GLEW'S SCINTILLOSCOPE GLEW'S SCINTILLOSCOPE PATENT SCREEN PITCH BLENDE ducing the terrific (PATENT). Shows a magnificent display of scintillations, showers of sparks, direct from the mineral Pitchblende, Radium, Polonium, Uranium, Thorium, or any radio-active substance, even a Welsbach mantle contains sufficient Thorium to excite the very sensitive screen of the Scintilloscope, which is far more sensitive than the Spinthariscope. The Scintilloscope rivals the most delicate Electroscope as a detector of Alpha rays. The eye sees an inexhaustible shower of stars of white light, giving a very realistic idea of the ceaseless activity of these marvellous substances which are pro- CALCIUM METAL (In round bars bombardment causing this beautiful display. Glew's Scintilloscope Superior Lens, with Extra-sensitive Pitchblende and Radio active supplies of every description, on Sale or Hire. Radium F. HARRISON GLEW, Radiographer (Silver Medallist, Paris, 1900), 156 Clapham Road, London, S. W. LIQUID AIR AND LIQUID HYDROGEN. Dr. HAMPSON'S AIR-LIQUEFIER is now made to a standard pattern, and numbers are in use in University Laboratories and elsewhere in various countries. The whole apparatus is neat and compact and its parts very easily moved; the Liquefier, without stand, being a cylinder 17 inches high and 8 inches in diameter. It begins to liquefy air in from 6 to 10 minutes after the admission of air at from 150 to 200 atmospheres pressure, making over a litre of liquid per hour. It requires no auxiliary refrigerant and produces a perfectly clear liquid which requires no filtering. The operator has only one gauge to watch and one valve to control. HYDROGEN LIQUEFIER to the designs of Dr. MORRIS W. TRAVERS for use in conjunction with Air-Liquefier. averaging 4, 8, and 16 oz. each, one inch in diam.), 1/6 per oz. CARBORUNDUM OR SILICIUM CARBIDE (Beautiful show crystals, in lumps of 2 oz. upwards, 2/- per oz.) Rad. Residue, 2/- per tube. Polonium, 21/- per gram; 11/- .gram. Flexible Sandstone, 5/- to 50/-. (See NATURE, June 23, 1904, page 185.) Radio-active Mud, 1/6 per bottle. Monazit, 3/- per oz. Monazit Sand, 1/- per oz. Bar. Plat. Cyan., for Screens, 3/- gramme, 60/- oz. Crystals, 4/gramme. Screens, 9d. per square inch. Radio-active screens, 6d. per square inch. Willemite screens, 6d. per square inch. Electroscopes (special), 21/Spinthariscopes (special), 21/-, 10/6 and 7/6. Selection of Minerals in boxes, 2/6, 5/6, 10/6 and 21/-. New Zealand Vegetable Caterpillar, with a stem showing fructification growing out of its head, 10/6 to 21/- each. (See NATURE, May 12, 1904, page 44.) All Post Free within U.K. ELECTRICAL TESTING INSTRUMENTS. DURHAM HOUSE, NORTH SIDE, CLAPHAM COMMON, LONDON, S.W. JUST PUBLISHED. With 162 Illustrations. 10s. 6d. net; post free, 118. PROFESSOR CALLENDAR'S THE INSULATION OF ELECTRIC MACHINES. APPARATUS FOR MEASURING "J." By H. W. TURNER, Mem.A.I.E.E., and H. M. HOBART, M.I.E.E., Mem.A.I.E.E. CONTENTS.-Introductory Considerations.-Some Properties of Insu lating Materials.-Insulation of "Magnet Wires" employed in Armature and Field Windings.-Investigations on the Disruptive Strength of Insulating Materials.-Mica and Mica Compounds.-Insulating Materials for Bushings, Terminal Blocks, Flanges, &c.-Insulation of Commutators.Insulating Varnishes.-Paints and Impregnating Materials.-Heat dissipating Impregnating Materials.-Oil for Insulating.-Testing of Liquid and Viscous Insulating Materials.-Insulating Properties of Papers and of Thin Sheets of other Fibrous Materials.-Insulating Properties of Impregnated Cloths and Fabrics and of Celluloid.-Insulating of Groups of Conductors in Armature Seats.-Space Factor.-Insulation of Field Spools.Transformer Insulation. - Insulating Armature Punchings and Laminations in General.-Taping Machines and Tapes and Bands.-Drying Insulations. -Vacuum Drying Ovens. -Tools and Accessories employed in Insulating. -Specifications for Insulation.-Index. CATALOGUE OF BOOKS ON ELECTRICITY, ENGINEERING, &c., POST FREE. WHITTAKER & CO., 2 White Hart St., Paternoster Sq., E.C. NOW READY. With Illustrations, 2s. 6d. net, by post 2s. 9d. X-RAYS: THEIR EMPLOYMENT in CANCER and other DISEASES. BY RICHARD J. COWEN, L.R.C.S.I., L.R.C.P.I., &c. London: H. J. GLAISHER, 57 Wigmore Street, W. With 30 Original Illustrations. Price 2s. 6d. A Guide to the Prevention and Control of Dental Diseases. