commerce. The com- 

 mittee has unanimously adopted the following 

 resolutions: "(1) That, after considering vari- 

 ous suggestions, this committee is unanimously 

 of opinion that the chambers should unite in 

 urging upon the government the compulsory 

 adoption of the metrical system of weights and 

 measures, leaving matters of detail to be con- 

 sidered later. (2) That the committee is unani- 

 mously of opinion that a British decimal system 

 of coinage must be on the basis of retaining the 

 sovereign, with the florin as a unit, divided into 

 a hundred cents or farthings. (3) The com- 

 mittee recommends that there should be nickel 

 coins of five and ten cents, and bronze coins of 

 one, two and four cents or farthings." 



The greatest steamship of the time, the 

 Celtic of the White Star Line, has made her 

 * maiden ' passage across the Atlantic and back, 

 and her first record — 8 days, 9 hours, 46 min- 

 utes running time, excluding the time lost by 

 fog, which happened to be in this case 15 hours. 

 This is, for the present at least, the largest 

 steamship in the world. The Oceanic of the 

 same line is five and a half feet longer but of 

 less beam and tonnage. The Celtic is 700 feet 

 'over all,' of 75 feet beam and 49 feet depth, 

 measuring 20,880 tons. The Great Eastern, for 

 a half century the largest ship on the lists of 

 the fleets of the world, was 680 by 84 by 48 

 feet, registering, gross, 18,000 tons. The Celtic 

 is the first ship to exceed that, at the time. 



wonder of the world, largely the basis of 

 the fame of Brunei and Russell. The total 

 weight— the 'displacement' — of the new ship," 

 at maximum computed draft, 36 feet 6 inches, 

 would be nearly 38,000 tons, as compared with 

 about 32,000 tons for the Oreat^ Eastern. The 

 largest naval vessels are of about one-half this 

 last weight. The Campania registers about 

 13,000 tons, the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse 

 17,000, the Deutschland 16,500 and the Oceanic 

 17,250. The engines are of the quadruple-expan- 

 sion type, 33, 47.5, 68.5 and 98 inches diameter 

 of cylinders and 5 feet piston-stroke. Steam- 

 pressure is carried at 210 pounds per square 

 inch by gauge, and is produced by 8 double- 

 ended 'Scotch' boilers, each 15.5 by 19.5 feet. 

 The two smokestacks are each 14 feet in diam- 

 eter. The ship has capacity for 2,700 passen- 

 gers or more and for 12,000 tons weight of 

 merchandise. The cost of this ship was $2,500, 

 000. The builders were Messrs. Harland and 

 Wolff. 



A Reuter telegram reports that the Liverpool 

 School of Tropical Medicine has now completed 

 the necessary arrangements for the dispatch of 

 an expedition at once to the Gold Coast, and to 

 the mining districts there. The school has 

 secured the services as leader of this expedition 

 of Dr. Charles Balfour Stewart, who will sail 

 for West Africa this month. He will proceed 

 first to Sierra Leone in order to study the 

 methods now being employed there by Dr. 

 Logan Taylor. After leaving Freetown, Dr. 

 Stewart will proceed at once to Cape Coast 

 Castle to attack the insanitary conditions there, 

 as the mortality amongst the Europeans in that 

 town is at present most serious. He will 

 employ workmen for draining the ground 

 and clearing the houses of broken water 

 vessels and otherwise attacking the breed- 

 ing-grounds of the mosquitoes. The expedi- 

 tion has been rendered possible owing to the 

 generosity of a private individual who desires 

 to remain anonymous. Anti-malarial opera- 

 tions will shortly be in full swing in Gambia, 

 Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast and Lagos, the 

 operations in the three first-named colonies be- 

 ing organized by and under the complete con- 

 trol of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medi- 

 cine. Dr. Stewart received his] professional 



