69- William T. James (R. and C. U.).
70-Martin W. Lochner (D.).

Totals-Democrats, 52; Republicans, 5; Republican and Citizens Union, 16.
Term of Aldermen, two years; salary, $1,000 a year.

S

BOROUGH PRESIDENTS. MANHATTAN-John F. Ahearn (D.); salary, $7,500; term ends Dec. 31, 1905. THE BRONX-Louis F. Haffen (D.); salary, $7,500; term ends Dec. 31, 1905. BROOKLYN-Martin W. Littleton (D.); salary, $7,500; term ends Dec. 31, 1905. QUEENS-Joseph Cassidy (D.); salary, $5,000; term ends Dec. 31, 1905.

RICHMOND-George Cromwell (R. and C. U.); salary, $5,000: term ends Dec. 31,

1905.

'Register-John H. J. Ronner (D.); term 4 years, ending Dec. 31, 1905; salary, $12,000. 1 District Attorney-William Travers Jerome (D.); term 4 years, ending Dec. 31, 1905; salary, $12,000.

Public Administrator-William M. Hoes (D.); appointed, no term; salary, $10,000. Commissioner of Jurors-Thomas Allison (R.); appointed by Appellate Division, Supreme Court.

1Elected on Republican, Citizens Union and anti-Tammany ticket.

KINGS COUNTY OFFICIALS. District Attorney-John F. Clarke (D.); term expires Dec. 31, 1907.

County Clerk-Charles T. Hartzheim (R.); term expires Dec. 31, 1905.

Sheriff-W. E. Melody (D.); term expires Dec. 31, 1905.

Register-John K. Neal (R.); term expires Dec. 31, 1905.

PROGRESS IN SCIENCE.

By far the properties of a Discovery of Radium.

tube.

most interesting scientific work of the year has related to the chemical element which was first discovered late in 1898 by two Paris chemists, M. and Mme. Curie. They had been following up earlier observations, by Becquerel, of a feeble and invisible radiation given off by uranium, and apparently akin to that which Röntgen almost simultaneously found was emitted by a vacuum Mme. Curie noticed that thorium, a rare metal that was already known, had the same quality. Then alone she isolated from the mineral (pitchblende) from which uranium is usually extracted another element that gave off more of the mysterious agent. She called this "polonium," after her native country, Poland. Finally, in co-operation with her husband, she found traces of a still different substance, apparently a new element, very much more powerful than polonium. This was called by its discoverers "radium." Independent trials by other chemists led to the general acceptance of the genuineness of the new elements and to a wider study of their properties, both by the Curies and others.

These investigations were hampered by the difficulty of obtaining radium. It occurs in such minute quantities that an immense amount of ore must be treated to get it, and the chemical process of separation is itself prolonged and expensive. It was recently stated that one-fifteenth of an ounce, if so much were got together, would sell for $10,000, and prices were going up! Pure radium has not yet been secured. Most experiments are made with the bromide of it, or else the chloride. The estimated atomic weight of radium is 225, which makes it heavier than gold. lead and platinum, and almost as heavy as thorium and uranium.

Early in 1903 M. and Mme. Curie announced a startling phenomenon. Radium possesses a temperature that is 1.5 degrees C., or 2.7 degrees Fahr. above its surroundThe Atomic Theory.

ings; which is enough to melt half its own weight of ice in an hour. Experiments by Dewar show that this same excess is maintained when its environment is chilled to 400 below zero Fahr. This fact, like the emission of an invisible radiation, identical with X-rays but a thousand or many thousand times as intense, bas created a profound sensation among chemists and physicists. It seems to upset the accepted law of conservation of energy. There has been a vast amount of speculation about the possible source of the heat and other radiations. No fully satisfactory theory has been found, but J. J. Thomson, Sir William Crookes and some other high authorities incline to the view that the atoms of radium, instead of being absolutely permanent and stable, may possibly be undergoing an exceedingly slow disintegration.

