333 NEWS [april 



A magnificent laboratory for the application of the Rontgen rays, under 

 the directorship of Dr. Mezquita, has been recently opened in Madrid. 



According to the American Naturalist the department of scientific investi- 

 gation of the United States Fish Commission has awakened to new life under 

 the supervision of Prof. Bumpus, and it aims to aid science in every way not 

 incompatible with the main business of fisheries. The laboratory at Woods 

 Holl is to be kept open throughout the year, and students will be welcomed 

 there at any time. 



In presenting to Prof. Lapworth the "Wollaston Medal, the President of the 

 Geological Society of London, Mr. Whitaker, made use of the following words : — 

 "I am glad to know that in an elaborate memoir on the Silurian Rocks of 

 Scotland, shortly to be published, the officers of the Geological Survey do full 

 justice to your series of papers on these rocks in the South of Scotland, saying 

 that you have furnished a complete solution of the stratigraphical and palaeonto- 

 logical difficulties of the subject, and have discovered the key to the complicated 

 stratigraphy of the region. The summary, at the end of the chapter on 

 Previous Researches, is written to place clearly on record the distinctive 

 features of Prof. Lapworth's achievements, . . . which resulted in establishing 

 the true order of succession of the strata." These are Words alike honourable 

 to the Geological Survey and just to the leader of geological thought and 

 teaching of our time. 



At a meeting of the Royal Society on March 9, Mr. A. C. Seward read a 

 paper on the structure and affinities of Matonia, an isolated type among 

 existing ferns, on the whole approximating more closely to the Cyatheaceae 

 than to any other family. The data furnished by an examination of the 

 palaeontological evidence led to the conclusion that in Matonia we have a 

 survival of a family, now represented by two species in a few localities in 

 Borneo and the Malay Peninsula, but widely distributed in the Mesozoic epoch, 

 and especially abundant in the European area. 



At a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh on March 20, com- 

 munications were read by Sir John Murray on the temperature over the floor of 

 the ocean and the maximum and minimum temperature of the surface ; and by 

 Prof. J. Cossar Ewart on intercrossing and variation. 



At a meeting of the Geological Society of London, on March 8, Dr. Arthur 

 Rowe read a paper on the genus Micraster. The author showed that definite 

 features in the test were confined to definite zones in the white chalk, and thus 

 supplied a valuable key to the determination of age of this deposit, in cliff or 

 inland sections. Dr. Rowe promised a further paper on the zones in the coast 

 sections of the white chalk, based on a study of these echinoderms, a paper 

 which should prove of considerable interest and value to professional and 

 unprofessional geologists. 



As retiring president of the Biological Society of Washington, Mr. L. O. 

 Howard gave an address on the economic status of insects, which is printed in 

 Science (1899, ix. pp. 233-247). The pros are six and the cons five, as stated in 

 this address which is full of entertainment, e.g. the reference to the prophet 

 Joel as " an agricultural pessimist," or the discussion of Isaac Weld's note that 

 General Washington told him that the mosquitoes of Skenesborough " used to 

 bite through the thickest boot." 



At the meeting of the Hull Scientific and Field Naturalists' Club on 

 Wednesday, March 8, Mr. J. A. Ridgway of Beverley gave a lecture on 

 "Shooting Stars," describing inter alia the famous shower of November 1866, 

 which he witnessed. At a sectional meeting held the previous Wednesday 

 evening, Mr. D. Murray of Kilnsea, near Spurn, sent for exhibition the skull of 

 an elephant which had been obtained from the beach — a curious fragment of 

 jetsam, doubtless admitting of a prosaic enough explanation. 



