November 13, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



429 



At the meeting of the association the prizes 

 offered by Mr. Henry Lomb of Eochester, for the 

 best essays on subjects of sanitary importance 

 {Science, v. 80), will be awarded. 



— Wilham Benjamin Carpenter, the eminent 

 English physiologist, died in London, November 

 10, from the effects of terrible burns caused by 

 the upsetting of a lamp while he was taking a 

 vapor bath for rheumatism. Dr. Carpenter was 

 boiTi at Bristol in 1813. 



— Among recent deaths we note the following : 

 Dr. Wm. A. Guy, at London, in his seventy-sixth 

 year ; Jean Claude Bouquet, mathematician, at 

 Paris, in his sixty-seventh year ; Dr. ]Max Sage- 

 mehl, in Amsterdam, August 2 ; Professor Hjal- 

 mar Holmgren, mathematician, Stockholm ; Er- 

 nest Dubrueil, founder and publisher of the 

 Hevue des sciences natiirelles, at MontpelUer, May 

 14, in his fifty-sixth year ; Dr. J. Baeyer, president 

 of the Royal Prussian geodetic institute, at Berliu, 

 September 11, in. his ninety-first year. 



LONDON LETTER. 



The inauguration of the first practical ' telpher 

 line ' seems to have passed into history without 

 adequate notice, though it is, in fact, the com- 

 mencement of a new means of transportation 

 which wil Iprobably develop into an important 

 feature of industrial, if not of social, life. It is 

 not intended to compete with railways, but to do 

 cheaply the work of horses and carts, since by its 

 means mineral or agricultural produce of any kind 

 may be conveyed over considerable distances in 

 large quantities at a comparatively small cost, 

 and up and down steep inclines, without the need 

 of constructing a road. The term ' telpher ' is a 

 legitimate, or at least convenient, abbreviation of 

 a Greek compound word signifying ' carrying 

 afar,' and a telpher line may be briefly described 

 as an aerial light railway, driven electrically. 

 The svstem is the invention of the late Prof. Fleem- 

 Ing Jenkin, F. R. S., and it has been severely 

 tested for some months on a large experimental 

 scale. Prof. Jenkin did not live to see the first 

 practical line completed, and the final arrange- 

 ments were worked out by Prof. Perry, the 

 engineer to the Telpherage company. The line 

 now under consideration is constructed at Glynde, 

 on the Sussex estate of Lord Hampden, late speaker 

 of the house of commons, and conveys clay from 

 a clay-pit to a railway siding. It was opened on 

 October 19. It consists of steel bars, f of an inch in 

 diameter and 66 feet long, supported 18 feet above 

 ground on J-shaped posts about one chain apart. 

 Two lines of way, an up and a down line (one 



bar sufficing for each), are supported 8 feet apart 

 on the cross-head of the J, the general appearance 

 of the whole being not unlike gigantic telegraph 

 posts and wires. The carriers, or ' skips ' as they 

 are technically termed, are iron trough-shaped 

 buckets, each holding about 2 cwt., and suspended 

 from the line by a light ircn frame, at the upper 

 end of which is a pair of grooved wheels, running 

 along the line of rods. A train is made up of ten 

 of these, the electric motor being in the centre. 

 An automatic block system is provided, so that as 

 many as twenty trains can be run on the line at 

 once without possibility of collision. Moreover, 

 an electric governor has been devised, so that the 

 trains run at the same speed both on rising and 

 falling gradients, even when the incline is 1 in 8. 

 The initial source of power is a Ruston & Proctor 

 engine, controlled by a Williams electric gov- 

 ernor ; this drives a Crompton 6 ' unit ' shunt- 

 wound dynamo. The maximum difference of 

 potential is 190 volts, and the current for one train 

 is 8 amperes. The Reckenzann motors run in 

 parallel arc, and the resistance of each is large 

 compared with that of the rods used to support 

 the train and convey the current. The uniform 

 speed is about four miles per hour, and it is claimed 

 that material can be conveyed at a cost varying 

 from 4 to 15 cents per ton per mile. A friend of 

 the present writer has proposed to the Telpherage 

 company to lay down a line in Trinidad, to bring 

 material to the coast, the conveyance of w^hich on 

 muleback at present costs nearly $2 per ton. 



The death of Dr. Thomas Davidson will be 

 severely felt at Brighton, where he had resided for 

 some years past, as he was accustomed to devote 

 a considerable amount of time and trouble to the 

 arrangement of the geological and zoological col- 

 lections in the town museum. 



The beginning of the academical year at Oxford 

 has been signalized by the opening of the new 

 physiological laboratories, at the back of the 

 university museum. The anti-vivisectionist party, 

 in convocation, headed by some prominent resi- 

 dent members of the university, have made two 

 determined attempts to prevent Professor Biu-don 

 Sanderson from teaching physiology as it should 

 be taught ; but, fortunately for science, then- ef- 

 forts have been unsuccessful, and another gTeat 

 step has been made towards improving the medical 

 school of the university. 



On Nov. 9 the International inventions exhibi- 

 tion wiU be closed. The attendance up to the 

 present time has been nearly 3,750,000 persons, 

 and at present cheap excursion trams are being 

 run from all parts of the British islands. The 

 nightly simultaneous iUumination of 10,000 glow 

 electric lamps, and the marvellous chromatic dis- 



