SAILING CRAFT IN EUROPE AND ASIA.1 IN these days, when sails are falling more and more and to consider the causes which have been at work in the development of boats and the results attained under the conditions with which they have had to con tend." This attempt has been eminently successful, and has resulted in the production of a book which is a perfect treasury of information on the subject treated, is well arranged, brightly written, and beautifully illustrated. The author has received the assistance of many competent authorities in special classes of vessels described. Captain Drechsel has dealt with Danish vessels; Mr. Colin Archer, the well known naval architect of Larvik, has been responsible for details of Norwegian types; Mr. Robert Duthie, of the Scottish Fishery Board, has given valuable information in regard to the Scottish fisheries, and other friends have assisted in regard to extra-European types. The descriptions are arranged in geographical divisions, which is not merely the both hulls and sails in the vignettes scattered freely throughout the text are admirable in their details. The interest of the book is increased by the introduction of numerous reproductions of famous pictures of shipping, and no pains have been spared by the publisher either in regard to these illustrations or to other features for which he is responsible. Mr. Smyth excludes from his survey pleasure boats, yachts, and square-rigged vessels, and gives adequate reasons for that course. About one-half of the book is devoted to European types, beginning with the Baltic and Scandinavian countries, and passing to Holland, Scotland, the east coast of England and the Thames estuary, the south and west coast of England, and then to France and the Mediterranean. To English readers, probably the most interesting section of the book will be that dealing with Eastern vessels, including those of the Indian Ocean, the Malay Peninsula, the Gulf of Siam, and China. Here we find special types of great antiquity, differing widely from Western vessels, but well adapted for their special services and surroundings. Mr. Smyth combines philosophical reflection with a yachtsman's enthusiasm and a technical knowledge which goes beyond that of the ordinary amateur, and this fact adds to the charm of his book. most natural scheme, but also that FIG. 1.-Norwegian Pilot-boat-Sail and Cabin Plans. From "Mast and Sail in Europe and Asia.' which best brings into relief the underlying motive of the book, namely, the illustration of the influence of local conditions upon form, type, and sail-plan. Other writers, notably the late Mr. Dixon Kemp, and those who, since his death, have continued the revision of his work on "Yacht and Boat Sailing," have emphasised the influence of local conditions, and gathered large stores of information illustrating the general principle. In most cases these writers have dealt with the subject from a more technical standpoint than that assumed in the volume under review. It must not be assumed, however, that Mr. Warington Smyth has neglected technicalities or unduly sacrificed them to a popular treatment of his subject. On the contrary, for many classes of sailing-vessels he gives the "lines" (or building drawings) and the sail-plans, and his portraitures of 1 "Mast and Sail in Europe and Asia." By H. Warington Smyth. Pp. xix+448. (London: John Murray, 1906.) Price 215. net, One quotation may be permitted, even within the limited space available in this notice, as indicating this side of his work. He says:" It is probably true that the degree of civilisation of any race is remarkably reflected in its boat architecture. The variety of its adaptations to the peculiar requirements of its waters is a measure of its appreciation of the value of the cheapest and most certain method of communication known to man; and it is evidence of its ability to use materials at command and fit them to its needs. The highest degree of civilisation in maritime races has always been marked by activity in boat-building and by variety of design and rig. In no case has this been more notable than in the history of China and of Holland, and in the Adriatic in the fifteenth century, in Europe during the last two centuries and in the United States since 1780. The Negro, the American Indian, and the Slav, on the other hand, have never designed a sea-going boat or cut a sail. It has not been for want of water-ways or of opportunity. It has been simply owing to a lower class of intelligence and to want of originality and enterprise." Mr. Smyth's allusions to the indirect influence upon character and resource of life and work in vessels equipped with sail power are also notable :-" It is above all in the men who handle sails that the selfreliance which is bred by tempest, darkness and the shadow of the Angel of Death reaches its highest point. The seriousness, from this point of view, of the loss of masts and yards to the Navy has been fully recognised, and it has only been reluctantly ac FIG. 2.