which are given separately, 178,400 and 235,700 respectively, an increase of nearly one-third; by far the larger number of these were undoubtedly engaged in steel manufacture. The paper deals also with the production of iron and steel in France and in the United States, and includes an interesting table of the production and export of iron and steel in the chief iron-producing. countries of the world, which shows strikingly the amount of loss that the war has inflicted upon the German iron and steel industries.

HONG-KONG Royal Observatory has recently issued. its report for the year 1919, under the directorship of Mr. T. F. Claxton. The report deals mainly with meteorology, but it includes in a general way the magnetic elements and time services, with the necessary astronomical observations for the latter. In the description of the various meteorological instruments in use a doubt is thrown on the relation between the temperatures in the thermograph shelter and the hourly readings by the rotation thermometers, and it is stated that the difference is not constant throughout the day. Details of the comparison would be useful and interesting. In addition to the automatic records, eye observations of the same elements are said to be made each hour; perhaps less frequent eye observations would be sufficient, and time thus saved might with advantage be devoted to a discussion of clouds, the character and direction of which are said to be observed every three hours. Attention is directed to the large departures from normal from month to month in atmospheric pressure, temperature, and wind. A typhoon on August 22 occasioned a squall at the rate of 84 m.p.h., although the centre of the disturbance passed about 150 miles to the south-west of Hong-Kong. The greatest rainfall in twenty-four hours was 4.80 in. on July 5, and the greatest in one hour was 1.35 in. between 5 and 6 a.m. on October 1. The total rainfall for the year at the observatory was 76.14 in., of which 49.92 in. fell in June, July, and August; and in these months, in the heaviest rains occasioning floods, 38.79 in. fell in 186 hours. Seventyone per cent. of the daily weather forecasts are said to have been completely successful. Meteorological logs were received from eighty-one ships operating in the Far East, representing 2587 days' observations. It would be a valuable asset for aeronautics if observers could be encouraged to give especial attention to cloud observations; marine and aeronautic meteorology are becoming closely interlocked.

THE June issue of Terrestrial Magnetism and Atmosphenic Electricity contains Capt. J. P. Ault's preliminary results of the magnetic observations taken on the United States Magnetic Survey ship Carnegie during her voyage from Buenos Aires to St. Helena in February and. March last. According to the new measurements, the deviation of the compass and the dip as given on the most recent British Admiralty Chart No. 3775 are in many cases 1° out in the deviation and 2° or 3° out in the dip. The most serious differences are to be found in the region between 45° south latitude 329° east longitude, and 36° south 354° east, where the British chart gives

the deviation to the west too small by about 1°; while over the region 33° south 2o east to 16° south 8° east the dip is given between 2° and 3° too small. The horizontal intensity given on the chart is everywhere too large by about one unit in the second decimal place of the value in C.G.S. units.

THE Journal of the Torquay Natural History Society, vol. ii., No. 6, has just reached us. Among other interesting papers is one on the scientific correspondence of Charles Kingsley and William Pengelly. An account of the life of Charles Kingsley is given, together with extracts from letters written by him between 1867 and 1870 to William Pengelly. Points of natural history, mostly of a geological nature, were raised in these letters. Another paper

of interest is "Mendelism and Selection." The results of recent experiments by Prof. Castle are discussed in terms of germ-plasm with the view of reconciling Mendelism with selection. In yet another paper some account is given by Mr. H. G. Lowe of the origin of the needle; its history is traced back through three needle-like implements which have been found while excavating in Kent's Cavern. The view taken is that the discovery of the needle marked the first step in man's struggle from a purely animal state of existence.

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MESSRS. GAUTHIER-VILLARS, of Paris, are publishing a series of works of great men of science entitled 'Les Maîtres de la Pensée Scientifique," with the object of making the original works known to scientific students. We have received four volumes containing writings of Lavoisier, Huygens, and Spallanzani, each including a short biographical note on its author. "Mémoires sur la Respiration et la Transpiration des Animaux, by Lavoisier, is a col. lection of four papers read to the Académie des Sciences between 1777 and 1790. The text is taken from the Mémoires of the society for the appropriate years. "Traité de la Lumière," by Huygens, is reprinted from the original work published in 1690, with some necessary alterations in spelling and punctuation. The two volumes entitled Observations et Expériences faites sur les Animalcules des Infusions,' by Spallanzani, are copies of a translation of the original work by Jean Senebier published at Geneva in 1786. The diagrams included in the translation are not reproduced. When the series is completed it will serve as a ready means of access to the works of men prominent in the history of science, and it should be particularly valuable to the student by giving him an opportunity of learning at first hand the methods and arguments by which scientific knowledge has been advanced.

