Science.

PHOTOGRAPHING THE SUN.

The annual Indian meteorological report contains details of an important discovery, writes the Pioneer, which have been made in connection with the atmospheric conditions prevailing in Kashmir. It is a well known fact, the report states, "that it is the unsteadiness of the atmosphere and not the power of the telescope which ultimately limits the possibility of seeing the finest details of the heavenly bodies. In 1913, Mr. Evershed, the Director of the Solar Observatory at Kodaikanal, spent his privilege leave in Kashmir, and while there he was very much struck by the great homogeneity of the atmosphere which made it possible to see the surface structure of sun and planets with extraordinary distinctness. Solar work depends so largely on the ability for seeing the finest markings of the sun's surface that the Government of India deputed Mr. Evershed to visit Kashmir during May to July, 1914, to carry out further investigations on this unexpected quality of the atmosphere over the Kashmir valley. The photographs of the sun taken on this expedition, and the careful record kept of the 'seeing' at all hours of the day, have proved conclusively that so far as is known no other place in the world can compare with Kashmir in this respect The discovery is so important that a further expedition to Kashmir with more powerful instruments and for a longer period has been sanctioned and will take place during 1915-16."

THE MEANING OF MEMORY.

Dr. J. C. Bose lectured recently before the Calcutta University on certain psychological aspects of his researches, the lecture being illustrated by novel and striking experiments.

As regards the revival of an image that has faded, Dr. Bose explained that when a picture is once impressed on any surface, the pattern may apparently fade away. In reality the tablet can never be wiped quite clean. The tissue which was originally isotropic is rendered anisotropic by the differential action of stimulus imprinting the latent image. The faded image could, however, be brought to sensory prominence by the blow of some diffuse stimulus either from within or from without. A very remarkable experiment was shown where an invisible image latent on the surface of a plant tissue was wakened up under diffuse excitation.

The upper surface of a leaf exposed to the sky holds the latent impression of light, whereas the lower surface is more or less protected from it. When the aspen leaf quivers under the action of a breeze, this diffuse stimulation wakens up the latent differences and an electric discharge takes place across the leaves which may be carried to the body of the plant by means of nervous channels. If the leaves are arranged in a pile or in series, then the intensity of the electric shock generated may become considerable. In fact, through the reaction of the tremulous leaf of a tree the mysterious power of the "torpedo" or the "electric" fish finds its real explanation. The electric organs of these fishes consist of a number of plates, each being unequally excitable on its two sides. There are numerous such plates arranged in series, and all these remain quiescent in token of inactivity. But when under sudden stimulus of external shock or internal will the differential excitability hitherto latent becomes manifested electrically the more excited face of each plate becoming electro-negative, the pile-like arrangement of these discs causes their individual variations to act in combination and thus determines the intensity of the electric discharge by which the fish paralyses its victim.

SCIENCE IN POLICE INVESTIGATION.

The following interesting piece of news appeared in a recent issue of the Morning Post :

Recently while Mr. Morris, the Circle Inspector, was standing on the topstorey verandah in front of the Police Superintendent's Office, Delhi, Bhurtoo constable drew his attention to a budmash named Bhola, busy in the act of picking the pocket of a Bunyah who was standing near the staircase leading up to the Magistrate's Court. Mr. Morris and Bhurtoo immediately rushed down and arrested him. While making the arrest a pice fell from his hand but on searching his person, however, no money was fund. The Bunyah on being asked whether he had lost anything said he had Rs. 3/3/3 with him before the incident and he had only Rs. 1/3 left. The budmash was taken before Mr. Bowring, the Police Superintendent, who suspected that the man had swallowed the missing Rs. 2 and ordered him to be sent to the Civil Hospital to be examined by X-Rays. Immediately the light of the X-Rays was thrown on the pickpocket, the missing Rs. 2 appeared very clearly in his stomach. He was soon made to disgorge the stolen property by medical process,

Personal.

THE NEW VICEROY.

An English contemporary comments newly appointed Viceroy as follows:

on the

The new Viceroy of India is Lord Chelmsford. In a way the appointment is a surprise and admittedly an experiment, although Lord Chelmsford has done excellently as Governor of Queensland and New South Wales, where he has earned golden opinions. He has a thorough knowledge of public work acquired on the London County Council and London School Board, and is a relatively young man, as he was only born in 1868, and, so far as he has any political views, a Unionist, though he has never obtruded them. On the whole the appointment is one which may be a great success, and at any rate Lord Chelmsford will go to India without any preconceived cut and dried views. This is a very great advantage, for he will not have an easy period of office. I understand that Lord Kitchener was offered the Viceroyalty of India if he liked to accept it. He did not like.