-Hong Kong Junk. From "Mast and Sail in Europe and Asia." ceded to on account of the pressing importance of other more essential forms of training. But amongst the coasters and fishermen of the world the mast and sail more than hold their own; and here a student of the sea will find himself in a by-path of the modern world, among the old thoughts, the old traditions, the old methods, and the old virtues of the great seas. And when this civilisation shall have condemned itself and passed the way of others, the lugsail and the lateen will still be navigating the deep, conned by other races, but the same grim, greathearted sailor men." Enough has been said to indicate that, in our judgment, this book should find a hearty welcome from all who love to sail the seas and manage their own craft, and from all who are interested in the maintenance and development of that hardy race of seamen bred on the coasts of the United Kingdom, and leading a life of hardship, difficulty, and danger which must develop qualities of the highest value to the maritime greatness of the British Empire. W. H. WHITE. Τ THE SOLAR ECLIPSE OF 1905. IT is very satisfactory that reports of the recent eclipse expeditions indicate that at some stations the weather conditions were all that could be desired, because we know that at several stations opportunities for securing good results were frustrated by clouds. The Hamburg Observatory party chose a spot which, however, did not come under the second category, and judging by the first portion of the report published, which deals chiefly with the general arrangements and journey to and from the position of observation, it achieved complete success in all lines of work. The report itself is of great interest, and is accompanied, not only by excellent reproductions from photographs of camp scenes, &c., but by capital pictures of the corona. The style of reproduction here employed is to be highly recommended, and other publishers of reports might with advantage copy the good example set. The party was not a very large one. It consisted of Prof. R. Schorr, the director of the observatory, | Dr. Schwassman, the observer, and an observatory attendant, Herr Beyermann, and they were assisted by Prof. Knopf, director of the Jena Observatory, who joined the expedition. The station selected and used as the observing position was Souk-Ahras, in Algeria, lying on the railway from Tunis, and to the south-west of Bône. The accompanying illustration shows the station occupied, with the several instruments in position. The work of the expedition was chiefly devoted to the following points :-structure of the inner corona; photography of the outer corona and extensions; a search after intra-Mercurial planets; the determination of the brightness of the corona and the total daylight during the eclipse; contact, meteorological, and other observations. The only spectroscopic work attempted was the employment of a Thorp diffraction grating to secure the spectrum of the corona. For the attack on the inner corona a horizontal telescope of 20 metres focal length was employed. With this, very excellent photographs were obtained. Perhaps the most interesting part of the account of these photographs is the recording of three or four oval, ring-formed, cloud-like caps which lay at a distance of 4 to 6 minutes of arc above the large prominence on the east limb, and indicated a close connection with the eruptive nature of the prominence. These rings, it may be remembered, were also photographed by the Greenwich Observatory party under the direction of the Astronomer Royal, which observed at Sfax, in Tunisia, so that an independent photographic record of them is very important, as this is the first time they have been caught on the sensitive film. That such phenomena have been previously seen will be gathered from the following extract relating to some spectroscopic observations made by Sir Norman Lockyer in 1870 2 "And what was going on, while this was happening? A prominence, obviously with its root some distance from the limb, had gradually travelled beyond the limb; in appearance it became very much more elevated, and seen, as it were, in perspective over the limb; but what I saw first was very rapidly changed, in a way that would be explained by supposing that cyclones were being shot up into the solar air like bombs! the changes in the F line were so rapid and curious. I was not observing with an open slit, so I at once coined the term 'motion forms,' because the forms observed did not in any way represent the shape of the prominence. But the 1 Mittheilungen der Hamburger Sternwarte, No. 10. 2 "Solar Physics," by Sir J. Norman Lockyer, p. 403. extreme velocity can be imagined from the great departure of those bright lines from the stable dark line F, seen below them, and not only that, but we can think out the explicit character of this prominence action. They were really in this case, as already stated, smoke rings thrown up by enormous circumsolar action. 46 We thus see that after the lapse of thirty-five years these lozenge" forms, as they were then called spectroscopically, have been caught in the mesh of the photographic plate. For the search after intra-Mercurial planets two objectives of 10 cm. aperture and 4 metres focal length were used equatorially, and plates were exposed for 120 and 63 seconds. So far as the negatives have been examined, no unknown object has been detected, but it is interesting to remark that on both plates Mercury appears of the fifth or sixth magnitude eleven hours after inferior conjunction. Successful measures were made of the brightness of the corona with a Weber photometer by Prof. Knopf, but the reductions are not yet quite complete. one he has chosen, for in the course of some 300 octavo pages he traces the story of the district in which Pickering is situated from pre-Glacial times up to the date of his publication, including the geology, the archæology early and later, local legends and folklore; and very good miscellaneous reading he makes of it. The earlier sections, however, can scarcely be said to conform with his title-page, for it is admitted that for many thousands of years after the period of his second chapter no human being yet existed in Britain in the latitude of Pickering, and the town itself would, of course, be even later. There is, however, no harm in this, and it must be confessed that the admirable material existing in the neighbourhood, and the masterly way in which much of it has been treated by competent hands, offer great temptations to include nature's story as well as man's. The Kirkdale cave is one of the best known of these natural features of the locality, and was exhaustively described by Dr. Buckland in 1822 before the Royal Society, in a paper which is a model of scientific analysis. The physical conformation of the country, FIG. 1.