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scendants of a world in which, owing to a decrease in temperature below the freezing point of water, that useful liquid will be replaced by alcohol!

There is a Scots proverb running thus:-" Mickle cry and little 'oo (wool)." The amount of "wool " in this work is surely insufficient for the "cry." Yet there are some suggestive passages, and the author has evidently spent much time over his problem.

A word in conclusion as to the 66 get-up " of the book. The reviewer, in reading it, felt that he must act as a proof-reader. There is hardly a page on which a misprint does not occur; and such lapses as "The only data available is the following: "; the words uni- and tetra-valent in one line; to completly (sic) picture "; and the printing of almost every sentence as a paragraph, make the reader's task an ungrateful one.

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Something, no doubt, may be accomplished in course of time when affinity constants have been numerically determined (and many are already known) to show that they, too, are periodic functions of the atomic weights; but Mr. Martin has not succeeded in pointing out the lines on which this goal is to be reached.

AN ORNITHOLOGIST'S JOURNALS. Travels of a Naturalist in Northern Europe: Norway, 1871, Archangel, 1872, Petchora, 1875. By J. A. Harvie-Brown. 2 vols. Pp. xxii+541; with coloured plates and other illustrations and 4 maps. (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1905.) Price 31. 38.

net.

THE

HE journals which compose the greater part of these two handsome volumes relate to three ornithological visits paid to Norway, Archangel, and Petchora about a quarter of a century ago, and the author good-humouredly anticipates their being regarded as "stale news or "cauld kail het again." On this score, however, there was no need for an apology, for the author tells his story for the first time (apart from previous technical reports), and, besides, the interest of a naturalist's observations depends, not on their date (provided the date be given),

but on their intrinsic worth.

"bag" of birds-1019 skins and 1021 eggs from the Petchora hunt alone-that we can sympathise with his wish to live his hunting days on the tundra over again; we only wish that his recapitulation had not been so terribly in extenso. We are much interested to read how Mr. Seebohm came in one evening," and with a triumphant thump laid on the table, first a Grey Plover, then a Snow Bunting, and then a Curlew Sandpiper; lastly, and most triumphantlyhurrah!-five Little Stints, long looked for, found at last"; but we cannot get up much enthusiasm over the bulk of the narrative.

The tour in Norway was more or less of a novelty in 1871, and much is related that is now familiar. Much has changed, but more remains the same, and one unchanging feature of which the journal affords abundant illustration is the human appetite.

The Archangel region had been but little worked by ornithologists when Mr. Harvie-Brown and (the late) Mr. E. R. Alston explored there in 1872, and they were richly rewarded. The journal becomes more interesting, though our attention is still distracted by Ernst Craemers's toothache, by the size of the packing-case for the birds, by Alston's loss of his big knife (“one made by Wilkinson, of London "), by the number of bowls of milk drunk, and so forth.

The most adventurous journey was that which Mr. Harvie-Brown and Mr. Seebohm took in 1875 to the region of the Petchora, where they were the first to find the eggs of the little stint in Europe. The author shows his powers in the graphic description of the locality and in his story of the discovery. We quote the description of the nest :

"Rather untidy, rather rough and uneven round its rim, very shallow, sparingly lined with dry grasses and a little leaf or two, which may have been plucked by the bird as she sat in her nest. Round it, deep, spongy, but not wet, yellow moss, the dark green leaves and empty calices of the Arctic Bramble, a tuft of round-stemmed green sedge with seed; a little further off, the now flowerless plants of the sweetscented dwarf rhododendron, and bunches and patches of long white grass and plants of a small cottongrass, shall bring home specimens for identification." and other plants and grasses, of which we

There is a fine plate of stint's eggs, and a careful comparison of the little stint and Temminck's stint. Another beautiful plate contrasts the eggs of grey plover and golden plover.

In the course of the Petchora journal we find some notes on habits which are interesting, e.g. those relating to the fact that birds which do not perch, or but rarely perch, in other countries, perch in Petchora. Thus, on one occasion, by patiently following up the "tick tjuck " of the common snipe, Mr. Harvie-Brown had the satisfaction of seeing this wader "perched on the tip-top of one of the gaunt branchless blasted larches, quite 70 feet from the ground." Curlews, gulls, snow-buntings, &c., were also seen perching.