MESSRS. SIFTON, PRAED, AND CO., LTD., promise for the autumn publishing season an illustrated volume by Miss Gardner King on the present condition of the inhabitants of the Fiji Islands, based upon the author's experiences among them shortly before the war. Miss King lived much among the natives in their own homes, and should therefore have an interesting story to tell.

Our Astronomical Column.

TEMPEL'S COMET.-M. Fayet has given a very probable explanation of the discordance of the Kudara observation of this comet on May 25. He finds that its true R.A. on that day was exactly 2h. greater than the Kudara one, the declination being correct. Hence the alteration of a single figure in the announccment, which may have been set down wrong by inadvertence in preparing the message for telegraphic transCO mission, will make everything accordant, and further explain the fact that whereas Mr. Kudara stated that the comet was visible in a small telescope, many European observers searched in vain round the position indicated. The calculated daily motion on May 25 is +3m. 34s., N. 8', which agrees fairly well with the observed value +3m. 4s., N. 8'; the latter was probably deduced from observations extending over an hour or two. The following positions have been announced :

M. Michkovitch noted that the coma appeared round, the diameter exceeding 1'. There was a welldefined nucleus of magnitude 9.8. Dr. Palisa noted that this was eccentrically placed in the coma.

STONYHURST OBSERVATIONS IN 1919.-The annual volume of the results obtained at Stonyhurst Observatory last year contains an interesting summary by the director, the Rev. A. L. Cortie, of the solar observations. The mean spot areas for 1917-18-19 are 121, 79, and 8.4 respectively, while the mean daily magnetic declination ranges in the same years are 11.8', 12.4', and 12.7′. The year 1919 probably represents the hump on the downward curve, which is frequently shown both in sun-spots and variable stars. Father Cortie associates the delayed maximum of magnetic-as compared with sun-spot-activity with the declining mean latitude of sun-spots, which increases their magnetic efficiency, since it makes them cross the sun more centrally.

The most remarkable spot group of 1919 was a triple group which was on the disc from August 13 to 25 (central about August 19). A very violent magnetic storm occurred on August 11-12; if this was connected with the spot group the discharge must have been directed tangentially, not radially, from the sun. The spot group persisted through four rotations, being last seen on December 7.

The report also gives the result of a comparison between the drawings of faculæ and the photographs of calcium flocculi. A close correspondence in position is found, so that every prominent flocculus has an accompanying facula.

A research is also in progress with the view of

tracing the flow of faculæ in regions of long-continued spot activity. It is anticipated that this flow will prove to be connected with the cyclonic movements that produce the magnetic field in sun-spots.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE.-Science for July 23 contains a lecture on this subject by Prof. W. D. MacMillan, of the University of Chicago. Prof. MacMillan dwells on the numerous analogies between the microcosm of atoms and electrons and the stellar universe. For example, he shows the close analogy between the two electrons of the hydrogen atom and the sun-Neptune system, the relation between their diameters and mutual distance being about the same. He gives the number of atoms in the solar system as 6× 1055, and the volume of the sun's domain in the stellar universe as 20 cubic parsecs, or 6x 105 c.c. So that, on the average, there is atom to 10 c.c., which would put the atoms about as far apart relatively to their diameter as the

stars.

It will be remembered that Prof. Eddington and others have recently made the suggestion that the annihilation of atoms through collision and the consequent release of their stores of energy may be going on in the hottest stars, and thus add enormously to the duration of their output of light and heat. Prof. MacMillan endorses these speculations, and adds the suggestion that the radiant heat of the stars in its passage through space may perform the converse transformation and build up matter once more from the products of such atomic collisions, restoring to them the property of mass which they had lost. He claims as a result of these agencies to have constructed a universe that is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. But he can scarcely claim that this conclusion is based exclusively on known facts. Many of his postulates are doubtful, and rest on analogy only.

Textile Industries and Technical Education in Canada and the United States.

