would not possess, while at the same time it may be useful in making accurate tests on small specimens; such tests the committee is prepared to undertake, though it fully recognises the desirability of erecting a large machine as soon as funds will permit. The usual accessories for torsion and bending tests are fitted; there is also a simple autographic gear. The pressure pumps for the gauge-testing work sup: plied by Messrs. Schaffer and Budenberg were placed temporarily in an adjoining room. These are two in number; one is arranged to test simultaneously ten or twelve gauges up to a pressure of 600 lbs. to the square inch; the pressure is applied by a force pump and a screw plunger. In the other, a pressure of twelve tons to the square inch can be obtained easily. The indicatortesting apparatus given by Messrs. Willans and Robinson has not yet arrived. In the engine-room the 75 kilowatt Parsons' turbine was running, and proved an attraction to many visitors. The normal voltage of this machine is about 105. The room also contains a 10-kilowatt dynamo by Thomas Parker and Co., driven by a Crossley gas-engine and a motor generator set also by Parkers. By means of regulating resistances, the dynamo of this set can be made to run at voltages between 10 and 60. There are three storage batteries, each of about 55 chloride cells, in the Laboratory, and by running the generator in series with the main dynamo each of these can be charged. But in experimental work the cells are likely to be unequally used; the generator alone can then be used to charge groups of cells which require special treatment. With regard to the physical part of the Laboratory, it must be remembered that the staff has only been in the building for a very short period, the electrical rooms were not ready for occupation until about ten days before the opening, and, further, that the funds at the disposal of the committee have sufficed to purchase only a limited equipment. The aim of the director has been to complete as far as possible the apparatus required for experiments which it is hoped to undertake at once; no apparatus has been bought without an express and immediate object in view. The thermometric department is perhaps the most completely fitted. The main laboratory has been divided into two by a partition of soft brick and glass. On the one side are the various furnaces and heating appliances, on the other the measuring instruments which it is desired to keep at a uniform temperature or to protect from fumes. The brick can easily be drilled to allow the passage of wires, tubes, &c.; through the glass the observer can see what is happening on the other side of the partition. Appliances were shown for standardising thermometric instruments from the temperature of liquid air up to 1000°C. or 1200 C. This laboratory is in the charge of Dr. Harker, who has shown much ability in arranging the various appliances. For the liquid air there is a Hampson liquefier attached to a Brotherhood compressor, which is driven by a 5 h.p. motor by Laurence Scott and Co., of Norwich. For boiling-point observations and for calibration, the standard apparatus as used at Sèvres has been fitted. For temperatures between boiling point and 200° C. to 250° C. an oil bath has been constructed. This consists of a wide U-tube of copper having a junction across the upper part of the U. In the one limb is a stirrer driven by a small motor, in the other the thermometers are placed; thus a continuous stream of oil is driven rapidly past the thermometers. The whole is jacketed and heated by gas, and careful observations have shown that the temperature over the whole of the vertical column is remarkably uniform. For temperatures up to about 600° C. there is a similar bath of iron containing a mixture in equal parts of the nitrates of potassium and sodium. The higher temperatures up to nearly 1200 C. are ob tained in an electric oven similar to that used by Messrs. Holborn and Day at the Reichsanstalt, and the director is indebted to President Kohlrausch for kind assistance in procuring the materials for this. The oven, which was the gift of Sir Andrew Noble, consists of a series of tubes of porcelain and fireclay carefully lagged with asbestos; round the innermost tube a nickel wire is coiled; this is heated by a current, and a remarkably steady and uniform condition of temperature is obtained; the regulation of the temperature is easy, and there are no fumes to contend with. For success with the oven it is necessary that the electric supply should be uniform; a special battery of 56 cells has therefore been installed. This has been arranged in four groups of 14 cells each, and by means of a specially devised switchboard these can be combined in various ways to give the required current and voltage. This battery was the gift of Sir Andrew Noble, to whom also is due the gas thermometer which at present forms the standard of reference. For secondary standards, mercury thermometers will be used up to 250 or possibly rather higher; above this platinum thermometers, or possibly thermopiles, will be adopted. Among the exhibits were three thermal-junctions most carefully standardised by Prof. Holborn, which will form a link between the Laboratory and the Reichsanstalt ; there was also a platinum thermometer in a quartz tube, very kindly given by Mr. W. A. Shenstone. A cathetometer set up temporarily against the wall attracted special notice. At no great distance from the thermometric laboratory is the mercury pressure gauge. A glass column some fifty feet high has been fixed to the wall of the labora tory; alongside this is a steel scale, divided into millimetres, pounds per square inch, kilogrammes per square centimetre, and feet of water; thus gauges up to a pressure of 250 lbs. to the inch can be tested directly against the column. A lift erected close to the column enables the observer to read the height of the mercury. The pressure is applied by