Surely Lord Kitchener could not be spared from England just now!

GENERAL JILINSKY.

General Jilinsky, who is acting as the personal representative of the Tsar at the Allied War Council in Paris, is known in his own country, and ought likewise to be known to all the Allies, as one of the master-builders of the new Russian Army. He is in his 63rd year, and thus belongs to the generation of soldiers who, under the auspices and inspiration of the Grand Duke Nicholas, have so brilliantly adopted the historic traditions of the Russian Army to the exigencies of warfare to-day.

Like his old chief at the Ministry of War, General Jilinsky holds the rank of General of Cavalry. He received his first Commission 40 years ago, and reached the rank of major-general after 30 years' service. As lieutenant-general he commanded the 14th Cavalry Division, and subsequently commanded for several years the 10th Army Corps at Khardoff. As Chief of the Grand General Staff he superintended the masterly military measures which, during the winter of 19121913, averted from Russia for a season the menace of war. During the earlier stages of the present campaign he commanded with distinction. on the Warsaw front.

MR. DADABHAI NAOROJI.

Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji was admitted to the Degree of Doctor of Laws at a special Convocation of the University of Bombay, presided over by H. E. the Governor as Chancellor, recently. The Vice-Chancellor (the Rev. Dr. Mackickan) in presenting Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji to the Chancellor made a speech, in which he warmly praised Mr. Dadabhai's claims to the distinction.

A NEW STATUE OF LORD CURZON.

66

A statue of Lord Curzon was unveiled recently by Lord Carmichael in the Calcutta Victoria Memorial. The statue, educated India learned with surprise, was the gift of Sir Prabhasankar Pattani, retired Member of the Bombay Executive Council. Sir Prabhasankar, in requesting Lord Carmichael to unveil the statue, referred to the fact that the great work of Lord Curzon was that he made Indians think. He aroused healthy impatience with every form of slovenly work and stagnant policy. Even the controversies, which his policy aroused, have quickened the thought and life of the people." Babu Surendranath also once said that Lord Curzon was the "architect of Indian National Life."

DR. J. C. BOSE.

Mrs. Besant writing about Dr. Bose says: He was one of the discoverers of wireless telegraphy and when offered a high price for the knowledge by the promoters of a company that it might be patented and thus made a source of gain, he refused it and published his knowledge to the world. Knowledge was a trust, not a property. So gloriously did our Indian scientist elucidate the sacredness of knowledge to the Indian mind.

GENERAL RUSSKY.

The officer who commands the Russian armies in the confused lake lands between the Vilna and Dwinsk regions and who has brought Hindenberg to something worse than a standstill is General Russky. General Russky is said to be a remarkable man, a curious combination of the Skobeleff and the Moltke types, possessing the science and infinite patience of the latter, together with the popular appeal of the former. One of his compatriots describes the General as "a man of very keen intelligence; a disciplinarian with a contempt for red tape; a worker who brings to his work a piercing eye and a powerful initiative. Unlike some great theoretical strategists, he is a man of quick, but sure, decisions. When confronted with an unexpected situation he does not need time and discussion to make up his mind, but promptly fixes on the course to pursue,"

Political

INDIAN FINANCE.

The Manchester Guardian points out in a leading article on "Colonial Loans " that while India and the Dominions are normally borrowing countries the war has effected a rather important change. They have appealed to their own subjects, and with success, as the recent Canadian issue showed. In August an Indian Government Loan of £3,000,000 was over-subscribed 50 per cent.:"The sums, having regard to the magnitude of the loan operations of the chief belligerents, are not large in themselves, but they show that the people of India and the Dominions have the means and the will to respond to reasonable financial demands upon them. They indicate that the financial resources with which this country can oppose Germany are the financial resources not of the United Kingdom merely but of the whole Empire. What has been done up to now has served to point the way, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer is presumably taking a wide survey and thinking out all the modes in which the full financial strength of the Empire may be mobilised as needed."

RICH AND POOR TAXPAYERS.

Revenue per acre in

rupees. 1.25

The following figures taken from the Administration Report reveal a very unfair feature of the land revenue system in this country: Extent in Revenue in

2.0

Thus the persons whose income is larger pay a smaller tax, and vice versa. Needless to say, this is against all accepted canons of taxation, and cannot be justifiable under any circumstances. There is a good deal of talk of modelling the government of this country on that of Western countries, and much troublesome legislation is imported. But in this question of taxation, in India we are travelling in a direction quite oppsite to that of the West. There they are talking of super-tax on the richer section of the people, but in India they are paying a sub-tax. Taxes ought to be borne by superfluities rather than by necessaries. The best solution will be to increase the tax on the rich, and transfer the relief to the poor who are now unjustly treated. -New India,

LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.