PROF. ALFRED F. BARKER, of the Textile

Industries Department of the University of Leeds, has written an interesting report' of nearly 130 pages of text, accompanied by numerous photographic illustrations, of a visit paid in the summer of 1919 to Canada and the United States. In the course of the report he discusses, among other matters, the vast resources in water-power of Canada, which, used directly or in the development of electrical energy, render to manufacturing industry an immense, service, and also education and educational institutions, housing, work and wages, and industrial enterprise as they came under his observation in both Canada and the States; and he offers interesting comparisons with the conditions which prevail in the United Kingdom. Prof. Barker is, however, chiefly concerned with the extent, variety, and progress of textile manufacture connected with the production of cotton, wool, and silk goods. He was everywhere given the fullest facilities for his inquiries and investigations, with the result that his observations cannot fail to be of the highest interest and value to producers and merchants engaged in these industries.

Almost all the cotton mills in the Dominion are in the province of Quebec, attributable, Prof. Barker observes, possibly to climatic conditions, to the manipulative skill and cheap labour of the French Canadian, or to some combination of all these causes with 1 "A Summer Tour (1919) through the Textile Districts of Canada and the United States.' By Prof. A. F. Barker. Pp. xi+197. (Leeds: Printed by Jowett and Sowry, Ltd., n.d.)

trolled by British or British Canadian managers, some of whom received their training in Lancashire textile schools or in those of the States. It is a unique feature of Canadian mills, as distinguished from those of Lancashire and York. shire, that every operation from the yarn to the finished cloth, even including the dyeing and printing, is carried out in one and the same factory, which obviously makes it much more interesting to visit than that of a similar works in this country. The woollen industry is mainly centred in Ontario, and is far less well organised than that of cotton, but the hosiery mills are in evidence in every textile district of the Dominion, and a great future lies before the industry, since the equipment and staff of workers are of the most efficient character (Fig. 1).

Referring to textile manufacture in the States, Prof. Barker remarks that fine wool yarns are now spun there which cannot be beaten in any European country, but that neither in Canada nor in the States did he see a fine cotton yarn approaching that produced by Lancashire mills. On the other hand, he visited a mill in New Jersey which produced finer and better finished dress fabrics than Bradford, and in

New York he was shown worsted fabrics impossible

to exceed in beauty of texture and colour.

Much space is given in the report to the subject

and agricultural research stations designed to serve the farming interests, whilst in Montreal, the largest city of Canada dominated by industry and commerce, there is the splendid McGill University, with its

FIG. 2.-Lowell Textile School.

magnificently equipped engineering school; and in Toronto, the capital of Ontario, there is the Univer

city, noted for its strong Faculty of Applied Science, and not less is the city celebrated for its fine Technical High School, wherein industries and industrial processes are made to serve the highest educational purposes for its three thousand day students. At night the school is attended by six thousand apprentices in the various trades the equipment covers. In short, Canada, in proportion to its population, is well provided with institutions of university rank, and in the near future she will have educational facilities second to no other country in the world. Prof. Barker is also not less loud in his praise of the educational activities and institutions of the States, especially of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in many respects one of the finest institutions in the world. wherein nothing is spared to make the courses good and experimental and research work so efficient that it cannot be left out of the industrial sequence, with the result that the institution is simply flooded with students who are inspired with the possibilities of discovery. He speaks highly of the provision for textile training and education, and especially of the fine school at Lowell (Fig. 2), which represents for the textile industries what the Institute of Technology of Boston represents for mining and engineering. The report is full of apt observation upon educational and industrial aims and methods.

THE

Sunshine in the United States.1

HE United States Monthly Weather Review for January, 1920, contains a discussion on Sunshine in the United States " by Mr. J. B. Kincer, Meteorologist attached to the Weather Bureau, Washington, from observations mostly for the twenty years from 1895 to 1914.

Data are given showing the actual amount of sunshine in hours and tenths and the percentage of the possible amount, both methods having their special advantages. Charts and diagrams show the mean solar time of sunrise and sunset, and the average length of day, sunrise to sunset. The seasonal and annual distributions of sunshine are given in percentages of the possible amount, and a table shows for each month and for the year the percentage of possible amount of sunshine for all stations where records are made.