Still another puzzling revelation has been made by Sir William Ramsay and another British chemist, named Soddy, in co-operation. Under certain circumstances gases are evolved from radium, one of them having been identified as helium. The latter is the lightest element known, except hydrogen. It was once supposed to exist only in the sun, its name being derived from the Greek word meaning the "helion." Later, the spectroscope revealed its existence in other stars. Eight or ten years ago Sir William Ramsay assisted in isolating helium from a terrestrial mineral. Late in November, 1903. he reported some experiments which led him to suspect that radium underwent a partial transformation into a different ele ment, and that the old notions of the ancient alchemists about the possibility of the transmutation of metals may have been correct. The heat phenomenon, already men

sun,

tioned, led Sir William Crookes, earlier in the year, to reiterate his own long cherished suspicion to the same effect, but other scientific men yet hesitate about accepting that

notion.

Inasmuch as X-rays have been used by physicians with limited success in the treatment of cancer on the surface of the body, but without apparent effect on deep Medicine and Surgery.

seated, malignant growths, Alexander Graham Bell has suggested the use of radium for the latter troubles, because, inclosed in a tiny tube, it can be introduced to the immediate vicinity of the cancer. Such experiments have been undertaken, but they have not been continued long enough to prove much. Owing to the enormous cost of radium, Mr. Soddy has suggested that thorium be tried instead. He believes that some of the emanations, caught in water, might be efficacious in killing the germs of tuberculosis.

In medicine and surgery few other advances have been recorded, and these have not all been fully verified. W. T. Councilman, of Boston, thinks that he has identified the germ of smallpox, which he classes as an animal parasite. In the latter respect it resembles the organism which is responsible for malaria, and differs from bacilli which belong to the vegetable kingdom. A commission sent to Vera Cruz by the United States Marine Hospital Service in 1902, to study yellow fever, published its report in 1903. The important feature of it was a claim that the germ of that disease (which is known to be carried from one human subject to another by mosquitoes of the species Stegyomia fasciata) had been found. This parasite, too, is assigned to the animal kingdom. J. C. Smith, of New-Orleans, had a large share in its discovery. Dr. Otto Schmidt, of Germany, recently announced that he had found the germ of cancer. Similar statements have been made by other specialists in the last few years. However, Schmidt says that he has been able to cultivate his microbe and manufacture a curative serum from it.

Several new remedies for tuberculosis have been described, but, with one exception, none of them have demonstrated their value. Following up a line of experiment that was first undertaken by Dr. E. L. Trudeau, of Saranac Lake, N. Y., Behring (inventor of the diphtheria antitoxin) has been working at a serum which could be used for preventing tuberculosis, just as vaccination gives temporary immunity against smallpox. Behring has applied his system only to calves, while Trudeau worked with rabbits and guinea pigs. The encouraging results attained excite a hope that some day human subjects can be made immune against tuberculosis, but that result has not yet been attempted.

Experiments in electric traction, begun in Germany two years ago, but Interrupted to permit reconstruction of the track on the Marienfelde-Zossen line, were resumed in 1903. By degrees the mean speed for several miles Electrio Traction. was brought up to 130 miles an hour. An alternating current (of the three phase type) was employed. This was taken from overhead wires, at a voltage of 10,000 or 12,000. Transformers on the car reduced it to 1,800 volts before admitting the current to the motor.

On a suburban road in Berlin a car was also tried to test the feasibility of leading a current having a pressure of 6,000 volts directly into the motor, without transformers.

An electric engine was put into regular service for handling boats along a short stretch of canal north of Cincinnati. Legal and other obstacles were put in the way of the enterprise, but it was a success technically. An alternating current was used, and an overhead wire supplied the same. The engine ran on two ordinary rails beside the canal.

In a competitive trial of several such motors in Germany, one made by Ganz & Co., of Budapest, was reported to have shown the largest economy. This was 60 designed that two wheels under the engine embraced a rail sideways snugly, and their rotation pulled the machine along. Still another new motor, devised in this country, was tested on the Erie Canal near Schenectady. This was mounted on a vertically disposed rail, in such a way that the latter could be gripped between wheels above and below, for the same purpose.