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. The DISEASES of CHILDREN'S TEETH. Well Illustrated. Price 7s. 6d. SEGG & CO., 289 and 291 Regent Street, London, W. FOREIGN SCIENTIFIC BOOKS and Periodicals promptly supplied at lowest rates. CATALOGUES POST FREE ON APPLICATION. W. MULLER, 59 CASTLE STREET EAST, OXFORD STREET, LONDON, W. SECOND-HAND BOOKS. JOHN WHELDON ANDON, 38 GREAT QUEEN ST., LONDON, W.C., can supply most Books in the various Branches of SCIENCE AND NATURAL HISTORY in good condition at moderate prices. STATE WANTS, OR CATALOGUE SENT POST FREE. We can supply a Complete Bound Set of "NATURE." FLUORESCENT MINERAL TUBES, showing the beautiful effect produced by Willemite and other minerals, under the Cathode Rays. RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LTD., BREAD ST. HILL, E.C., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK. deposited in Lough Foyle about the beginning of the Christian era, the spot where the objects were sunk having since become dry land, owing to upheaval of the coast-line. The claim of the British Museum was, however, not sustained. In connection with this contention, Messrs. George Coffey and R. Lloyd Praeger made special investigations into the evidence of recent geological changes, and these they have brought forward in an essay on "The Larne Raised Beach: a Contribution to the (Proc. Neolithic History of the North of Ireland " R. Irish Acad., vol. xxv., December, 1904). To this essay we are indebted for the preceding statement. After dealing generally with the phenomena indicative of changes of level in Glacial and post-Glacial times, the authors treat particularly of the post-Glacial history, which began with a long period of emergence, and a land-level at least 30 feet higher than at present. The evidence obtained near Larne and Belfast tells of subsequent submergence, re-elevation (the amount of which increased northward), and of a final slight movement of submergence in recent times that has left the surface as we now find it. The raised beach of the Curran at Larne was accumulated over estuarine muds during the period of submergence, and it is of peculiar interest owing to the occurrence in it from top to base of worked flints of Neolithic type. A detailed account, with figures of the flints, is given. The evidence is taken to indicate that man was on the ground during the submergence that allowed of the continued laying down of 20 feet of gravels in shallow water or between tides. Moreover, the abundance of flint flakes in the surface-layers renders it probable that Neolithic man persisted after that movement of elevation had set in which made the top of the gravels at Whitepark Bay, east of the Giant's Causeway, and again in the neighbourhood of Portstewart, which lies only 13 miles E.N.E. of Broighter. At Whitepark Bay, Neolithic "black layers" or land-surfaces occur at various levels among the sand-dunes, while near Portstewart old surfaces with Neolithic remains are found in deep wind-excavated hollows in the dunes. (see Fig. 1). This evidence proves conclusively that the ground on which the gold ornaments were found has been a land-surface, with an elevation at least as great as at present, since Neolithic times, the whole of the movement of elevation, which formed the postGlacial raised beach of the north-east of Ireland, having been accomplished during Neolithic times. a land-surface. Attention is directed to further evidence NOTES. THE president of the Royal Society, and Lord Rayleigh, chairman of the general board of the National Physical Laboratory, have issued invitations to a visitation of the laboratory on Friday, March 17, when the various departments will be on view and apparatus will be exhibited. THE thirteenth "James Forrest "lecture of the Institution of Civil Engineers will be delivered by Colonel R. E. B. Crompton on Monday, April 10, upon the subject of "Unsolved Problems in Electrical Engineering." PROF. W. J. SOLLAS, F.R.S., has been elected a member of the Athenæum Club under the rule which empowers the annual election by the committee of nine persons" of distinguished eminence in science, literature, the arts, or for public services." MR. J. E. S. MOORE has been appointed director of the Cancer Research, which is carried out in connection with the Royal Infirmary. IT is stated that the Madras Government has sanctioned the establishment of an experimental garden in Malabar for the investigation of pepper vine disease. THE second annual