An instructive address, before the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain, was recently delivered by Sir W. Roberts Austen on the progress made in the iron and steel industries during the past century. The great revolution which the discovery of steel brought about is dwelt upon at length, and its far-reaching importance, not only in the iron industry itself but in all other industries and in the destinies of England herself, pointed out. In the early days of the industry it was held that the different qualities of iron were due to the different localities from which the ore was obtained, but late in the eighteenth century the great Swedish chemist, Bergman, of Upsala, clearly showed that carbon is the element to which steel and cast iron owe their distinctive properties. Clouet’s celebrated experiment on the carburization of iron by the diamond followed. “Well might Bergman express astonishment at the action of carbon on iron. Startling as the statement may seem, the destinies of England throughout the century, and especially during the latter half of it, have been mainly influenced by the use of steel. Hardly a step of our progress or an incident of our civilization has not in one way or another been influenced by the properties of iron and steel. It is remarkable that these properties have been determined by the relations subsisting between a mass of iron, itself protean in its nature, and the few tenths per cent of carbon it contains.” In 1800 the production of pig iron in England was about 200,000 tons; in 1898 it was 8,769,249 tons.

A note in Nature describes an ingenious arrangement for controlling the direction of torpedoes by means of ether waves. Two solenoids, into which are drawn iron cores, are attached to the rudder head, the core which is drawn in depending, of course, upon the direction of the received current. Two rods projecting above the surface of the water receive the waves and are in circuit with a coherer of special type, which affects a relay in the usual way. The actual processes involved in steering and controlling a torpedo are somewhat as follows: The torpedo, containing a suitable combination of the apparatus above mentioned, is launched from a vessel containing the necessary sending apparatus. Suppose the torpedo goes off its course. Then, by means of a switch, an induction coil is supplied with an electric current, and waves or oscillations are generated. These, on reaching the torpedo, pass into the projecting wire and thence reach the coherer. This operates the relay, closing the secondary circuit. An electric current now flows through a “selector” to one of the solenoids, the iron core is sucked into right or left, and the helm is thus turned. When the torpedo has attained a proper course the switch is opened and the waves cease. The vibration in the neighborhood of the coherer restores it to the original resistance; the current passing through it becomes weaker and ceases to affect the relay coil, which therefore opens the secondary circuit and allows the helm to fly back to the midship position. A large model of the apparatus has been constructed, and it is said to work with entire success under all kinds of conditions. The inventors are Mr. Walter Jameson and Mr. John Trotter. It is stated that Nikola Tesla has American patents for a somewhat similar device.

In the absence of the author, Professor Dewar’s paper on the solidification of hydrogen was read in the British Association by Sir William Crook. It shows that solid hydrogen presents the appearance of frozen water, and not, as had been anticipated by many, of frozen mercury; hence it is now definitely decided that it is not metallic. The temperature of the solid is 16° absolute at thirty-five millimetres pressure, and it melts at 16° or 17° absolute, the practical limit of the temperature obtainable by its evaporation being 14° or 15° absolute. Thus the last of the old gas has been solidified. It was further mentioned, in connection with these statements, that Professor Dewar had succeeded in liquefying helium.

The organizing committees of the Congresses of AËronautics and Meteorology—these being cognate subjects—of the Exposition of 1900 have decided to hold the meetings of these bodies in such a manner that all members can attend the sessions of both. The programme arranged for the AËronautical Congress contemplates the discussion, under aspects which are set forth in detail, of “problems” relating to free balloons, their management and use; captive balloons, steerable balloons, and aviation; and the scientific applications of balloon observations to problems in astronomy, meteorology, and physiology; also of their use for purposes of reconnoissance and topographical surveys, and of photography from balloons. In a different order of ideas, the congress may occupy itself with questions of legislation and international law which concern aËronauts in times of peace and of war.

