100 YEARS AGO

The motion for the second reading of the Sea Fisheries Bill in the House of Commons, on Monday, resulted in a lively discussion. The Bill prohibits the sale of flatfish below a specified size, and its rejection was moved on the grounds that it would not have the effect of preventing the destruction of immature fish, or of increasing the supply of fish. In the course of discussion, an honourable member said that the whole of the trouble arose from the institution of a number of committees composed of farmers, lawyers and captains of the horse, foot, and artillery, who knew little of fishing, and who ventilated strange theories and supported them with portentous and irrelevant statistics. This remark was used as an argument against the Bill, but it may also be taken to mean that if fishery matters were controlled by scientific men familiar with the natural history of the sea, and questions concerning fisheries were referred to marine biologists, recommendations would be made upon which reasonable regulations might be based.

From Nature 3 May 1900.

50 YEARS AGO

The possibility of presenting television pictures of an adequate brightness on the large-size screen used in cinemas has been under development in Great Britain for some years. On April 29, the opportunity was taken by Messrs. Cinema–Television, Ltd., to demonstrate the state of this development by showing the B.B.C. Cup Final television programme to a selected audience of about a thousand persons, including television experts from some fifteen countries. The normal programme radiated from the Alexandra Palace transmitter was received in the neighbourhood of the Odeon Theatre, Penge, where the demonstration was given. The received signals were conveyed to special equipment placed in the auditorium of the theatre at a distance of some 12 metres from the screen. A very bright image of the television picture, about 16 cm.×13 cm. in size, was formed on a special cathode-ray tube operating from a high-tension supply of 50 kilovolts. The optical projection system comprised a spherical mirror and plastic correcting plate by means of which the picture was thrown on to the theatre screen… In spite of the fact that, owing to weather conditions, the daylight at Wembley was on the dull side, the demonstration was very satisfactory.

From Nature 6 May 1950.