As Mr. Harvie-Brown is an accomplished ornithologist, an enthusiastic faunist, and the author of some delightful and valuable books on the natural history of Scotland, it goes without saying that these journals contain some interesting scientific information and some picturesque narrative. But the trouble is that to discover these oases we have to traverse what seem to us dreary deserts of trivial and commonplace monotony, and we can hardly control our impatience by remembering that there had to be many trivial and commonplace days before the author found the nesting-ground of the little stint. What is published is just what was written down at the close of each day, and it follows that items which loomed large at the moment, such as the supper menu, appear of little importance to the callous by the great flooding of the country, and what was "It is, we think, undoubtedly forced upon them reader, as doubtless to the journalist himself in re- originally forced upon them has become a favourite trospect at Dunipace. He got such a gorgeous | habit."

The journal for July 7, 1875, gives an artificial table for distinguishing the downs of ten species of ducks, and that is the kind of minute detail more of which we would gladly have welcomed. It is also to the point to be told of the curious antics of the Arctic (Richardson's) skuas:

"The birds often alighted within fifteen yards of me, raised the wings over the back-when they did this the white or dusky quills showed like a patch upon the raised wings-shammed lameness and sickness, and stood reeling from side to side as if mortally wounded. If I followed them, they continued to try and lead me off; but if I again approached the nest, they flew boldly towards me, and stooped repeatedly."

There are some vivid pictures of the tundra and its birds, there is an interesting account of the Samoyèdes, and there are some instructive notes on the habits both of birds and men, for all of which one is grateful, wishing only that there had been more of this wheat and less of the journalistic chaff.

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EA fishing is not a new form of sport, nor is it a subject which has been neglected by authors. We have several excellent works on it, such as "Sea Fishing" by John Bickerdyke " in the Badminton Library series, and Sea Fishing on the English Coasts" by Aflalo, so that a new book requires some justification for its production.

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The work under review is perhaps worthy of a place in the sea fisherman's library, but it is, in our opinion, in no way fitter to occupy that position than either of the books already mentioned. It is obviously written by a practical sea-fisherman who has tested most, if not all, of the methods of rod and line fishing which he recommends; but it is as obviously written by a man whose experience has been mostly confined to the south coast, as south coast methods are much more often referred to than those of other parts of the country.

For instance, he refers to the angel fish, Rhina squatina, as a species of ray. He mixes up Atherina presbyter, the sand-smelt, and Osmerus eperlanus, the true smelt, and says "the Atherine, or sand-smelt, is the variety generally met with " (p. 100). In speaking of the sand-eel, he says:-" Any not required for bait should be fried and eaten, as they form a delicious article of food when in roe, but are not so good in winter" (p. 52). In our experience the sand-eel breeds in the winter; but perhaps Mr. Haslope means that after they have spawned they are not so good. He says of the grey mullet that "they feed chiefly on some kinds of sea-weed and decaying vegetable matter" (p. 95). It is true that algæ are occasionally, and perhaps often, found in the stomachs of grey mullet, but we should put down the staple food of the species as being animal. If we recollect rightly, in the aquarium at the Plymouth laboratory these fish are fed chiefly upon nereid worms. Day says that they are very destructive to molluscs and minute Crustacea, and that they also eat larvæ and ova (“Brit. Fishes," I., p. 234).

The English of the book is not all that can be desired, and badly arranged sentences are far too common. For instance, "In form this fish is very slender and its shape has some resemblance to that of a large sand-eel, which enables it to pursue its prey with great rapidity" (p. 50). "Great quantities of these crabs are taken in trammels and the shell on the back is so sharp and rough that it quickly cuts. the twine, sometimes damaging the nets almost beyond repair. They are generally thrown away or used as manure for the gardens (p. 60). The directions as to skinning a ray are exceedingly involved :

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"To skin a Ray, remove a small portion with a sharp knife and grasp it with an old cloth in the left hand. This affords a firm hold, and by its means the whole skin can be readily stripped off. Meanwhile hold the fish firmly with the right hand, making with a knife a hole, or an incision, to enable the fingers to obtain a firm grip. Leave it upon the board in the open air with the flesh side upwards, and when dry it will have attained the consistency of horn, &c. . . ." (p. 68).

We prefer the old books on the subject of sea fishing, although, as we have said, the practical advice in the present work is thoroughly sound.