Three State catalogues of Ohio plants have heretofore been issued. The first, by J.S. Newberry, was published in the State Agricultural Report in 1859; the second, by H.C. Beardslee, was published in 1874, and was reprinted in the Agricultural Report for 1879; and the third, by W.A. Kellerman and W.C. Werner, was included in the State Geological Report for 1893. This work contains a bibliography, and gives the names of the first known collectors of the less common species. A fourth catalogue, consisting of a checklist of the Pteridophytes and Spermophytes, recently published by Prof. W. A. Kellerman, contains the species and varieties numbered serially, as in the State Herbarium of nearly ten thousand sheets, with the sequence of groups as by Engler and Prantl, and the nomenclature as used by Britton and Brown.

NOTES.

The committee of the St. Petersburg Astronomical Society for the revision of the Russian calendar, to make it agree with the Gregorian, has found it necessary to move slowly. The festivals prove a formidable obstacle to the desired reform, and the people will have to be prepared for the change before it can be instituted. The plan now is to use both dates, Russian and Gregorian, together till the new style can be made familiar, and it is proposed to make the double use compulsory on private as well as on public documents and papers.

A steamboat company is placing its little vessels on the canals of Venice, and the gondolas, which were one of the charms of the city to travelers, are destined to disappear—unless a few may be reserved to gratify the curiosity of tourists.

The Commissioner of Education of Rhode Island has issued a circular to teachers, calling attention to the work of the Audubon Society for the Preservation of Birds, and to the incalculable value, from various points of view, of bird life, and advises them to foster Nature study as furnishing a natural channel by means of which instruction and information on the subject may readily be brought before the children, and through them to the people generally.

In a paper on The Ultimate Basis of Time Divisions in Geology, T.C. Chamberlin accepts it as proved that there were no universal breaks in sedimentation or in the fundamental continuity of life, no physical cataclysms attended by universal destruction of life, and that sedimentation has been in constant progress somewhere and life continuous and self-derivative since the beginning. He then raises the question whether this continuity of physical and vital action proceeded by heterogeneous impulses or by correlated pulsations. The author’s conclusion is in favor of the hypothesis of correlated pulsations involving a rhythmical periodicity.

Nettle fiber is said to be coming into great favor for the manufacture of fine yarns and tissues. Several factories in Germany are using it, and the introduction of the extensive cultivation of nettles into the African colony of the Cameroons is contemplated.

There are now, according to the last annual Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, thirty-six forest reservations (exclusive of the Afognak Forest and Fish-Culture Reserve in Alaska) in the United States, embracing an estimated area of 46,021,899 acres. This estimate is for the aggregate areas within the boundaries of the reservations, but the lands reserved are only the vacant public lands therein. The actual reserved area is therefore somewhat less than the estimate.

Experiments made by Professor Dewar and Sir W. Thisleton Dyer, and reported to the British Association, upon the effect of the temperature of liquid hydrogen upon the germinative power of seeds, go to show that life goes on at a temperature so low that ordinary chemical action is practically stopped. Seeds of barley, vegetable marrow, mustard, and the pea were immersed in liquid hydrogen for six hours, cooled to a temperature of 453° F. below the temperature of melting ice, and came out unchanged to the eye, and, when planted, all germinated.

Sir John Lubbock, having been raised to the peerage, has adopted Lord Avebury as his title, and will be henceforth so known.

In our obituary list of men known to science are the names of N.E. Green, F.R.A.S., who was distinguished for the excellence of his planetary observations, particularly of Mars, made at Madeira in 1877, and was the second President of the British Astronomical Association, died November 10th, in his seventy-sixth year; Prof. E.E. Hughes, inventor of the Hughes printing telegraph machine, the microphone, and the induction balance, Fellow of the Royal Society, gold medalist, and Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, who was born in London in 1831 and was brought to the United States at an early age; Mr. J. R. Gregory, mineralogist; M. Marion, professor in the Scientific Faculty in the University of Marseilles and Keeper of the Natural History Museum there, who took part in the dredging trips of the Travailleur and the Talisman, and contributed to the Annales of the museum at Marseilles; Dr. Hans Bruno Geinitz, geologist and paleontologist, at Dresden, Saxony, in his eighty-sixth year; Walter GÖtze, botanist, while on an expedition to German East Africa, December 9th; and Mr. W.T. Suffolk, treasurer of the Royal Microscopical Society of Great Britain.