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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 359. 



Board of Trade has dealt with the simple 

 standards of weight, capacity and length, 

 but in other countries national standardiz- 

 ing laboratories have been provided. At 

 last, through the exertion of the council of 

 the Eoyal Society, the British Government 

 has been moved to give a grant in aid and 

 to cooperate with the Royal Society to es- 

 tablish a National Physical Laboratory. 

 The vote of thanks to Col. Crompton for 

 his address was moved by Sir Alexander 

 Binnie and seconded by Sir Frederick 

 Bramwell. 



Mr. D, H. Morton, M.Inst.C.E., spoke 

 on 'The Mechanical Exhibits of the Glas- 

 gow Exhibition,' which he said were, in 

 general, disappointing, because in many 

 departments the international character to 

 which the Exhibition, as a whole, laid 

 claim, was entirely wanting ; because some 

 of the most important developments in 

 recent years were illustrated inadequately 

 or not at all, and because the Exhibition 

 failed to give any full idea of the magnitude 

 and the variety of those enterprises which 

 have made the city of Glasgow, with its sur- 

 roundings within a radius of thirty miles, 

 one of the world's great centers in metal- 

 lurg}^ mechanical engineering and ship- 

 building. The collection of ship models 

 historical and contemporary, was probably 

 the finest demonstration of Clyde naval 

 architecture ever seen, although marine en- 

 gineering was so inadequately represented 

 elsewhere. Nevertheless, the dominant Ex- 

 hibits were the trophies in steel, and the ex- 

 hibition might, indeed, be said to mark the 

 triumph of steel, and particularly of cast 

 steel. Mr, John R. Wigham explained a 

 method of employing petroleum as an ilium - 

 inant for beacons and buoys, to give a con- 

 tinuous light for a month or longer without 

 any attention whatever. He exhibited also 

 a ' New Scintillating Lighthouse Light,' by 

 which the sailor was not deprived of the 

 benefit of the powerful flash of the revolving 



lense, and yet did not have to pick it up at 

 intervals, for this light is continually vis- 

 ible, the lenses being so placed with regard 

 to each other and so revolved that the im- 

 pression of the flash of one beam remains on 

 the retina of the observer's eye till that of 

 the succeeding beam takes its place, the 

 practical effect produced being a continu- 

 ously visible scintillating light. Mr. J. E. 

 Petavel described a recording manometer for 

 high-pressure gas explosions, in which elas- 

 tic compression of metal replaces the spring 

 of the ordinary indicator, a movement of a 

 thousandth of an inch, corresponding to a 

 pressure of 1,200 pounds per square inch, 

 being shown by a ray of light deflected 

 on to a recording cylinder. On the follow- 

 ing day Mr. Norman D. MacDonald, of 

 Edinburgh, read a comprehensive and inter- 

 esting paper on ' Railway Rolling Stock, 

 Present and Future.' Outside Great Brit- 

 ain it appeared settled that the compound 

 locomotive would be the engine of the fu- 

 ture. The boiler pressures, both in Amer- 

 ica and on the Continent, are much higher 

 than in England, and for English roads the 

 American type of engine, with equalizing 

 levers and water-tube grate, offered advan- 

 tages. In the discussion of the paper the 

 progressive character of railway engineer- 

 ing in the United States was attributed to 

 the attention paid by American universities 

 to the testing of locomotives, and also to the 

 good work done by the various railway clubs 

 in spreading the knowledge of locomotive 

 practice among young engineers. Mr. P. 

 Bunau-Varilla, formerly engineer-in-chief 

 of the Panama Canal, spoke on the relative 

 advantages of the Nicaraguan and Pan- 

 ama routes for a canal from the Atlan- 

 tic to the Pacific, favoring the latter on 

 account of the masonry dam, which, with 

 the locks, must be built and maintained in 

 a country subject to frequent earthquakes, 

 if the former be chosen. Moreover, ships 

 would there encounter violent gales, strong 