The author does not, however, appear to be so conversant with some of the methods of net-fishing which he discusses as he is with those of rod and line fishing. For instance, he considers the otter-trawl "a much more manageable net" for the amateur than the beam-trawl, a point we think open to doubt. It is true that the otter-trawl is more easily stowed away on board, but we think that its advantage over the beam-trawl for the amateur ends there, especially if the vessel is not a steamer. The difficulty of getting the otter-trawl to spread out and of getting it to fish properly is only known to those who have tried, and we should certainly recommend the amateur to use a beam-trawl, which, it is true, may capsize | (1) when being lowered, but otherwise will always fish when down.

When Mr. Haslope touches upon natural history or the habits of sea-fish he is clearly not so much at home as when he is discussing methods of capture.

FRANK BALFOUR BROWNE.

MATTER AND FORCE.

(1) Molecular Forces and Newtonian Laws. By Alex.
Clark. Pp. 237; illustrated. (Glasgow: W. and
R. Holmes, 1905.) Price 38. 6d. net.
Explication méchanique de la Matière, de
l'Électricité et du Magnétisme. By M. Despaux.
Pp. 210. (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1905.)

(2)

"BY

Y deductions from the Newtonian Laws of Force and Motion the Author accounts for all the facts of Magnetism, Electricity and Chemical Affinity and proves their identity with gravitation" (extract from circular of publisher). We ourselves do not think that the author is successful in his attempt;

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"Electricity is not to be confounded with the electric spark they are the direct opposites of each other. Electricity is a force of attraction which brings particles of matter into contact; the electric spark is the kinetic energy produced by the action of the electric force through the available distance, and has a dispellant effect upon the particles. By the conservation of energy the electric force ceases to act when the spark is produced. The potential is then converted into kinetic energy. This affords a conclusive reply to the theory, adopted by some eminent authorities, that electricity and light are identical. Light is a form of heat and has always a dispellant effect upon the particles of matter. It is therefore the direct opposite of electricity, which is a force of

attraction.

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This is certainly not all wrong. The question is how much of it is right? To those readers who are attracted by the above extract we recommend the two hundred and thirty-seven pages of this volume.

(2) Just as in the work reviewed above the dependence of forces upon position is made the universal law, so here the essential identity of all forces is sought for in a kinetic view of matter.

All phenomena of attraction are explained, and can be reproduced by the simple rotation of a screw or turbine in water and in air. The turbine is presented as the universal motor which gives rise to molecular attractive forces and the phenomena which accompany them. The author claims to nothing besides the propulsive motions produced by rotations of molecular turbines, and congratulates himself on the rare good fortune that everyone can understand the effects of such rotation.

assume

A number of experiments with ventilating fans are described; the author then wanders off into a comparison of a magnet with a living being, and a consideration of the position of man in the universe.

It is a commonplace to suppose that scepticism is the beginning of belief; the author's creed is accompanied by the usual doubt as to the validity of many of the conclusions of modern science. The value of his criticisms can be measured by his objections to the recognition of the essential identity of light and Hertzian waves. He disposes of the argument which rests on the identity of velocity of the two phenomena by saying that all waves produced in the ether, of whatever nature they may be, must, in fact, have the same velocity, since the velocity of a wave depends, not on its form, but only on the elasticity and density of the medium of transmission, which in this case is the ether.

We cannot look upon this book as a serious contribution to scientific literature, but we readily admit that there are analogies between the effects of the motions which the author describes and other physical phenomena; and if these were systematically described a very interesting volume could be made. But there is so much here that is merely fanciful that we must advise anyone who reads it to read it with caution.

OUR BOOK SHELF.

A Descriptive Handbook of Architecture. By Martin A. Buckmaster. Pp. xvi + 188. (London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., n.d.) Price 3s. 6d. net. THIS is a little book which is intended to help those to whom architecture is a subject of ever-increasing interest. The author refers to a subject which Mr. Banister Fletcher has already brought forward prominently in the preface to "The History of Architecture" and in a paper read before the University Extension Guild, namely, the inclusion of the study of historical architecture in a liberal education. It certainly seems that, owing to the ease of travel, the use of photography and other causes, a knowledge of the elementary principles and forms of the various types of architecture might well be expounded to the of interesting the rising generation in matters which senior forms of educational institutions, and this way appertain to everyday life and observation would tend largely to increase interest in matters artistic and practical.

Concerning the book under notice, much cannot be expected for the low price at which it is published, and it would probably have been better had the author dealt with one period of architecture, and have done that thoroughly, rather than have taken up so large a field. It has resulted in an essay which 15 scrappy, " and from which we are afraid the attentive student will gather very little of much use to him. One or two points call for revision. Why is mediæval" architecture made to end at 1090 when most people hold that it commences about that time?