means of com. pressed air contained in a bottle connected both to the gauge and the mercury column. The bottle will be filled from the Brotherhood compressor which works the air liquefier. For standardising gauges between 250 and 400 lbs. pressure, a loaded piston apparatus-a gift from Messrs. Willans and Robinson-will be available; for pressures above this, apparatus has to be constructed. The metallurgical department is housed in the old kitchen, in which there was an interesting exhibition of photographs of metallic sections and cooling curves, lent by Sir William Roberts-Austen. The apparatus for investigating cooling curves has yet to be bought, but a beautiful photomicrographical outfit by Zeiss was shown by Dr. Carpenter, who exhibited to a number of the guests the section of a steel rail magnified four hundred times; the pearlite and ferrite structures were clearly visible; the rail had been rolled cold and the grains were elongated by the rolling. The projection apparatus is very complete; the arrangements for cutting, grinding and polishing the sections are also ready; the polishing apparatus has been specially designed by Mr. J. E. Stead, and the laboratory is prepared to undertake the microscopic examination of sections for the railway com. panies or other users. A room adjoining the microscopeis arranged for metrology, and here were set up a dividing engine by the Société Génevoise pour la Construction d'Instruments de Physique, This instrument was given by Sir Andrew Noble, and is a copy of that in use at the Bureau International, but without the automatic mechanism-this, however, can be added if funds permit. It will divide lengths of 1 metre or less. The room also contained a Whitworth measuring machine, a set of standard gauges, surface plates, &c. A set of screw gauges had most kindly been lent by Messrs. Sir W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth and Co., who exhibited in addition Sir J. Whitworth's original measuring machine. A Pratt and Whitney measuring machine has not yet arrived. In an adjoining room, thanks to the courtesy of Sir F. J. S. Hopwood and Mr. Chaney, there was an interesting exhibit from the Standards Department of the Board of Trade. King Henry VII.'s yard and Queen Elizabeth's pints were shown in proximity to our modern standards. The electrical rooms are three in number. One of these, in the basement, has a constant-temperature chamber attached, and here were the British Association standards of resistance; the coil "Flat" made by Matthiessen about 1864 and used by the original British Association Committee on Electrical Standards was shown to visitors, as well as some modern standards. The main electrical laboratories, however, are far from complete; one of these, which is to be used for the fundamental units and standards, was occupied as a tea-room. In the other, Mr. Campbell had, in the ten days which had been available, set up some secondary standards in their permanent positions, while other apparatus was exhibited on tables in the middle of the room. A few antiquated scales of historical interest aroused some criticism. They were merely placed on the tables with the other apparatus to indicate that a galvanometer with some proper arrangement of lamp and scale formed part of the installation required. The fundamental standard of electromotive force will be the Clark cell, while current will be measured by the drop in volts over a known resistance; but for secondary standards a Kelvin multicellular voltmeter of somewhat special construction, a set of Kelvin balances and some Weston instruments will be employed. The voltmeter is read on a long scale in the form of the arc of a circle some two metres in radius. Between 60 and 110 or 120 volts the scale is a very open one, some 5 cm. correspond ing to one volt. Thus it is easy to read to the tenth of a volt. For use with the instrument a special resistance box containing ten coils has been wound by Mr. Campbell. The first coil of 10,000 ohms resistance is divided into two parts. One of these has a resistance of 1500, the other of 8500 ohms; each of the others is 10,000 ohms. Each coil is of manganin, wound in sections, which are arranged so as to be non-inductive, and each coil will stand an E.M.F. of more than 100 volts. Thus 1000 volts may safely be applied to the whole. A current can be passed through the whole box and adjusted by means of external resistances until the drop between the first and second terminal just balances the E.M.F. of one Clark cell14,340 volts-in series. In this case the drop across each coil after the first is to volts, and by connecting the voltmeter in turn to the proper terminals of the box its scale can be calibrated. When this has been done the instrument is ready for reading directly potential differences between 50 and 120 volts; below 50 the scale is too contracted. To measure voltages above 120 volts, the box is used; the total volts are put on between the end terminals; the box enables these to be subdivided to tenths, and a convenient number of tenths can be measured directly on the voltmeter scale. In another corner of the room were the standard air condensers of the British Association; these, which consist of a series of concentric cylinders, have been described by Mr. Glazebrook in some of the reports of the Electrical Standards Committee; on a table near by was shown the apparatus for determining their capacity, a Wheatstone's bridge box of platinum silver coils by Elliott Bros. and a rotating commutator made by Pye and Son, of Cambridge, the speed of which is controlled by a stroboscopic arrangement viewed through diaphragms attached to a standard fork. It is intended at once to set about constructing from these condensers standards of capacity for commercial use. On another table was set up in a convenient form the apparatus for measuring by the ballistic method the permeability and hysteresis of an iron ring, while close by the