Wireless telegraphy made less headway than had been expected. The sending of several messages in December, 1902, from Glace Bay, Cape Breton, and Cape Cod to Poldhu, in England, was followed, early in 1903, by the Other Electrical transmission of news dispatches to "The London Times" for Advances. several days. Marconi revisited America in September for further tests at Poldhu, but made no public announcement concerning them. He said he had several improvements in view, but until they were patented he could not describe them. At no time, so far as the public could learn, were messages sent from Poldhu to America.

Hugo Jone, of Chicago, inventor of an electrical battery that consumes carbon, published more details in 1903 than ever before, and claimed that this device was anywhere from two to five times as efficient as a combination of furnace, boller, steam engine and dynamo. J. H. Reid, of Newark, N. J., gave public demonstrations of a similar battery. He converts fuel into gas before consuming it in the production of electricity, and thinks he gets 56 or 58 per cent of the theoretical efficiency of the substance used.

By the completion of a submarine cable from San Francisco via Hawail and Guam to the Philippines on July 4, 1903, a second telegraphic circuit of the globe was effected. Manila already had a connection with the continent of Asia.

Numerous experiments were made with wireless telephones, which revive an old idea. Their utility cannot be predicted.

Two Antarctic expeditions that went out in 1901 returned in 1903, and news was received from a third, the British party, whose ship, the Discovery, was frozen in at Polar Research.

McMurdo Bay, near Mounts Erebis and Terror, March 24, 1902. This was in east longitude 166:42, and south latitude 77:50. A few weeks later a sledge party, led by Captain Scott, reached a spot in south latitude 82:17, whence they could see the mountains in latitude 83:30, and 14,000 feet high. A relief ship, the Morning, carried food and mail to the Discovery early in 1903. The supplies were transported over five miles of ice, as the former ship could not reach the other. An American sealer, the Terra Nova, was chartered by the British government to revisit the Discovery a year later. She sailed from Dundee in August, and from New Zealand in December, 1903.

The German expedition, led by Dr. Drygalski, and conveyed by the Gauss, skirted the coast of the Antarctic continent south of the Indian Ocean. It was frozen in February 22, 1902, in south latitude 66:30, east longitude 90, and scaped February 8, 1903. The ship reached Kiel, Germany, in November. The most important geographical observations of this party was its discovery that a region hitherto supposed to be land, and called Wilkes Land, was open sea.

The Swedish expedition, under Nordenskjold, explored almost directly south of Cape Horn. It found that what was once regarded an island, and named after Louis Philippe, is part of the Antarctic continent. The ship of this party was crushed by ice on February 2, 1903, but quarters were found on an island, where the Argentine vessel Uruguay picked the survivors up, practically unharmed. They reached Buenos Ayres in November. All three expeditions collected a large amount of botanical, zoological, geological and other scientific information. A fourth expedition, under Captain Bruce, that left Scotland in 1902 for the regions southeast of Cape Horn, has not yet been heard from.

Little was accomplished in aeronautics. A full grown machine, built after the Langley model, and launched from the roof of a houseboat on the Potomac, was tested in October and December. Both times it failed to fly, but Aerial Navigation. sank to the bottom of the river. On the second occasion it broke in two. Alexander Graham Bell has made promising experiments with a form of kite, whose dimensions can be multiplied almost indefinitely, with a corresponding gain in lifting power. One made up of sixty cells, and capable of lifting a man and an engine, was repeatedly sent up. Nobody went with it, though. The Lebaudy Brothers, in France, with an airship that is an improvement on the Santos Dumond model, made a new record for distance and speed, covering 46 miles at the rate of nearly 30 miles an hour. They were helped by the wind. In a calm the airship might not have travelled so fast.