Some dissatisfaction is expressed at the records of the automatic instruments available, as they in no way indicate the different degrees of sunshine intensity—an anomaly shared by all other countries. In describing three forms of sunshine recorders in use, the Campbell-Stokes, the Jordan, and the electrical thermometric recorder, which is said now to be in general use by the Weather Bureau, the Review states: "The Campbell-Stokes burning recorder, consisting of a lens or burning-glass which scorches, during bright sunshine, a trace on a strip of cardboard placed at the proper focal distance and adjusted by clockwork to revolve with the sun "; this description seems open to objection, as the card is stationary, and the sun revolving impinges its image on the card bearing the time-scale.

Distribution of sunshine with geographical position is well treated. For the year as a whole the least amount of sunshine occurs along the North Pacific coast, where it is only 40 per cent. of the daylight hours. The maximum amount in the United States occurs in the south-west; in the Lower Colorado River valley the duration of sunshine is 90 per cent. of the total number of hours from sunrise to sunset. July is the month of maximum amount in nearly one1 From U.S. Monthly Weather Review, January, 1920. vol. xlviii., rp. 12-17 and charts i-iv; November, 1010, vol. xlvii., pp. 794-95.

half of the country, including all the northern districts.

Data are given showing the average annual percentage of days clear, partly cloudy, and cloudy. Dealing with diurnal variations in sunshine, it is stated that the amount is least during the early morning hours, with a secondary minimum in the late afternoon. The greatest amount occurs near midday. Prof. R. de C. Ward, of the Harvard University, contributed an article to the U.S. Monthly Weather Review for November, 1919, bearing the title " Bibliographic Note on Sunshine in the United States." Foreseeing the issue of a series of new sunshine charts for the United States, a brief account is given of previous sunshine charts issued.

Reference is made to work done by van Bebber in 1896 and by Gläser in 1912, 'and it is mentioned that the available material was confessedly very inadequate." In charts prepared by Prof. A. J. Henry in 1898 the percentages of sunshine were obtained by subtracting the mean annual cloudiness from 100, and a map of normal annual sunshine compiled from observations at the Weather Bureau stations from 1871 to 1908 inclusive seems to have been obtained in the same way. The system seems open to serious objection, and is far less satisfactory than using the records of the automatic sunshine instrument.

C. H.

The Peat Resources of Ireland. THE HE Fuel Research Board has issued as a Special Report (No. 2) a lecture on the above subject delivered by Prof. P. F. Purcell before the Royal Dublin Society last year. The importance of using the lower grade fuels has been greatly enhanced by the enormous rise in the price of our higher grade staple fuel, coal; and Sir George Beilby, in his introductory remarks to the Report, ascribes the revival of interest in peat as a fuel not only to the general scarcity of fuel, but also to the great and apparently permanent increase in the cost of coal.

The peat resources of Ireland are of paramount interest in that country, where the bogs cover oneseventh of the area, and Prof. Purcell estimates that the peat reserves in these bogs are more than ten times those of the proved coal reserves of that country. The estimated anhydrous peat is 3,700,000,000 tons, equivalent to 5,000,000,000 tons of average air-dried peat. Sixty-two per cent. of the farmsteads are entirely dependent upon peat fuel, and it is estimated that the annual consumption is between 6,000,000 and 8,000,000 tons.

The problem of the utilisation of peat is, as is well known, one of the economical removal of excess water, the average content of which is about 90 per cent. The effect of water is, perhaps, best emphasised when it is stated that "with 89 per cent. present, the II per cent. of dry peat will just be sufficient to evaporate the 80 per cent. of water." In the natural process of air-drying peat, difficulties of a practical and economic nature are met with; thus the drying season is only from five to six months. In winter, water freezing in the blocks causes their breaking down, and the whole year's supply has to be won in the limited dry season of the year. "It thus happens that a great number of hands are required for a portion of the year, and few for the remainder," and these considerations furnish a very strong incentive to the invention of economical methods of artificial drving.

In Prof. Purcell's opinion. in spite of the many methods which have been tried for the removal of

excess water and improvements in mechanical and industrial operations, the air-drying of peat by natural means is the only recognised commercially successful method in use to-day. Reduction of the water-content from 90 to 70 per cent. by pressure alone on the raw peat is considered by the author to be the maximum, and he does not consider that drying by artificial heat becomes a practical proposition until this 70 per cent. content is reached, "and even then it is a very doubtful financial proposition."

For use under boilers the water should be reduced to 30-35 per cent.; for gas producers it is stated that several leading manufacturers claim successful working with 60-70 per cent., but Prof. Purcell considers that the possibility of using peat with as high a moisture-content as 60 per cent. is doubtful, and quotes the Canadian authority, Haakel, in support. "If it were permissible [to use such wet peat] it would render the industry less dependent on the weather, extend the peat-winning season, and simplify the whole problem."