latest pattern of Ewing's permeameter was on exhibition. In the centre of the room were shown two resistance boxes by Wolff, of Berlin; one of these was a potentiometer box with a wide range of applicability, the other an ingenious modification of the Kelvin double bridge which is used extensively at the Reichsanstalt for the measurement of small resistances. The commercial testing of iron and steep or of measuring apparatus, if undertaken on a large scale, will probably be carried out ultimately in a room attached to the engineering laboratory; most of the arrangements which have just been described are fitted rather for the construction and verification of secondary standards than for purely commercial testing. A fourth wing of the building contains the chemical laboratory, which calls perhaps for no particular description; it was described as workmanlike by a very capable judge on the nineteenth, and that may suffice. A chemical laboratory is essential, but it is not desirable that it should be very elaborate. The laboratory contained a large collection of glass vessels, flasks, burettes, &c., lent by Messrs. Gallenkamp ; these were intended to illustrate one branch of the new work, the standardisation of such apparatus for which there seems a great opening. The vessels exhibited bore the stamp of the Reichsanstalt. The system of electric wiring adopted requires a special notice. There are two distinct sets of circuits; one of these, connected to the lamps and to numerous plug points, is fed from the dynamo or the cells at a steady voltage of 100 volts. It is used for lighting and for the supply of power. For the experimental work there is a separate battery of 55 cells. These are arranged in groups of 5, the first group being further subdivided; the positive poles of the cells are connected to a series of horizontal brass bars at the back of the main switchboard; the negative poles are connected to a series of isolated blocks, which, by means of switches on the front of the board, can be put into contact with the corresponding horizontal bars; the positive pole of each group is one bar lower than the negative pole of the same group. Thus if the switches are all closed the cells are in series; the top horizontal bar is negative, and there is a constant rise of 10 volts between each two consecutive bars. On the front of the board are a series of vertical bars, and from the tops of these the experimental circuits, of which there are thirty, lead away through fuses. These vertical bars can be plugged through to the horizontal bars at the back, and thus a series of voltages rising by steps of 10 volts can be distributed through the building. The normal discharge rate of the cells is 50 amperes, but to obtain higher rates the cells can be connected in groups of five in parallel. To do this with all the groups' all the switches are opened; two specially heavy vertica bars are then connected by plugs, the one to all the positive poles, the other to all the negative poles of th battery. From these bars two circuits capable of takin 500 amperes lead away. The switchboard, which is a modification of that at the Owens College Laboratory, was designed by Mr. G. A. Steinthal, of Bradford, in accordance with the suggestions of the director. Mr. Steinthal has carried out all the experimental wiring. The distributing wires are for the most part bare copper, and are carried on porcelain insulators. Some of these wires go directly to the various rooms, and are so arranged that it is possible in any room to obtain simultaneously at least two different voltages. Others of the distributing wires go to three subboards arranged in a similar manner to the main board; four circuits from the main board go to each subboard, and twelve subsidiary circuits leave it. In the main electrical laboratories there are five of these subcircuits, and to avoid magnetic action concentric wiring has been used in the section. Each board is fitted with a voltmeter, so that the voltage can be tested before connection is made with any instruments. Thus the electrical equipment, so far as it goes, is unusually complete. It should be noted, however, that provision is still required for alternating current supply and for voltages above 110 volts. Arrangements have been made by which the experimental battery can be put on to the lighting circuit, or run in series with the lighting battery to get 220 volts, but it is not anticipated that this will often be done. As soon as funds permit, the outfit will need supplementing in this respect. It will appear from the above that there is much to be done before the Laboratory can be called complete; still, for many branches of its work it has the means to start, and its success in these will lead to increased opportunities for development. THE SCENERY OF ENGLAND. IT is curious to reflect on the history of man's inquiry into the origin of the landscapes among which he has lived for so many thousand years, and to find how recent is his intelligent interest in the subject. Within secrets of the rocks below the surface and thus reconstructing the geography and scenery of the successive eras of the geological past, only meagre attention was given to the causes which had brought about the existing features of that surface. The popular notion that everything remained as it had been from the beginning was known to be untenable and absurd; nevertheless, the subject failed to excite the interest of geologists as a body. Some of them were Wernerian tories, others Plutonist conservatives or Uniformitarian liberals; but whatever might be their geological creed, they were for the most part Gallios in this matter, never caring to set themselves seriously to consider how their familiar hills and valleys were in detail to be accounted for. Yet the way had been shown to them generations before. It had been opened up by Lazzaro Moro and Generelli in Italy; by Ray and afterwards by Hutton and Playfair in