It has been stated as a principle of Local SelfGovernment that non-official members of Local Bodies should feel that they have real power and responsibility to discharge; and Lord Morley too has given his support to this view in his despatch. But the Bengalee asks:

How can the non-official members feel a sense of real power and responsibility when the control of the executive authorities extends to the minutest details of Munisipal administration, and especially in the matter of the framing of the Budget? They cannot add a rupee to the pay of a clerk or of peon, without the sanction of the Divisional Commissioner. Years ago the Decentralisation Commission recommended that Municipalities should be allowed a free hand in the framing of their Budgets, subject to the maintenance of a minimum balance...... The whole thing now depends upon the temperament of the Divisional Commissioner; but a matter like this should not be left to individual discretion or caprice. It should be regulated by definite rules which should be uniformly followed,

General.

HIS MAJESTY'S MESSAGE TO THE INDIAN ARMY. H. M. The King received recently a loyal address from twenty-seven convalescent Indian officers. The text of His Majesty's reply is as follows:

"Sirdars, I am glad to receive here in person to-day a body of Indian officers who have faithfully borne their share of the present conflict and upheld the honour of my Indian Army on the European battlefield of the world-wide war in which my Empire and my allies are engaged. Wounded as you have been in battle with a formidable western foe on the neighbouring field of France, our glorious ally, and nursed and tended here at the heart of the Empire, you represent the fighting men of your races in presenting a loyal address to your King-Emperor in the capital city of his Dominions. I note that you speak not only for yourselves but for the whole of my Indian Army. I welcome your presence as a symbol of the unity of the Empire and as setting a seal on the heroic efforts and sacrifices in which my Indian soldiers, yourselves amongst them, have borne a common part with all my forces from overseas and from the mother-country.

"I am deeply touched by your declarations of loyalty and gratitude to myself but not less than by the generous recognition which you pay to the kindliness and brotherly feeling which you have met at the hands of all your fellow-subjects, the inhabitants of these islands. They are conscious as I am that the loyal devotion of India to the common heritage for which we are fighting, a devotion to which we have never looked in vain, has been consecrated afresh by the blood of India's sons shed far from their homes and in a quarrel which, whilst the might of the Empire protects the Indian shores, does not come near to the lives and fortunes of their kith and kin. But the liberties of the Empire were put into the scale with the liberties which India has enjoyed under our rule and which please God she will enjoy in an increasing measure as she advances in the path of social improvement and political experience.

"I welcome the expression of your thanks for the careful and scrupulous regard which all my officers under my directions have paid to the requirements of your religious usages. I honour the concern which you tell me you felt lest the

circumstances of your life in a strange country might imperil the due observance of the rites which are sanctified for you by the dictates of your religions and the immemorial custom of your forefathers. I recall to mind the words in which my revered predecessor, the Queen Empress Victoria, declared to her subjects of whatever creed, on assuming sway over their lives, her will that no one in any wise be favoured, or none molested or disquieted by reason of their religious faiths or observances, but that all shall alike enjoy the equal and impartial protection of the law, and we do strictly charge and enjoin all those who may be in authority under us that they abstain from all interference with the religious belief or worship of any of our subjects on pain of our highest displeasure. It will ever be the cherished duty of my House and Throne to guard the sacred promise then given in the letter and in the spirit. Sirdars, I thank you for your loyal address."

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN 1915.

The Editor of the International Review of Missions, taking a survey of missionary operations throughout the world during the year 1915, comes to the conclusion that the injury which has been inflicted on mission work by the war has not been by any means so general and widespread as might have been anticipated. The work of German missions in India and the Cameroons and of British missions in the Turkish Empire and in German East Africa has been for the time almost completely interrupted. In many other parts of the field there have been serious disorganisation, depletion of staff and restriction of work, and it is too soon to say how far the loss will be permanent. In many instances where loss has come the hour of trial has revealed unsuspected loyalties and called forth unwonted sacrifices. A specially encouraging fact is that in many fields the circulation of the Scriptures shows a remarkable increase on all former records.

MOSLEM CONCEPTION OF WAR.

The following directions for the conduct of warfare are said to have been given by Abubaker to his Mohammedan soldiers before the conquest of Syria:

:

Avoid injustice and oppression; consult with your brethren, and study to preserve the love and confidence of your troops. When you fight the battles of the Lord, acquit your elves like men without turning your backs; but let not your victory be stained with the blood of women or children. Destroy no palin-trees, nor bura any fields of corn. Cut down no fruit trees, nor do any mischief to cattle.