-The Hamburg Observatory's Eclipse Camp in Souk-Ahras. The 20-metre coronagraph is on the right, and the twin equatorial planet-finder on the left. Shadow bands were clearly seen, and the dimensions of those measured were about 50 cm. long and 4 cm. to 5 cm. broad. W. J. S. LOCKYER. THE STORY OF AN ENGLISH TOWN.1 THE HE modern changes in literary methods and the demands of the reading public have altered the character of many classes of books, but none has been so much affected as that dealing with topography. The subsidised family history, the elaborate folding pedigrees, plates of armorial bearings or of equally uninteresting tombs of former magnates of the locality, have disappeared from such works, unless their intrinsic interest coincides with that of the subject of the book. Genealogists and students of family history are now provided with publications of their own, surely a change of a practical kind, and one which allows the substantive matter of a topographical work to take its real place. Even when the older fashion is cast aside for the new, however, there are many alternatives in the treatment of local history. Mr. Gordon Home may be said to be thorough in the 1 "The Evolution of an English Town; being the Story of the Ancient Town of Pickering in Yorkshire." By Gordon Home. Pp. xix+298. (London: J. M. Dent and Co., 1905.) Price 10s. 6d. net. 1 the hills around rising to a height of upwards of 1400 feet, naturally provides an admirable field for the observation of the action of ice, and here Mr. Home has taken full advantage of the survey made by Prof. Kendall, while the existence and behaviour of the glaciers in the valleys converging on Lake Pickering in the lesser Ice age are made very clear by the diagrams provided. Naturally enough, there is a good deal of elementary geology in these chapters, and Mr. Home at times also gives his imagination a somewhat free rein, but he does not confuse fact and imagination. surer Coming to the later times, where geology gives place to archæological conditions, we are on ground; the relics are more plentiful and more directly comparable with similar remains in other localities and even other countries. Hypothesis and even imagination still have their uses, but the more abundant materal should keep the student to the safer zone of comparative archæology. Here again. in the Barrow period, Mr. Home is fortunate in having masters of the craft to appeal to. Dr. Thurnam and Canon Greenwell have both provided ample matter for the story of man during the later Stone and early Bronze ages, and Mr. Home might have drawn upon them more largely with advantage to his book. A few figures of some of the urns and other relics found by Canon Greenwell in the barrows of the North Riding would have formed more instructive illustrations than the somewhat scrappy and heterogeneous plate of "prehistoric weapons " that faces p. 34. A plate of urns in the Pickering Museum is, indeed, given further on, but it lacks typological qualities. Much has been done during the last few years towards the classification of barrow remains, more especially in the case of the pottery, and there should be no difficulty in presenting a series from so rich a district as Pickering on a plan more in accordance with the results of recent research. In spite of such occasional lapses Mr. Home carries the the reader through the story with considerable skill and vivacity. A later chapter will probably be found the most interesting to the general reader, that dealing with local legends, witchcraft, and folklore. Here there is ample material for a considerable volume, for it is certain that where Mr. Home has gleaned so much there must exist a vast harvest for the trained student. The figure from this chapter reproduced here has been used in sympathetic magic, the universal practice of which Mr. Frazer treats in "The Golden Bough." Traces of Scandinavian importations are frequent, and some of the survivals in local custom have the flavour of a much more remote age. A good deal has already been done in this FIG. 1.