this country; and by Guettard and Desmarest in France. Living on an island and accustomed to continual tales of the destruction wrought by the sea on the margin of the land, British geologists, largely influenced in later years by Lyell, had come to look upon the sea as the prime agent in the degradation of the terrestrial surface. They had no theoretical objection to depressing or uplifting the land to any extent that might be desired, in order to account by marine erosion for any particular topographical feature. While admitting the existence of what were called "valleys of denudation," they thought it much more probable that these hollows had been scooped out by violent inundations of the sea, or by ocean currents moving with great velocity over the submerged country, than that they could have been carved out by such seemingly feeble agents as the rivers that flow in them. The admirable demonstration given by Desmarest, as far back as 1774, that a system of valleys, like that of Auvergne, had been carved out by running water in a series of rocks of varying powers of resistance, including even thick and wide sheets of solid lava, failed to impress the geological mind. The subsequent enforcement of the same lesson from the same region by Poulett Scrope in 1826, and three years afterwards by Lyell and Murchison, likewise roused no general interest. English geologists, while they admitted that such a process of land-sculpture might very well be allowed to have been effective in the heart of a foreign country, far from the sea and high above its level, remained true to their impression that, by invoking convulsions of the solid ground below and sufficiently destructive operations of the sea above, they could satisfactorily explain all that seemed to need explanation in the topography of the land. How deeply rooted this prejudice was is well shown in the memorable paper by Ramsay on the denudation of South Wales and the adjacent English counties, published in 1846. This great classic holds, and deserves to hold, an honoured place in geological literature, as the first concrete attempt to work out in some detail the denudation of a region with reference to its geological structure. Yet at that time, being as marine as the staunchest adherent of the old faith could desire, its author scouted the idea that rivers and streamlets had played any notable part in carving out the valleys of the country. With the naïve remark that "it is not to for twenty years longer. Their last champion was probably the late Dr. D. Mackintosh, whose "Scenery of England and Wales" appeared in 1869. 66 But some years before that date the first step in the application of Hutton's teaching to the history of the valleys of this country had been taken by Beete Jukes, who broke new ground and opened the eyes of his brother geologists to the true nature of the problems of topography by the publication of his ever-memorable essay, On the Mode of Formation of River Valleys in the South of Ireland," which was issued in 1862. The examples cited this time were not from a foreign country, but from our own islands, where they could be judged of and criticised in the light of all that was known of a similar nature in other parts of Britain. The process of time had fitted the soil of the geological mind for the seed, and it soon sprang up and bore fruit. Next year (1863) Ramsay showed in the first edition of his "Physical Geography and Geology of Great Britain" that his old faith was weakened, and that he was prepared to follow his friend and colleague in what was really a return to the Huttonian fold. At that time the Geological Survey was at work on the Weald under Ramsay's supervision, and had to face the problem of its denudation, which had been so often described and discussed and had so complacently been assumed to be a proof of the levelling action of the sea. For the first time in England a tract of country which was geologically mapped in detail was observation advanced and confirmed the deduction that the valleys which diverge from the Weald began to be eroded by the streams that flow in them when the drainage descended from the still existing dome of chalk, and that during the enormous time in which atmospheric degradation has been at work that dome has been completely removed, the rivers gradually sinking to lower levels, but still continuing to flow outward as at first. Ramsay proclaimed his conversion to these views in the second edition of his book, which was issued in 1864. Next year there appeared the detailed essay on the subject by Dr. C. Le Neve Foster and the late Mr. Topley, which established beyond all further doubt the potency of atmospheric decay and river-erosion in the sculpture of the surface of this country. The Huttonian doctrine, though thus long in gaining acceptance, made rapid progress when once a few enthusiastic workers, drawn under the spell of its attractiveness, began to apply it to the interpretation of all parts of the British Isles. In England and Wales, in Scotland and in Ireland, it gained every year an increasing number of followers, many of whom, with the usual geological alacrity, have contrived to pile up quite a respectable mass of scientific literature devoted to its discussion and promulgation. This great phalanx of observers and writers on the subject has now to hail as its latest recruit Lord Avebury, who has given another proof of his versatility by a contribution of more than 500 pages to a discussion of the origin of the scenery of England and Wales. Encouraged by the favourable reception accorded to his volume on the "Scenery of Switzerland," he has been led to produce another on that of his own country. Paradoxical as it may seem, it is nevertheless true that the task he set before himself in the preparation of this work was in many respects more difficult than that of the earlier publication. Notwithstanding the complicated structure of the Alps, the story of the origin