dinner of old students of the Royal College of Science, Ireland, will be held on St. Patrick's Day, Friday, March 17, at the Holborn Restaurant, London. PROF. K. MÖBIUS has retired from the directorship of the Berlin Museum of Natural History. The position has been offered to Prof. H. H. Schauinsland, director of the museum at Bremen. SIR WILLIAM BROADBENT will preside at a medical conference on the teaching of hygiene and temperance, to be held at the Examination Hall, Victoria Embankment, on Friday, March 24. THE British Medical Journal states that Prof. E. A. Minchin, F.R.S., has undertaken to conduct-on the spotfurther investigations, under the auspices of the Royal Society's Committee, into the causation of sleeping sickness in the Uganda Protectorate. THE fifteenth German Geographentag will be held at Danzig on June 13-15. The chief subjects of papers and discussions will be south polar exploration, vulcanology, coast morphology and formation of dunes, and school geography. AFTER a pause of many years France has again entered the list of gold-producing countries. In December, 1904, the first gold mill in France was started at the La Lucette antimony mine, near Laval. A 10-stamp mill is running steadily, the daily production amounting to about 1 kilogram of gold in the form of a rich concentrate. WE learn from the Chemist and Druggist that two prizes, one of 5000 francs (2001.) and the other of 3000 francs (120l.), have been offered by Dr. Henri de Rothschild to the Scientific Society of Alimentary Hygiene, Paris, for the best treatises The prizes written in French on the rational food for man. will be awarded in 1906, and the papers must be sent in by December 31, 1905. wireless telegraphy between THE experiments with Diamond Island and the Andamans are, says the Pioneer Mail, giving most satisfactory results. A recent message transmitted from Port Blair reached Calcutta in nineteen minutes, though it had to come over the land-lines after being received at Diamond Island. THE Paris correspondent of the Times reports that a telegram has been received from M. Jean Charcot, the explorer in command of the French Antarctic expedition, dated Puerto Madryn, March 4. It is stated that scientific work was carried on under good conditions while wintering on Wandel Island. Several parts of Graham Land hitherto unknown have been explored, and by following the coast continuously its outline has been determined. THE Times states that the French Ministry of Public Works has commissioned M. Jacquier to project plans for a railway between Chamonix and Aosta. It is considered that the difficulty would not be so great as with the Simplon tunnel; the tunnel would be 4 miles shorter, and the rock gives no indication of subterranean reservoirs of water. tunnel would commence at Chamonix, 3415 feet above sea level, and end at Entrèves (4550 feet), a distance of 8 miles. The Dora Baltea would give ample water power for the boring work, and afterwards for locomotion. The THE preliminary programme has been issued for the International Congress of Botany to be held at Vienna in Whitsun week, June 11-18. The formal opening of the congress will take place on Monday, June 12, in the large hall of the University of Vienna. A conference on the nomenclature question will be opened on the same day, and will be continued on other days. The chief subject of papers on June 13 will be the development of the European flora since the Tertiary period. On June 14 a general meeting of the botanical societies assembled for the conference will be held, as well as a conference of agricultural botanists. The subjects of discussion for the scientific meetings on June 14 will be (1) the present condition of the theory of the assimilation of carbonic acid, and (2) regeneration. Among the papers to be read on Friday, June 16, may be mentioned one by Dr. D. H. Scott, F.R.S., on the fern-like seed-plants of the Carboniferous flora. The organising committee has arranged for excursions before, during, and after the congress, and these will afford visitors an opportunity of learning to know botanically interesting regions under the guidance of specialists. In connection with the conference, too, an international botanical exhibition has been arranged, and will take place in the orangery of the Imperial Chateau at Schönbrunn. Full particulars of the conference can be obtained by intending visitors on application to the