-Relic of witchcraft found in the neighbourhood of Pickering. The figure was made of pitch, beeswax, bullock's blood, hog's lard, and fat from a bullock's heart. It was used for casting spells on people, the pin being stuck in the figure where the "ill-cast was required to fall. From "The Evolution of English Town." " an direction for Cleveland, but it is evidently a fruitful soil and well worth careful and exhaustive treatment. There are some admirable photographic reproductions of the very remarkable, and in some cases beautiful, wall paintings in Pickering Church, and the story of the regulations of the Duchy of Lancaster during Plantagenet and later times is full of quaint customs and interesting matter. The book as a whole has a cheerful air, and may well lead some who are unacquainted with the beauties and interest of Cleveland to pay Pickering a visit. A few points may be worth the author's consideration if his book should reach a second impression. He seems to be unaware (p. 30) that the Bateman collection of sepulchral urns is now in the museum at Sheffield, and a detailed catalogue was published by the curator in 1899; on p. 45 he states that bronze spearheads have been found in round barrows near Pickering, which seems unlikely; and on p. 48 he figures a quern of a known Roman type in the Bronze age section. On p. 57 an unfortunate slip makes data singular instead of plural. THE GROWTH OF BEET-SUGAR IN Lo desirability of the State incurring expenditure in order to establish a new industry in the country- we have little to say in these columns; we may be content to point out that it is possible for a Government department to teach the community businesses previously unappreciated. This very beet-sugar manufacture has been introduced into the United States by the action of their Department of Agriculture, with the result that the production has grown to 210,000 tons of sugar in 1904-5 as compared with 20,000 tons ten years earlier. The other point in dispute is the possibility of growing satisfactory sugar-beet in this country, with its greater rainfall and lower sunshine than the typical Continental centres of sugar production. However, the experiments, organised for so many years by Mr. Sigmund Stein, of Liverpool, and latterly by Lord Denbigh himself, have amply demonstrated that over the east and south-east of England larger crops of sugar-beet can be grown than in Germany without any loss of quality, either as regards the proportion of sugar in the root or its quotient of purity. American experience also shows how adaptable the sugar-beet is to wide diversities of soil and climate. The English farmer requires but little education in the management of the crop, since the cultivation it requires differs but little from that of the mangel, though the cost per acre is slightly greater. We may take it as settled by numerous experiments extending over many seasons now that the farmer would be prepared to grow sugar-beet in quantity, provided a price were offered approaching that which is paid by the foreign factories, that is, from 16s. to 20s. per ton of roots. How far the manufacture would be profitable at those rates can only be settled by trial on a commercial scale; a factory must be erected in a suitable district and given a fair working test for two or three years. While the data available show prospects of a reasonable return on the capital that would be required, one or two difficulties suggest themselves which cannot be resolved except by actual working. The first lies in the provision of labour; the process of manufacture must be practically completed in three months after harvest, and it is doubtful whether labourers could be obtained in this country to work three or four months in the factory and the rest of the time on the land. The other doubtful point is whether the necessary scientific control, for sugar-making from beet is a very specialised piece of chemistry, can be obtained cheaply enough here. Lord Denbigh practically asks the State for a little assistance to get these points settled; with a rebate of the excise duty, equivalent to a bonus of 2s. 6d. per cwt. on sugar manufactured from beet grown in England, there is a sufficient margin of profit in sight to draw the capital required for the first factory, and a very few years would suffice to demonstrate whether the business would be possible without artificial assistance, or whether the experiment must be dropped. Without doubt, the establishment of a beet-sugar industry would give the farmer an additional outlet in many parts of the country; it would, however, not work the semi-revolution in agriculture which has resulted from it in many other places. The English farmer already practises intensive agriculture, and the mangel crop, so integral an element in a rotation in the south of England, gives rise to the heavy manuring, the thorough cultivation, and the wealth of food for stock which have been the great benefits conferred by the sugar-beet on the agriculture of Germany and the north of France. PROF. LIONEL SMITH BEALE, F.R.S. PROF. LIONEL SMITH BEALE, F.R.S., whose death occurred on March 28 at the age of seventy-eight years, was the son of Mr. Lionel John Beale, and was educated at King's College School and King's College, London. A year after taking his degree in medicine he established a private laboratory in Carey Street, Lincoln's Inn, for pathological, microscopical, and chemical research and teaching; and in 1853, at the early age of twenty-five, was appointed professor of physiology and general and morbid anatomy at King's College. He afterwards held the chair of pathology, and finally that of the principles and practice of medicine at King's College, resigning the latter in 1896. For forty years Prof. Beale was physician to King's College Hospital, and among other honours and appointments received by him during his active career may be mentioned the Baly medal in 1871 for researches in physiology; Croonian lecturer to the Royal Society, 1865; Lumleian lecturer, Royal College of Physicians, London, 1875; president of the Royal Microscopical Society, 1879; and Government medical referee for England, 1891-1904. As