of their valleys and the sculpture of their great blocks of mountain is on the whole less complicated and obscure than that of the tamer English landscapes. In this country the problems of topography involve questions of higher antiquity and lead the inquiry into a domain where the evidence is less distinct and abundant, and where a larger demand is made for detailed knowledge of the geological structure and history of the ground. Lord Avebury devotes his earlier chapters to an outline of the geology of the country, and gives a brief account of the various rocks from the oldest to the youngest. In dealing with the scenery, he begins at the coast-line and notes the distinctive characters of our shores with the causes to which their variations are due. With regard to the interior, after some general statements respecting the movements of the terrestrial crust and their effects, he discusses the distribution, structure and origin of the mountains and hills, citing numerous examples from different parts of the country. He then passes on to the consideration of the rivers, dealing first with the general history of a typical river and illustrating his subject by references to the various English and Welsh streams by which the successive features of that history are best displayed. From moving water he naturally turns to the lakes, and picks his way with great skill among the rocks and shoals of that much-debated subject. The influence of the rocks in determining variations in the character of the landscapes is rapidly treated in a single short chapter, which is followed by one that probably gave him as much pleasure to write as any part of the book, for it deals with the downs, wolds, moors and commons which have been so familiar and delightful to him all his life. The next two chapters are not unlikely to have more interest for the unscientific reader than the rest of the volume, seeing that they treat of the connection of certain topographical features with old systems of land-tenure and methods of agriculture. They show why parish-boundaries run as they do and what causes have often determined the sites of towns. We are led across the country from one interesting historical spot to another, and are finally brought back to London and set to think of the geological reasons that have fixed the position of the chief city of the empire. It might, perhaps, have been better had the book appropriately ended there, but a final chapter is added in which, quitting the scenery and history of the Thames valley, the reader is suddenly plunged into the "nebular theory" and the tetrahedral collapse of the globe. In his preface the author expresses a hope that the book may prove half as interesting to read as he has found it to write. Every reader must recognise the enthusiasm with which Lord Avebury has followed out his self-imposed task in a field which he had not made specially his own. He has brought together in readable compass a summary of what has been done in the investigation of the history of the scenery of England. Every here and there his narrative glows with the fervour of a true naturalist, as where he describes the shore-life of our coast-line with a minuteness which shows how closely he has observed, and with a breadth that brings the whole scene before us, or where he depicts the charms of the downs, noting their wild flowers one by one, and carrying us with him over their breezy crests, past green barrow and grey standing-stones. His book will doubtless do good service in attracting more general interest to one of the most fascinating branches of geology. One feature of the volume gives it a special attraction. It is profusely provided with illustrations from photographs of English scenery, chiefly selected from the great collection which is gradually being gathered together by a committee of the British Association. We give two of them in this article, by way of examples (Figs. 1 and 2). Most of them have never before been published. But, beside the charm of novelty, they possess the still greater merit of having been taken, either by geologists or others, for the express purpose of preserving a record of interesting geological features. Those chosen for this volume have been excellently reproduced, and the printing of them is perhaps as near perfection as can be secured for illustrations that are printed with the general body of the type. The name of Messrs. Clark is a sufficient voucher for the beauty of the typography. But how did their reader or pressman allow the map (Fig. 183) to appear upside down? Lord Avebury has not adopted the topographical nomenclature which our cousins on the other side of the Atlantic have devised and seem to be so proud of. Like other writers in this country, he has been able to treat his subject in plain English words, without recourse to a set of uncouth terms which are as unnecessary as they are undesirable. The history of the landscapes of England, notwith standing all that has been published on the subject, still presents many difficult problems for solution. Though Ramsay in his later papers so ably led the way, one great cause of stumbling to many of the workers in this field of inquiry still arises from their inability to realise the vastness of the denudation of the country within Tertiary and recent times. They shrink from the boldness of covering hundreds and thousands of square miles of ground with formations of considerable thickness, every vestige of which has disappeared. Yet it is only by conceding the former existence of such formations that they can possibly explain the present topography of the country and lines of drainage. The mere existence of an area of Palæozoic formations at the surface, especially, too, where it forms high land, ought to be regarded as in itself a proof that, for a vast period of time and until a comparatively late date, that area must have lain under a covering of later rocks. It was over this vanished |