general secretary, Dr. A. Zahlbruckner, I., Burgring, Vienna. A SHORT time ago we chronicled the death of Prof. Emilio Villari, of Naples. Some interesting biographical details relating to this well-known physicist have now been published by Prof. A. Roiti in the Memorie of the Italian Spectroscopists' Society (Catania, December, 1904) and the Atti of the Lincei Academy, xiv. (i), 1. As in the case of the late Prof. G. F. Fitzgerald, there can be no doubt that Villari's death was largely due to overwork, a result in both instances brought about by the great amount of teaching work which these physicists were required to undertake in their professorial duties, and which, when combined with research work, left them no time for rest. From his birth, in 1836, Villari suffered from epilepsy, and, partly in consequence of this, his early education was obtained at private schools. He graduated in medicine at Pisa. In 1860 he taught in the medical school of Naples; the next year he returned to Pisa as professor of physics and chemistry; in 1864 he studied in the laboratory of Magnus at Berlin. From 1865 to 1871 he occupied chairs at Florence; he was then, by competition, appointed to the chair at Bologna, which he held until 1889, when he went to Naples. His duties at the latter place involved the conducting of three separate University courses of lectures, and it is not surprising that in the session 1902-3 he broke down under the stress of work, and after a long and painful illness died on August 20 of last year. In the forty years from 1865 to 1904, Villari produced a long series of papers, which might advantageously be collected and published in a volume. His most recent work refers to the properties of air and gases which have been rendered radio-active by Röntgen rays, and to which he gave the name "aria ixata," or, literally, "X'd air." He was an honorary member of our Royal Institution and the Physical Society of London, and for some time previous to his death was president of the Lincei Academy. THE usual prize announcements of the Royal Lombardy Institution are given in the Rendiconti, xxxviii., 1. The triennial gold medal for industry is awarded to Messrs. Vermot and Rejna for carriage springs and axles. The Cagnola prizes for velocity of kathode rays, steering of balloons and prevention of forgery, as well as several other prizes, remain unawarded, while for cure of pellagra a premium is awarded to Dr. Carlo Ceni, of Reggio (Emilia), and for miasma and contagion the full prize and a gold medal are conferred on Dr. Adelchi Negri, of Pavia. As usual, there is keen competition for the Brambilla industrial prize, and the institution has awarded three first prizes with gold medals and four second prizes with gold medals to Lombardy manufacturers. Under the Fossati foundation an award is made to Dr. Giuseppe Pagano for a thesis on cerebral localisation. The Kramer prize for an essay on electric traction is awarded to Giovanni Giorgi, engineer, of Rome, and three awards under the Ciani prize are given for books on modern Italy. THE following list of prize subjects now issued by the Lombardy Institution for 1905 and following years includes the announcements made last year. Institution prizes for 1905, on the ophiolitic formations of the Apennines; for 1906, on modern psychiatry. Cagnola prizes, for 1905, on phenomena of catalysis; for 1906, on pathology of suprarenal capsules. Fossati prizes (open to Italian subjects), for 1905, on our present knowledge of neurology; for 1906, on visual centres of higher vertebrates; for 1907, on nuclei of cranial nerves; for 1908, on the central nervous system. Kramer prize, for 1905, on the resistance of cement structures. Secco Comneno prize for a discovery on the virus of rabies. In addition, the triennial medals, Cagnola, Brambilla, Pizzamiglio, Tommasoni, Zanetti, and Ciani prizes are offered under the usual conditions, which have been referred to in previous years in the columns of NATURE. IN the West India Committee Circular, Mr. Kenrick Gibbons suggests that mosquitoes are largely destroyed in Barbadoes by swarms of small fish, locally known millions," which prey on the larvæ. 