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Plate iiia. is merely an enlargement of part of plate xviii., and might be omitted. Some of the illustrations are very poor; that on p. 20 would lead the student to believe that the Temple of Theseus and the Parthenon had suffered from an earthquake since we saw them last spring!

The ground range of the columns to the Colosseum is not Doric, dentils are wrongly spelt on pp. 25 and 27, and the Temple of Zeus, Athens, is given another name on p. 28. The giving of exact dates for each period, and the printing at the top of each page, are sure to mislead the student; for no style can be truly confined within a period of such exactitude as, say, 1377-1547, and the student should be warned against such an attempt.

The line illustrations are of an amateurish description, and plates viii. and xi. should be re-drawn.

Plate xliv. seems to be a copy of a plate in a well known history, though this is not acknowledged. The division of early Christian architecture into Roman and Byzantine is likely to confuse the student. as Roman is always considered historically as pagan architecture.

Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society. Vol. ii. Pp. xx + 490. (London: Francis Hodgson, 1905.)

THE present volume of Proceedings, though the size of the page has been changed, and larger type is used, contains about the same amount of subject-matter as its predecessors. It affords evidence that the publication of researches in higher mathematics still receives the same care and attention which it has for many years past obtained at the hands of the small body of workers who mostly travel up on Thursdays ings in Albemarle Street with their friends. It conby the 2.15 train from Cambridge to attend the meettains interesting obituary notices of Mr. Ronald Hudson and Dr. Pirie. Among the contributors we

note the well known names of Dixon, Glaisher, Hilton, Hobson, Jackson, Lamb, Love, MacMahon, Morley, Volterra, Rayleigh, Young, and many other mathematicians. An attempt to classify the papers by subject-matter would be difficult, but a general survey of the ground covered suggests that a not inconsiderable proportion, possibly as much as a half, of the work done comes under the heading of "analysis."

But while the reputation of English mathematical research is thus being maintained, it does seem a pity that there is no society which has undertaken the task of popularising the higher study of mathematics in our country in the way that has been undoubtedly done on the other side of the water by the American Mathematical Society, with its Bulletin containing full reports of meetings of mathematical societies, educational appointments, and courses of university lectures. The Mathematical Association has done much to render elementary mathematics more practical and interesting. The duty of impressing on the proper authorities the need of providing more fully for instruction in advanced mathematics in our technical colleges has not as yet been undertaken by any body of mathematicians, yet the matter is an urgent one as affecting national progress in the face of foreign competition. In connection with most of the papers before us, an enormous amount of work is generally done in refereeing previous to publication. Is it not possible that the energy thus expended might with advantage be diverted into some such directions

as those above indicated?

Catalogue of the Collection of Birds' Eggs in the British Museum (Natural History). Vol. iv., Carinatæ (Passeriformes, continued). By E. W. Oates, assisted by Captain S. G. Reid. Pp. xviii+ 350; 14 plates. (London, 1905.)

Is this volume the authors record the eggs of seventeen families of passerine birds contained in the national collection, thus carrying down the work to the family Certhiida (creepers), so that another volume ought, apparently, to bring their task to a conclusion. The total number of species catalogued in the volume before us is 620, which are represented by no less than 14,917 eggs-figures which give some idea of the heavy work the authors had to undertake. Fortunately, the Radcliffe Saunders and the C. B. Rickett collections were received in time to allow their quota to be added to the MS.

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We had hoped that as the work progressed the authors would have seen their way to modify the style of the paragraphs recording the distinctive features of the various species catalogued. We regret to see that this is not so, and with the same dreary and wearisome iteration we find entry after entry commencing with the statement that the eggs of such-and-such a bird are of such-and-such form and colour. As a matter of fact, if the English names of the various species had been printed in the same lines as their scientific titles there would have been no occasion to mention the word eggs" at all in the descriptive paragraphs, which should commence merely with a reference to their form and colouring. By this means not only would much valuable space have been saved (as might also be done in the mode of making the entries themselves), but the reader would have been spared that everlasting and utterly superfluous repetition which is so irritating to any person of literary tastes. We may also direct attention to the crude and schoolboy-like style of composition characterising almost the whole of the paragraphs in question. Reference may likewise be made to some

imperfection in the method of recording localities. If, for instance, it is necessary to tell us on p. 16 that certain places are in the Nilgiri Hills, it was surely incumbent on the authors to give the same piece of information on p. 8, while to wait until p. 264 before stating that the Nilgiri Hills themselves are in southern India is a very remarkable proceeding. We are also surprised to learn (p. 162) that Dharmsala is in Kashmir.