a teacher, Prof. Beale was remarkable for his lucidity; and his lectures were admirably delivered, riveting the attention of his hearers. He had the esteem of all his pupils; and those who had the privilege of a closer intimacy with him feel that they have indeed sustained a great loss by his death. His principal work, that which gained him the Fellowship of the Royal Society, was on the minute structure of the tissues; "Beale's carmine stain " and his injection mixtures are well known to all microscopists. Prof. Beale was the author of many works, among the best known being the "Archives of Medicine, containing researches carried out in the laboratory at Carey Street; "How to Work with the Microscope "; "The Microscope in Medicine"; "Protoplasm, Physical Life and Law"; "The Liver "; and Slight Ailments and their Treatment," besides many papers in the Philosophical Transactions and other publications of learned societies. R. T. H. NOTES. 66 THE fourteenth 'James Forrest lecture of the Institution of Civil Engineers will be delivered by Mr. . А. Hadfield on Wednesday, May 2, the subject being "Unsolved Problems in Metallurgy.' THE Government of India has decided, with the approval of the Secretary of State, to establish an institute in India as a centre for practical instruction of medical officers and subordinates in the use and management of Röntgen ray apparatus, and as a depôt for the storage and repair of such apparatus. The institute will be located at Dehra Dun, and will be under the superintendence of an officer of the Indian Medical Service. PROF. R. MELDOLA, F.R.S., has been made an Officier de l'Instruction publique of France for his services in connection with the foundation of the Alliance FrancoBritannique, of which association he is the honorary secretary. A REUTER message states that, after perceptible shocks of earthquake, a crevice, out of which lava flowed, opened on the side of Mount Vesuvius, on March 28, some hundred yards from the upper station of the Funicular Railway. The eruption from the principal crater also continues. Ar the Meteorological Office Mr. R. G. K. Lempfert has been appointed superintendent of the statistical branch, Mr. Ernest Gold has been selected for appointment as superintendent of the instruments branch, and Mr. J. A. Curtis succeeds Mr. J. S. Harding as cashier and chief clerk. THE Easter excursion of the Geologists' Association will this year be to Lyme Regis. The party will leave London on Thursday, April 12, and return to town on Tuesday, April 17. A detailed itinerary and time-table has been published by the association. The excursion will be directed by Dr. H. B. Woodward, F.R.S., and Mr. G. W. Young, the excursion secretary. THE death is announced of Mr. Carl Heinrich von Siemens. Born in 1829 at Menzendorf, in Mecklenburg, he was the sixth son of a family of fourteen. For the greater part of his life he cooperated with his brothers Werner, William, and Friedrich in the development of the various undertakings with which the name of Siemens is associated. A detailed notice of his career is published in the Engineer of March 30. ACCORDING to a Laffan telegram from New York, dated March 31, the De Forest Wireless Telegraphy Company has been sending experimental messages from its station at Coney Island to Ireland every night for some time, and on March 28 a thousand words were transmitted, of which 572 were received and recorded. The longest distance that had previously been covered by this company's service was from Coney Island to Colon, 2100 miles; the new record is 3200 miles. The sending stations in Ireland are not yet completed, so that a tetrahedral kite is used temporarily for receiving work. THE following are among the lecture arrangements at the Royal Institution after Easter :-Prof. W. Stirling, three lectures on glands and their products; Dr. P. Chalmers Mitchell, two lectures on the digestive tract in birds and mammals; the Rev. J. P. Mahaffy, two lectures on (1) the expansion of old Greek literature by recent discoveries, (2) the influence of ptolemaic Egypt on GræcoRoman civilisation; Prof. W. J. Sollas, F.R.S., three lectures on man and the Glacial period; and Sir J. Dewar, F.R.S., two lectures on the old and the new chemistry. The Friday evening meetings will be resumed on April 27, when Prof. J. W. Gregory, F.R.S., will deliver a discourse on ore deposits and their distribution in depth. Succeeding discourses will probably be given by the Hon. C. A. Parsons, F.R.S., Prof. J. H. Poynting, F.R.S., Prof. A. Schuster, F.R.S., Mr. L. Hill, F.R.S., Prof. H. Moissan, F.R.S., Sir James Dewar, F.R.S., and others. IN the House of Commons on Monday, Sir W. Foster asked why dead specimens of cancer, preserved in a nondeleterious fluid, have been declared to be forbidden admittance to the post, and why certain specimens, addressed to the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, were ordered to be destroyed immediately on their arrival in this country from abroad. In the course of his reply, Mr. Buxton said:" The cancer specimens addressed to the Cancer Research Fund are, I am informed on the highest authority, harmless; and, as I am assured that the use of the post is of great importance for the successful prosecution of the researches of the fund, I hope to be able to make a special exception in their favour. I think it desirable, however, that the matter should be discussed with the delegates of the countries principally concerned at the approaching Postal Congress, and I have instructed |