66 as In the February number of the Zoologist Mr. E. Bergroth, of Tammerfors, Finland, gives a list of generic zoological names not included in the supplement to the "Index Zoologicus" compiled by Mr. C. O. Waterhouse and published in 1902. While the number of names in the latter is about 250, no less than about 300 are recorded by Mr. Bergroth, all dating before 1901. SOME months ago Schaudinn published some interesting observations on the development of trypanosome forms from Halteridium, a protozoan blood parasite of birds. Novy and MacNeal now criticise Schaudinn's work, and ascribe his results to a double infection with Trypanosoma and Halteridium, and not to the development of the former from the latter. WE have received the Transactions of the Epidemiological Society for the session 1903-4 (vol. xxiii.). It contains a paper by Prof. Simpson on the epidemiology of plague, in which he shows that the domestic animals and birds mar contract plague by feeding on plague-infected offal, and important discussions on sleeping sickness, the etiology of scurvy, industrial anthrax, and enteric fever and cholera in Hamburg, together with an obituary notice of the late Sir John Simon. SOME interesting notes on the habits of Natterer's bat (Myotis nattereri) are contributed by Mr. T. A. Coward to the Zoologist for February. From these it appears that in certain habits this bat is to some extent intermediate between other members of the Vespertilionida and the horse-sho bats (Rhinolophidae). It has, for instance, the habit of turning in the air, characteristic of the latter. Again, whereas in the horseshoe-bats the short tail is carried ben! over the back, while in most British Vespertilionidæ this appendage is usually carried beneath the body, in Natterer's bat, despite the fact of its being used as a pouch to contain the insect-food, it is borne extended in the line of the body. To the complex subject of nuclear changes is devoted the greater portion of the February issue of the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, Messrs. Farmer and Moore discussing the maiotic phase (reduction divisions) in animals and plants in the first article, while in the second Prof. Farmer and Miss Shove describe the structure and development of the somatic and heterotype chromosomes of Tradescantia. The term "maiotic " phase is a new one, proposed to cover the whole series of changes formerly known as heterotype and homotype; as being derived from Melwois (reduction) its orthography should apparently be "miotic." Of the other two articles, one, by Messrs. Moore and Robinson, describes the behaviour of the nucleolus in the spermatogenesis of Periplaneta, while the other, by Mr. G. Wagner, is devoted to certain movements and reactions of Hydra. FROM a letter which Mr. P. Olsson-Seffer has written to Science, we learn that a Danish botanist, Mr. M. P. Porsild, has sought the help of his Government in founding an Arctic laboratory, which it is proposed to establish near Godhavn (lat. 69° 15' N.), on Disko Island, North Greenland. Such a laboratory would be the first institution of its kind for investigating Arctic problems, and would form a counterpart in the cold regions to the tropical stations at Buitenzorg and Ceylon. The power of plants to withstand intense cold, and their nutrition under the peculiar conditions of light, will probably be among the earliest researches. MR. J. H. MAIDEN has contributed to the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales (August, 1904) an account of the plants collected by Mrs. David on Funafuti, one of the Ellice group of coral islands. The list agrees very closely with those of collections made on similar islands, notably Samoa, Fiji and Keeling Islands, and consists of fifty flowering plants representing thirty-three orders. The native names are very similar to the Samoan. Although the plants include various edible products, such as the almonds of Terminalia Catappa, the sword-bean, and fruits of Pandanus, the islanders subsist chiefly on taro and bananas. THE second part of Prof. E. C. Jeffery's treatise on the comparative anatomy and phylogeny of the Coniferales claims attention not only for the facts which he has observed in examining various genera of the Abietineæ, but more especially on account of the deductions which, evolved from the consideration of certain formulated canons of comparative anatomy, by their evident consistency go far to establish the validity of these canons. It is possible to trace in the Abietineæ a sequence from forms such as Tsuga and Cedrus, in which resin-canals are absent from the wood of all normal stem parts, through certain species of Abies, in which the resin-canals