Vol. VIII. No. 83. 
TOT 
IMPERIAL INSTITUTE JOURNAL. [April, 1902.] 
PROCEEDINGS OF INSTITUTIONS. 
TI-IE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND. 
The usual monthly meeting of the Council was held on the 5th ult., Prince Christian 
(president) in the chair. Three new governors were elected, and 32 candidates were elected 
members of the Society. Lord Wenloclc was elected a member of the Council, in the room of 
Mr. C. S. Mainwaring, resigned. 
Progress in the arrangements for the Society’s meeting of 1902, to be held at Carlisle 
form July 5 to 11 next, was reported. The entries in the implement department close on the 
15th ult., and the final date for the receipt of entries of stock, poultry, and produce at ordinary 
fees is April 15. 
A scheme by the Society’s consulting chemist for the experimental treatment of two acres 
of a field in Hertfordshire badly infested with wild onion, the experiments to extend over 
four or five years, had been approved, and a grant was made to the Botanical Committee for 
the necessary expenses connected with these experiments. 
The Hon. Cecil T. Parker, from the Veterinary Committee, presented a report by 
Professor McFadyean, which stated that during the second four weeks of the year 68 
outbreaks of anthrax had been reported, with 127 animals attacked, as against 53 outbreaks 
and 76 animals attacked in the corresponding period oflast year. During the same four weeks 
the reported outbreaks of glanders had numbered 77 and the animals attacked 151, as against 
97 and 169 respectively during the corresponding period oflast year. The outbreaks for the 
same period of swine-fever had been 115, as against 159 in 1901. During the last four weeks 
two reported cases of rabies had been experimentally verified; making a total of three since 
the beginning of the year. All of these had occurred in Wales. The experiments on the 
possibility of infecting bovine animals with tuberculous material from the human subject had 
been continued at the Royal Veterinary College during the past month, and a final report 
regarding them would be presented at the next meeting. 
The following resolution was passed and ordered to lie transmitted to the Board of 
Agriculture : — “The Council of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, while approving 
the limit of 16 per cent, of water suggested to be prescribed for butter by the Departmental 
Committee on Butter Regulations, learn with much apprehension the view of the committee 
that butter containing a higher percentage of water will escape the operation- of the above 
limitation if disclosure be made of the fact beforehand. They would especially regret the 
making of any regulation which would admit of * milk-blended butter,’ or similar mixtures not 
of the true nature of butter, being sold under any description implying that they were butter, 
or with the word ‘butter’ attached to them.” 
Various reports were presented, and the Council adjourned until Wednesday, April 9. 
THE SOCIETY OF ARTS. 
Mr. T. W. Holderness, C.S.I., secretary of the Revenue Department, India Office, read 
a paper at the Society of Arts, on the 13th ult., on “The Indian Famine of 1S99, and the 
Measures Taken to Meet it.” The chair was taken by Sir Antony MacDonnell, president 
of the recent Famine Commission, and formerly Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West 
Provinces. 
Mr. Holderness, at the outset of his paper, said it was almost a truism to explain that, 
thanks to improved communications and to the development of irrigation in Upper and 
Northern India, a “famine" in modern India no longer denoted an absolute dearth of food. 
The drought of 1899 was the greatest in extent and intensity which India had experienced 
during the last 200 years. The official estimate which computed the crop losses of British 
India in 1899-1900 at about ^50,000,000 was, if anything, under the mark, while those in 
the native States might be put at about ^20,009,000. Describing the relief problem as it 
presented itself in the autumn of 1899, he said that, while in British India the situation presented 
some exceptional difficulties, in native States it was grave and complicated in the last degree. 
The direct expenditure on the famine in British India amounted, up to March 31, 1901, to 
,£6,300,000, Agricultural loans and advances amounted to ,£1,200,000. Loss of revenue 
and indirect expenditure were estimated at ,£2,700,000, after taking credit for ,£700,000 
accruing to the Government as additional receipts from railways and canals. The total 
expenditure and revenue losses of the native States might be placed at between £'j, 000,000 
and ,£8,000,000. In regard to the question of mortality, the Famine Commission came to 
the conclusion that the excess deaths in British India due to the famine were about 
i;]- millions. In the native States affected by the famine there was a population of 42,000,000 
in 1S91, and there was now a population only of 36,000,000, while in the States not visited 
by the famine the population had increased by over 12 per cent. He thought the experiences 
of the late famine should suggest to native States the expediency of maintaining a financial 
reserve to meet the drain of similar future calamities. 