The great feature of the volume is the beauty of the fourteen coloured plates of eggs, each containing a large number of figures, all of which have been drawn and coloured by Mr. H. Grönvold. These serve to illustrate very graphically the degree of constancy or variation which obtains in the eggcharacters of the different family groups, and in addition to this show some very remarkable examples of individual variation or sports."

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Leather for Libraries. By E. Wyndham Hulme, J. Gordon Parker, A. Seymour-Jones, Cyril Davenport, and F. J. Williamson. Pp. 57. (London: Published for the Sound Leather Committee of the Library Association by the Library Supply Co., 1905.) Price is. 6d.

THIS interesting book, which may have a considerable influence on the improvement of book-binding, consists of five chapters, one by each of the authors whose names are on the title-page, three of whom are members of the Sound Leather Committee of the

Library Association, and may therefore be considered as authorities on the subjects of which they write.

When light leather is tanned by bark and many other vegetable tanning substances the skin becomes coloured, and this colour cannot be removed without deterioration of the leather. In 1565 sumach tanning was introduced into England; this process leaves the skin white and in a suitable condition to receive the necessary dye. Experiments conducted by the Society of Arts Committee have shown that sumach tanning is the most suitable for binding leathers. Unfortunately this process is a slow one, and other tanning materials which act more rapidly have been employed; some of these, however, have a deleterious action on the leather, causing it to decay rapidly. Another cause of the short life of some modern leathers is the use of sulphuric acid at one stage of the process. This acid combines with the fibre and cannot be removed; it has a corrosive action on the organic matter, which action has often been attributed to the presence of sulphur in the coal gas used for lighting. In some libraries, however, which are not lighted by gas, the bindings have been found to perish in the course of a few years, and the presence of sulphuric acid in these leathers indicates the cause. Sulphuric acid is also used in connection with the aniline dyes frequently employed for colouring. Another source of weakness is the splitting of the leather in order to obtain smooth surfaces; this process necessarily cuts the network of fibres, and thus diminishes the strength of the material. The tanner should have regard to the sources of the skins, and if they are imported it is advisable to consider the treatment that they have undergone before coming into his hands.

It is impossible to do justice to this book in a short notice, but the attention that has recently been directed to the subject seems already to have borne fruit, for in the advertisements of leather-sellers and bookbinders at the end of the book there are such notices as dressed according to the recommendations of the Society of Arts Report and guaranteed free from mineral acids."

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H. M.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for this or any other part of NATURE. No notice is taken of anonymous communications.]

British Mosses.

IN the review of Dr. Braithwaite's "British Mosses which appeared in your number of August 31 (vol. lxxii. p. 425), I attributed the finding of Catharinea tenella to Lord Justice Stirling, and I did so on the authority of a passage relative to the plant in Dr. Braithwaite's supplement. The Lord Justice is, I find, desirous that it should be known that the entire merit of the discovery is due to Mr. E. S. Salmon. "I had the good fortune," says the learned judge, to be his companion when the little plants were gathered, but his eye detected them in the field, and by his acuteness the true name of them was discovered. I am glad to second the Lord Justice in his desire that no mistake should be made in this matter, and I beg your courtesy to insert this short note. E. F. November 8.

Border occasionally seen between Light and Dark Regions on Photographic Prints.

SINCE my recent brief note on a photographic appearance, Mr. Burke has informed me that the subject attracted the attention of Sir George Stokes, and was thought worthy of a communication from him to the Royal Society in May, 1882 (Proc. Roy. Soc., vol. xxxiv. p. 63).

Had I been aware of that I should, of course, have referred to it. It seems to me now that there may be more than one explanation of such an appearance. OLIVER Lodge.

Halation.

WHEN a photograph is taken of a dark object with a bright object or the sky some distance behind it, blurring occurs where the images of the objects meet.

That part of the bright object from which only a part of the lens is visible (the rest of the lens being cut off by the dark object) forms an image of varying brightness in the shape of a band which covers the edge between the images of the dark and light objects. If the bright object be at an infinite distance from the lens, the breadth of the band will bear approximately the same ratio to the diameter of the lens as that which the focal length of the lens bears to the distance of the lens from the near object.