Wilbur and Orville Wright, of Dayton, Ohio, in December experimented at Kitty Hawk, N. C., with apparatus like that previously used by Chanute and Lilienthal in soaring. It embodied the principles of the aeroplane, and was driven by a gasolene motor. They claim that a speed of eight miles an hour was sustained for three miles in the face of a twenty knot breeze. Wilbur Wright acted as navigator.

Steam turbines achieved new successes. These engines gave to two new passenger boats on the English Channel higher speeds than had been developed there before. The first cruiser in the British navy which is to be propelled Turbine Engines. by turbines, the Amethyst, was launched in November. The German government has ordered two turbines, one of 10,000 horsepower and the other of 5,000 horsepower, the former for a cruiser and the latter for a torpedo boat. A special board, appointed by the United States naval authorities, to study the question, has reported in favor of trying this type of motor on at least two styles of vessel. Both the Curtis and Parsons-Westinghouse engines were examined by the board. Another commission, selected by the Cunard Steamship Company and the British government in co-operation, is now considering the advisability of trying turbines on the two new ocean steamships which the Cunard Line talks of building. The example set by Mr. Yerkes in ordering huge turbines for the power stations of his electric railway system in London and vicinity has been followed by two American corporations. It is understood that Pennsylvania road will install several Parsons-Westinghouse engines, each of about 7,500 horsepower, on Long Island, for its electric tunnel service, while the New-York Central, for its suburban service north of the metropolis will use Curtis turbines of the same capacity.

Dr. and Mrs. William H. Workman, of Worcester, Mass., made new records in mountain climbing in the Himalayas. Mrs. Work man reached an elevation of 22,568 feet,

Mountain
Climbing.

which is much higher than any woman ever went before. The same day her husband reached a height of 23,394 feet. The closest approach to this achievement was made by Zurbriggen, the Swiss guide, when he scaled Aconcagua, in the Andes. The latter mountain is about 23,080 feet high. Dr. Frederick Cook attempted to reach the summit of McKinley, in Alaska, the highest mountain of North America. After reaching an elevation of 11.400 feet, he encountered a precipitous cliff about 4,000 feet high, and abandoned the effort.

The Nobel prizes for 1903 were awarded as follows: Physics, M. Becquerel and M. and Mme. Curie; chemistry, Dr. Arrhenius, of Stockholm, originator of the theory of ions as an explanation of electrolysis; medicine, Dr. Finsen, of Copenhagen, inventor of the electric light cure; literature, Bjornson, the Norwegian poet and novelist, and peace, W. C. Cremer, of England, the secretary of the International Arbitration League.

James Willis Sayre, of Seattle, circumnavigated the globe in a trifle over fifty-four days, beating the best previous record by six days. He travelled westward, sailing from Vancouver across the Pacific, and including the Trans-Siberian Railway in his itinerary.

*Report covers twelve figures for calender year.

Liabilities. $291,750,000

24,977,937

months from December 1st to November 30th; all other During the Civil War records very incomplete.

817

10,259,461

11,017,187

8,351

$58,705,386

$56,998,399

630

22,410,272

14,634,165

11,720
61

$147,506,760

$118,316, 189

31,616,943

95,749,000
64,394,000
79,807,000

1861.. 6,993 207,210,000

1862.. 1,652

23,049,000

7,899,900

1878.. 10,478
1879..
6,658
1880. 4,735
1881..

234,383,132

1894..

13,885

172,992,856

5,582

173,196,060

15,088

226,096,834

1897..

13,351

154,332,071

1866.

1,505

53,783,000 1882. 6,738

12, 186

130,662,899

1867. 2,780 1868.. 2,608 1869.. 2,799 1870.. 3,546

96,666,000

1883.. 9,184

90,879,889

138,495,673

75,054,054

1885.. 10,637

124.220,321

1901.. 11,002

113,092,376

88,242,000

117,476,769

1871.. 2,915

85,252,000 1887.. 9,634

167,560,944|
128,829,978

1872.. 4,069 121,056,000 1888.. 10,679

AVERAGE QUOTATIONS OF SIXTY ACTIVE RAILWAY STOCKS.
Compiled from daily averages by "Dun's Review."