The chairman, in opening the discussion which followed, said Mr. Holderness’s remark 
that a famine in India no longer meant an absolute dearth of food connoted one of the most 
remarkable achievements of recent Indian administration. It was not long ago that an 
Indian famine meant an absolute dearth of food. It meant that in the famine in Orissa in 
1 866, and still more in that of Madras in 1877 ; but in the last two famines, those of 1897 
and 1899-1900, there never was want of food in any famine-stricken district, only want of 
money with which to buy it. Owing especially to the system of protected railways, it was 
an easy matter now to transfer surplus stock from the granary districts to those where it was 
wanted. But no famine relief in India would be entirely satisfactory which, in preserving 
the people’s lives, failed to preserve also their self-respect and their habits of industry, and 
he especially urged the importance of strict economy in relief distribution in the interest, 
not of the taxpayer, but of the people themselves. The real difficulties of India were not 
difficulties of taxation or climate, but those arising out of social conditions. 
Sir William Wedderburn said the efforts of the Government should be directed to 
improving the economic condition of the cultivator. 
In a paper on “ Sound Signals at Sea,” read before the Society on the 5th nit. 
Lord Rayleigh being in the chair, Mr. E. 1' rice- Ed wards gave some account of the 
experiments carried out last year by a special committee of the Trinity-house at the fog- 
signal station on St. Catherine’s Point, in the Isle of Wight. The observations were begun 
on May 8 and were continued until June 13, and no fewer than 4,600 were recorded and 
tabulated. The committee decided to confine their attention to sound signals only, 
considering that the various electrical methods of communicating with befogged vessels 
proposed to them were not sufficiently developed for practical trial. 
Tire lecturer remarked that the real value of a sound signal to the mariner in a fog was. 
that he could form a fairly approximate idea of the direction from which it proceeded, and 
was thus able to keep away from it. But with signals conveyed by setheric vibrations or 
wireless telegraphy, though he might be informed of the name of the station, he could not 
tell in what direction it lay, nor could he get any idea of how far it was distant. The 
instrumental trials at St. Catherine’s Point were largely devoted to comparisons of efficiency 
between the siren principle and the reed principle ol producing sounds. The trial of a new 
form of 7 inch disc siren, with a very low note, gave some interesting results. On one 
occasion, in fine clear weather, with a light easterly wind, it was audible at a distance of over 
20 miles, while the sounds of the higher-pitched cylinder sirens were lost at half the distance. 
ga -36 j 5 Q> 
But, on another day, when the force of the wind was four and the sea was rough, the low- 
pitched note was at a disadvantage, and was lost at i j- miles. 
The reed horn, as now developed, must be regarded as inferior to the siren as a sound 
producer, yet the committee thought it must be admitted that it had its advantages in 
situations where a sound signal of small range would be serviceable, or where there was no 
space sufficient for the machinery necessary for sirens. As regards the trumpets associated 
with the sounding instruments, the lecturer described the elliptical forms suggested bv 
Lord Rayleigh, and pointed out the importance of using trumpets, the proper notes of which 
were in unison with those of the sound producers. 
He went on to discuss the effect of certain atmospheric influences, such as wind and fog, 
on the propagation of sound, and mentioned the curious “ silent areas ” which were noticed 
on several occasions during the experiments, the sounds beginning to die away at a distance 
of about a mile from the siren or horn until they were very faint, or perhaps inaudible, and 
then recovering their strength when the three miles line had been passed. 
In opening the discussion, Lord Rayleigh remarked that accumulated experience might 
in time enable the receiver of a signal transmitted by wireless telegraphy to tell from what 
distance it was being sent, while it was still an open question how far information could be 
gained as to the direction whence it came. 
THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY. 
At the meeting held on the iothult., under the presidency of Sir Clements Markham, 
Professor W. M. Ramsay read a paper on “ The Geographical Conditions Determining 
History and Religion in Asia Minor.” He said that if geography was to be regarded as the 
study of the influence which the physical features and situation of a country exerted on the 
people who lived in it, then in no country could geography be studied so well as in Asia 
Minor. The physical features of the country were strongly marked ; its situation was 
peculiar and unique ; its history could be observed over a long series of centuries, and amid its 
infinite variety there was always a strongly-marked unity and certain clear principles of 
evolution, standing in obvious relation to the geographical surroundings. 