It seems probable that many cases of halation are due to this cause. Ј. А. Совв. 108 Church Road, Richmond, Surrey, November 13.

The Engineer's Unit of Force.

I AM much indebted to "The Reviewer

" for his cour

teous answer to my letter on the subject of the engineer's unit of force in your issue of November 2.

I readily admit that the engineer's unit of force may be so defined as to make it a constant quantity independent of locality; but does the engineer in actual work-a-day practice make use of this invariable unit? In problems involving the derived unit of work, does he not, as a matter of fact, estimate the work done or the potential energy, as the case may be, by multiplying together the distance factor and the weight (i.e. the force) factor without making any allowance for the variation of the latter with latitude?

The question at issue, it seems to me, narrows itself down to this-is the title " engineer's unit of force" to be applied to the variable unit in actual use by the engineer, or is it to be restricted to the absolute gravitational unit, which may be defined, but which in nine cases out of ten is not actually applied in engineering practice? D. J. CARNEGIE.

Newton Abbot, November 6.

IT is quite true that in engineering practice a correction for latitude is seldom made in regard to the gravitational energy of a raised weight, the reason being that other and very much larger sources of error are usually present. But under sufficiently refined conditions this small correc tion is actually made. A Bourdon pressure gauge registers pounds per square inch in absolute measure the same everywhere. If Mr. Carnegie considers the pound force to vary with locality, what is his value, in foot pounds, for Joule's equivalent at the centre of the earth?

But surely even Mr. Carnegie himself must use the footpound unit, and hence the pound-force unit, in an absolute sense, when applied to such quantities as the kinetic energy of a rotating fly-wheel, the strain energy of a stretched spring, the work done on the piston of a steam or gas engine, the energy of motion or of position of a planetary body, &c.

The present case is an illustration of the apparent inability of academic writers to understand the engineer's position in this matter, and of the confusion which inevitably arises from the combination of two closely related systems of units. In any dynamical system the magnitude of unit mass is quite arbitrary, and the pound mass possesses no intrinsic merits over any other unit. Indeed, the choice of the pound unit has proved to be a most unfortunate one, for the conception of inertia or mass, coming as it does after that of force, finds the pound force already established and ingrained in the mind, forming an effective barrier against the practical adoption of the derived poundal, and being a fruitful source of error on account of the new and old meanings attached to the word pound. People do not, and never will, think in poundals, and so custom has compelled its advocates to incorporate into their system the pound force and the foot-pound unit of work, a tacit admission of its practical failure. Engineers contend that this duplex system with its overlapping terms is harmful and quite unnecessary. They advocate a single system which, so far as possible, shall adopt units in common use. The system used by them fulfils all requirements. It is an absolute dynamical system. Its terminology is not divorced from common thought and speech. It gives an exact and absolute meaning to the pound force and consequently to the foot-pound unit of work, and its unit of inertia has a distinct name of its own, never used in the sense of force, thus avoiding the conflicting nomenclature of the present mixed system. The engineer's and the C.G.S. systems are sufficient for all purposes, and it would be a great gain if the academic British system could be abandoned. THE REVIEWER.

THE EXPLORATION OF THE ATMOSPHERE OVER THE TROPICAL OCEANS.

THE

HE study of the trade-wind region by the use of kites was first proposed by Mr. A. L. Rotch at the meeting of the British Association at Glasgow in 1901, after he and his assistant, Mr. Sweetland, had obtained a series of observations with them This during a voyage across the North Atlantic. method of investigation was later adopted by other meteorologists, notably by the French Scandinavian expedition to explore the atmosphere, which, under the direction of M. L. Teisserenc de Bort, flew kites in 1902 on the Baltic, and last year by Prof. Hergesell, who communicated to the Aeronautical Conference at St. Petersburg the interesting results of a cruise on the yacht of H.S.H. the Prince of Monaco in the vicinity of the Azores and Canaries. During this voyage fourteen kite-flights, some which reached a great height, were made, and in a communication to the French Academy of Sciences on January 30 Prof. Hergesell said:"Un courant de S.W., qui correspondrait au contre-alizé théorique, n'a jamais été trouvé par les cerfs-volants bien qu'ils aient plusieurs fois dépassé la hauteur du Pic de Ténériffe. Plusieurs constatations m'amènent à penser que les vents de S.W. observés au Pic par plusieurs observateurs sont d'origine locale et dûs à l'influence de l'île."

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