occur only in the wood of the reproductive axis, to Picea, Larix, and Pinus, where they are formed normally in the wood of the vegetative axis. Among the former, resin-canals are freely produced in the vegetative shoots as a result of injury. From these and other facts Prof. Jeffery concludes that the Abietineæ are a very ancient order, older than the Cupressineæ, and by the possession The of a double leaf-trace are allied to the Cordaitales. treatise forms the first number of vol. vi. of the Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History. WE have received the report of the Meteorological Commission of Cape Colony for the year 1903. A comparison of the number of ordinary stations shows a fair increase over that for 1902, except in the case of purely rainfall stations, where there is a decrease of 31. This is partly due to the fact that owing to severe drought many farmers have had to trek with the remains of their cattle to adjoining territories, leaving their homesteads entirely unoccupied. The report contains useful monthly and yearly average rainfall data, for districts, over Cape Colony for the ten-year period 1894-1903. PROF. H. HERGESELL, president of the International Aëronautical Committee, has favoured us with a summary of the monthly ascents made during the last six months of the year 1904 for the exploration of the upper air by means of manned and unmanned balloons and kites. The average number of ascents per month was eighteen, and some remarkable altitudes were attained by the unmanned balloons, ing 10,000 metres, the extremes being 24,970 metres, at seven of them exceeding 15,000 metres, and eighteen exceedStrassburg, and 19,750 metres, at Pavlovsk, both in the month of September. Special mention may be made of some important kite ascents from the yacht of the Prince of Monaco last autumn, during which a height of 4510 metres was attained to the north-west of the Canary Islands, and 4360 metres south of the Azores. We hope shortly to refer to some valuable results obtained from the discussion of these observations in the region of the trade winds. WE have received a copy of the fifth edition of Jelinek's excellent Instructions for taking Meteorological Observations, " issued under the superintendence of Dr. J. M. Pernter, the present able director of the Austrian Meteorological Service. The first two editions (1869 and 1876) were written by Dr. Jelinek, the third and fourth (1884 and 1893) were revised by Dr. J. Hann, who is justly recognised as the foremost of living meteorologists. Not forgetting the excellent meteorological instructions issued in Russia by the late Dr. H. Wild, in France by M. Angot, and in Germany by Dr. van Bebber, nor the useful handbooks of smaller pretensions by Dr. Scott (late of the Meteorological Office) and Mr. Marriott (Royal Meteorological Society), we can have no hesitation in asserting that the work now under notice is second to none among works of a similar kind. It is thoroughly up-to-date, and contains all that is necessary to' be known in connection with the recent considerable advances made by the introduction and more general use of various self-recording instruments, and with the more systematic observations of clouds. It contains good representations of eight of the principal forms of clouds, reproduced from the International Cloud Atlas, and 37 other illustrations, with sound advice in the choice of necessary instruments and the establishment of stations of all classes, whether first-order observatories or stations intended to record merely rainfall and temperature. Any observers in our own country who may be conversant with the German language would, we think, be much interested by a careful perusal of this very instructive work. THE current number of the Fortnightly Review contains an article by M. A. Santos-Dumont on "The Future of Air-Ships." The difficulties against which the nagivator of the air has to contend are explained, and the means adopted by various aeronauts to overcome these obstacles are described. The two great obstacles to ballooning, M. Santos-Dumont points out, are contraction and expansion. To counteract contraction ballast must be thrown out, to compensate for expansion, gas must be allowed to escape. The skill of the aeronaut of a spherical balloon consists in maintaining his desired altitude with the greatest economy of gas and ballast. But in any case repeated contractions |