He described the Anatolian peninsula, which stretched like a bridge between Asia and 
Europe, and referred in considerable detail to its history. The development had always 
been in the action and collision of forces moving eastwards or westwards ; it had been simply 
the series of phases in the immemorial conflict between Europe and Asia. It was not 
merely armies or migration of peoples which had swept eastwards or westwards across 
Anatolia, but art, knowledge, new thoughts and new religions had trodden the same path in 
either direction. But there was a growing opinion among the most recent investigators, an 
opinion which Professor Ramsay said he strongly held himself, that Anatolia was not merely 
an intermediary, developing foreign ideas in a practical way, but a country which had also 
played a not unimportant part as an originator. 
Anatolia was once the centre of a great empire exerting an influence on the outer world, 
and it was closely connected with the most fascinating and the most obscure historical 
problems which were at the present time under discussion. Every step that was being made 
in the discovery of the early Greek world and the history of early intercourse in the Eastern 
Mediterranean lands constituted at the same time, indirectly, an advance in the history of the 
ancient Anatolian world. Twenty years ago the Anatolian empire was not even dreamed 
about by anybody ; even yet it was almost an unknown quantity. The subject now had an 
acknowledged place in every modern discussion about the early Mediterranean world, and 
after ten or twenty years it would occupy far greater space than it did now. An ancient 
system of writing in hieroglyphics, different from any other known system of expressing 
thought by visible and permanent symbols, was known in Asia Minor through a long process 
of development, and was dimly traceable as an influence on other countries. Characteristic 
Anatolian artistic forms had been studied and specified by several investigators. 
Speaking of the influence of Anatolian religion on the Greek and Roman world, he said 
that one feature in the Anatolian religion was prominent and impressive at the first glance. 
The ordinary and familiar idea was that God was the Father of all mankind and all life. 
Such was the almost universal European and Semitic conception. But it was the motherhood 
of the Divine nature that was the great feature in the Anatolian worship. The male element 
in the Divine nature was recognised only as an occasional and subsidiary actor in the drama 
of nature and of life. In the social customs of Anatolia, even after it was overspread by 
Greek manners and Greek ideas, many traces remained of that primitive idea. Descent was 
sometimes reckoned through the mother ; women magistrates were frequently found even in 
the Ilellenizeel cities of the land. And in its history the same impression remained ; it was 
everywhere the most pathetic of histories. The earliest known trace of the veneration of the 
Virgin Mary in the Christian religion was in a Phrygian inscription of the second century ; 
and the earliest example of a holy place consecrated to the Mother of God as already an 
almost Divine personality was at Ephesus early in the fifth century. Of the many movements 
of thought that had occurred along the great bridge, the only one which could be traced in 
any detail was that by which Christianity was diffused over the country and into Europe. 
— +. 
COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT. 
CORRESPONDENCE AND ENQUIRIES. 
fS*Tke following are given as specimens of some of the enquiries which have been addressed to, 
and satisfactorily answered by, the Institute during the past month ( March). 
* ¥ f All communications must be authenticated by the name and address of the writer. Enquiries 
which would involve special applications or expense will be a matter of arrangement with 
the correspondent. 
E. S., France . — Names of cotton oil refiners in London, 
C. H. A., Kent . — Niin Oil. 
W. S. E. , Scotland . — General information on Uganda. 
R. K. B., India . — Books on tobacco manufacture. 
H. D. , Yorkshire . — Makers of fire brigade appliances and apparatus. 
L. A. F. , India . — Ostrich farming. 
Verbal. — Trade in New Zealand. 
,, Briquette-making machinery. 
REQUIREMENTS REGISTRY. 
In order to provide correspondents with an opportunity of making known special “wants” 
or “needs” in the British Colonies, India, and Foreign Countries, space will be regularly 
devoted to the publication of approved notices in the Imperial Institute Journal. Notices, 
as a rule, should not exceed 25 words in length, for which a charge of 2s. 6d. wall be made for 
each insertion. Special arrangements can be made for longer notices. 
Specimens of Foreign and Colonial Woods desired. Purchase or 
exchange. Names and localities must be well authenticated. Address— 
Herbert Stone, Bracebridge-street, Birmingham. 
