320 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
the Alps and in Hungary. A glance at the accompanying map of the dis- 
tribution of fossil fuel in Austria shows at once how insignificant is the 
extent of her coal-basins in comparison with the coal-formations of Eng- 
land, North America, or even Prussia. 
England has . 
North America 
Province of Silesia in Prussia 
Austria (as near as possible) 
8,960 square miles of coal. 
100,528 „ „ „ 
1,280 „ „ ,, 
1,200 ,, „ ,, 
The whole produce of coal of all formations in Austria and Hungary 
amounted during 1868, in round figures, to 6,300,000 tons. 
Phaneropleuron and TJronemus . — Professor Traquair, M.D., writes to the 
ic Geological Magazine ” to say he has now satisfactorily determined that his 
fossil fish Phaneropleuron elecjans is identical with the TJronemus lobatus of 
Agassiz. Of course it is well that Professor Traquair has made this dis- 
covery, but it would have been better had he taken more time at first to 
inquire into the facts of the case ere he gave a new name to the fish. 
MECHANICAL SCIENCE. 
Paper Armour. — Colonel Muratori, at present in this country, has been 
endeavouring to introduce paper as a material for resisting bullets, and even 
projectiles of greater weight. A cuirass which he has invented, made of 
this material, and weighing no more than the ordinary metal cuirass, is said 
to possess a much greater power of resistance. Experiments on this material 
were made at Chalons in 1868, under the direction of the late Emperor of 
the French. The war stopped the experiments, and Colonel Muratori is now 
seeking to have them resumed in this country. 
Torpedo Warfare. — Mr. C. W. Merrifield, F.B.S., has suggested, at the 
Institute of Naval Architects, that structural means of resisting torpedo 
attacks should be provided in armour-plated vessels. Of possible means of 
meeting torpedoes, he thinks that a rope or wire netting outrigged at a 
distance of 6 or 8 ft. from the ship’s skin would afford the best protection 
in cases where a line of torpedoes is known to exist. But such a netting 
offers so great an impediment to speed, that it would be impracticable to 
employ it when the object is to cruise at a risk of meeting torpedoes. 
Hence he is led to suggest the following device as better than armour- 
plating the ship’s bottom. Let the ship have three skins, each divided into 
cellular spaces of moderate size, the middle skin representing what is now 
the outer skin of ordinary double-plated ships. Each cell between the 
middle and inner skin to have an airtight manhole by which access can be 
gained to it from the interior of the ship, and a stopcock and union collar in 
its upper corner. The space between the middle and outer skins is also to 
be divided into cells by frames breaking joint with those between the 
middle and inner skins. Water is to be freely admitted to the cells between 
the middle and outer skins, so that in fact the bottom of the ship would 
have a kind of water-casing surrounding the middle skin. The middle skin 