Prof. Purcell considers that a clear case for the extended development of the peat deposits exists from an agricultural point of view, for the reclamation of land by removal of the bog and drainage must add to the food-producing capacities of a country. But labour costs are no small difficulty, for, as Sir George Beilby points out in his introduction, the development of a bog with 20 ft. of good peat is in some respects analogous to the proposal to develop a coalfield of similar area containing a single seam of only 15 in. thickness. It is true that the peat bog entails only surface working, but the whole depth has to be worked and 10 tons of raw material excavated and handled for 1 ton of dry peat. J. S. S. B.

to the bottom, where they are attacked by anaerobic organisms flourishing there, and ultimately either liquefied or turned into gas. The second stage of the process consists in the oxidation of the dissolved polluting matter. This matter has to be brought into contact with a large supply of atmo spheric oxygen in the presence of certain small organisms which are able to oxidise the organic materials. This contact may be effected in the soil, in a specially constructed filter, or in a large volume of water. When soil forms the contact bed, purification is brought about either by "filtration," when the sewage percolates downwards through the soil, or by 'broad irrigation," when the sewage merely passes over the soil surface. The method chosen depends on the openness or otherwise of the soil and subsoil. When suitable land is not available, artificial filters are made of broken clinker, destructor slag, etc. These materials provide a home for the nitrifying bacteria. The sewage is allowed to trickle slowly through, and with a good filter a purification of 80-90 per cent. is effected. When purification is allowed to take place in water, the volume of the water into which the sewage flows needs to be about five hundred times greater than the volume of the sewage.

Engineers had just settled down to the septic tank and trickling filter as the standard method for sewage purification when the "activated sludge' process was introduced by Drs. Fowler and Ardern. In this process the whole purification is completed in a tank provided with particles of activated sludge to serve as homes for the nitrifying bacteria. The sludge (i.e. solid deposit from the sewage) is activated by being submitted to currents of air for several days. It is then placed in the tank with the sewage, and air forced through for some hours until purification is effected. The drawback of this method is the great bulk of the resultant sludge, and the problem now is to find an economical way of disposing of the sludge so that the plant-food which is contained in sewage shall not be wasted.

a

of course, disastrous, and successive Royal Commissions were set up to find a remedy. The whole problem of sewage purification was obscure, and very little progress was made for a whole generation. Great hopes were centred in sewage farms as method of disposing of the sewage, and the various local authorities hoped at the same time to reap a profit from the cheap manuring of the land. Sewage farms, however,. rarely pay in a humid climate such as ours, for the land cannot deal with the huge amounts of water brought down from the sewers. Many other methods were tried, but in all of them the investigators failed to recognise the existence of the tiny scavengers which Nature provides to deal with our waste products.

The modern method of sewage purification was evolved after Pasteur's discovery of the bacteria which induce fermentation, and after the work of Warington and of Winogradsky on the nitrifying bacteria in the soil. The purification is carried out in two stages. The first stage is treatment in the "septic tank," through which the sewage passes extremely slowly. The solids sink

Experimental Cottage Building.

N view of the present housing difficulties, considerable interest has been centred in the results of the experiments in cottage building which have been carried out on the Ministry of Agriculture's Farm Settlement at Amesbury. These results are published in the Weekly Services for May 15 and 22, where we also learn that on Wednesdays for two or three months competent guides have been available to show visitors the experiments actually in progress. The present scheme includes thirty-two cottages, sixteen of which are for comparison purposes, and are built of brick on normal lines of construction, while the other sixteen are more directly experimental. Each cottage consists of parlour, livingroom, scullery, bath-wash-house, larder, fuel store, etc., on the ground floor, with three bedrooms on the upper floor. Experiments in building in chalk include a cottage with cavity walls built of blocks made of chalk and cement, one with walls of chalk and cement rammed between shuttering, one with walls of chalk alone (chalk pisé), and one with walls of chalk and straw (chalk cob) built without shuttering. There is also one cottage of monolithic reinforced concrete and two concrete-block cottages with hollow walls. These two cottages are being erected under contract by two proprietary firms; for all the other experimental cottages direct labour is employed. The experiment also includes a pair of timber-framed cottages faced with