128 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Feb. 10, I S 



Grange Road, Jarrow, caught a conveyance in which 

 •were three men. The horse and carriage were thrown 

 down by the violence of the wind, one passenger was 

 carried for about 150 yards, the other was thrown against 

 someiron railings, to which he clung, and the driver was 

 blown against a door in Gray-street. The seat of the 

 conveyance was found in Perry-street, and the rug in 

 Boddle-street, some 250 yards away. The storm lasted 

 about a minute. 



The Extirpation of Rabbits. — It appears that M. 

 Pasteur's proposed plan for combating the rabbit plague 

 in Australia has been tried experimentally with complete 

 success. An enclosed field near Rheims was selected, 

 which was full of burrows, and where guns and ferrets 

 had been employed in vain. M. Loir, a nephew of M. 

 Pasteur, poured upon a truss of hay some broth con- 

 taining a " cultivation " of the micro-organism of poultry- 

 cholera. The next day nineteen dead rabbits were 

 found, and twelve more a day or two later. Whole 

 families of dead rabbits were found in some of the bur- 

 rows, and not a living rabbit has since been seen. 



New Textile M.^terials. — According to the Horti- 

 cultural Times, the position so long occupied by some of 

 our well-known textile plants, such as hemp, flax, cotton, 

 etc., as well as by silk and wool, is now dangerously 

 threatened by such new materials as are furnished by 

 abaca, aloe, ramie, pineapple, and rheea. The danger 

 to silk production — a process difficult in itself, and de- 

 pendent on a delicate insect — may be estimated when 

 pitted against a plant which can be cultivated with ease, 

 which grows abundantly in tropical zones, and more 

 especially in Cuba and the Philippines. Rheea, in like 

 manner, is challenging wool, and ramie throws down the 

 gauntlet to cotton. 



Mr. Edison on the Labour Question. — The cele- 

 brated electrician, being interviewed by a newspaper re- 

 porter, expressed the opinion that the labour question 

 would be ultimately solved by mechanical inventions. 

 He considered that when motive power has become four 

 times as cheap as it is the labouring man will be en- 

 riched by it. A hand-worker can, he said, buy four 

 times as much with ten hours of work as his father could 

 fifty years ago. In another generation, he believes that 

 the unskilled labourer, if sober and industrious, can 

 have a house of his own and a horse and carriage (!) 

 and a library and a piano. It is only terrible stupidity 

 that leads some labouring men to suppose that machi- 

 nery is their foe. It is the thing that gives them inde- 

 pendence and freedom. 



The Kew Bulletin for 1887. — This periodical bul- 

 letin is devoted to the spread of useful information on 

 the cultivation of economic plants in all parts of the 

 Empire. The director, Mr. W. T. Thiselton Dyer, hopes 

 that it will prove of service to the general public in- 

 terested in agriculture. There are few vegetable pro- 

 ducts of value v>/hich cannot be cultivated as well in 

 some part of the Empire as in their native soil. Hence the 

 Kew Gardens are becoming the central botanical exchange 

 of the Empire. Questions, especially on the cultivation 

 of and trade in fruits, are being sent round to all the 

 Colonies. On the other hand, the Colonies are now 



urged to send in samples of their less-known products, 

 that their possible uses may be ascertained. 



Water Supplv of London. — Professor Bonney recently 

 delivered at Toynbee Hall a lecture on the " Water 

 Supply of London." The lecturer disclaimed any attempt 

 at sensationalism, and declared that according to his 

 experience the water supply of London was about as. 

 good as it well could be. He considered that when con- 

 tamination did occur it was frequently the fault of the 

 consumer. He forgot, however, to add here that when, 

 the supply is constant aiid when cisterns are con- 

 sequently superseded, the consumer cannot contaminate 

 the water. He maintained that a good drinking water 

 should not contain more than 50 grains per gallon of 

 solid matter in solution, and that it should be free from 

 colour, taste and smell. He seemed to favour a double 

 supply system, one for dietetic purposes and the other 

 for street watering, the fire service, etc., though he 

 admitted that this arrangement would be costly. He 

 suggested that ultimately a supply of water would have 

 to be obtained from North Wales. 



Bristol. — Professor Ryan commenced a series ot 

 popular lectures upon the steam engine in the Athenaeum 

 Hall, on the 19th ult. In the first lecture, after dwelling 

 on the importance of the steam engine and its manifold- 

 applications, the lecturer briefly des:ribed certain of the 

 more important properties of steam, illustrating his 

 remarks by several interesting experiments. A minia- 

 ture boiler explosion forcibly exemplified the expansive 

 power of steam, and the collapse of a large tin cube when 

 a partial vacuum was created within it, by the condensa- 

 tion of the contained steam, proved very conclusively 

 the existence of atmospheric pressure. Commencing tO' 

 review the history of his subject. Dr. Ryan exhibited 

 models of some of the early reaction-engines, amongst 

 them a reaction-locomotive, constructed on the plan 

 originally devised by Sir Isaac Newton. From these 

 early types the lecturer traced the gradual development of 

 the steam-engine down to the time of Watt, his descrip- 

 tion of the various improvements wrought by successive 

 inventors being assisted by limelight illustrations. 



Perpetual Motion. — Professor Hele Shaw, of Uni- 

 versity College, has recently delivered, in St. George's 

 Hall, Liverpool, a lecture on this ancient but still surviv- 

 ing delusion. It was first proposed, he tells us, in the 

 " Siddhanta Ciromani," a Sanskrit work on astronomy, 

 and was entertained in the thirteenth century by 

 De Honecourt, subsequently by Leonardo da Vinci, Dr. 

 Dirks, Schott, and others. A machine contrived by a 

 Linlithgow shoemaker actually imposed for a time upon 

 Sir David Brewster. Professor Shaw points out that the 

 various perpetual-motion machines have all been openly 

 unsuccessful or fraudulent. Still, during the last twenty 

 years, more than ico patents for perpetual-motion 

 machines have been taken out in England and France. 

 The speaker then went on to show that perpetual motion 

 involves the impossibility of creating or destroying 

 energy at will. Friction cannot be avoided, and it is 

 well for us that it cannot. Professor Hele Shaw then went 

 on to show that even the motion of the heavenly bodies 

 is not perpetual unless, indeed, as Siemens and others 

 have conjectured, the energy which is now dissipating 

 itself over the expanse of the universe is in some 

 unknown manner again collected together. 



