160 NEWS [august 1899 



judges will for educational reasons depart from their custom and state the 

 grounds on which the judgments are based. A statement of these will be 

 affixed to the exhibits. The honorary secretary is Mr. Edward Owen Greening, 

 3 Agar Street, Strand. 



We learn from the Daily Chronicle that when the coal boring was put clown 

 at Dover about six or eight years ago by Mr. F. Brady on the site of the old 

 Channel Tunnel works, there were indications in the cores of the presence of 

 iron ore in the strata between 500 and 600 feet from the surface. The indica- 

 tions have now proved correct. 



In the course of sinking the No. 2 shaft, a bed of valuable oolitic iron ore 

 has just been struck, at a depth of rather less than 600 feet. The seam 

 proves to be no less than 12 feet thick, and probably extends over a very great 

 area, the quantity being practically unlimited. The diameter of the shaft is 

 20 feet, and the quantity brought to the surface in passing through the 12 

 feet amounted to about 350 tons. Samples of the ore have been submitted 

 to analysis, with highly satisfactory results, a washed sample of the ore yielding 

 45*8 per cent of iron. The analysis shows that the ore is free from sulphur and 

 phosphorus, and it is stated to be of much richer quality than the Wealden 

 ironstone worked in Kent and Sussex a century ago. Prof. Boyd Dawkins, in 

 a paper read before the British Association in 1894, described a sample obtained 

 from the original boring. From this it appears that this bed of iron ore is 

 identical with that described by Blake and Hudleston at Abbotsbury in Dorset, 

 where it occurs between the Kimmeridge clay above and the Coralline rocks 

 below. It is also physically identical with the valuable iron ore worked for 

 many years in Westbury, Wiltshire. The ironstone presents very singular 

 physical characteristics. It is composed of dark brown, shining grains of 

 hydrated oxide of iron, like millet seed, embedded in a crystalline base partly 

 of calcium carbonate and partly of iron carbonate. 



The last year has been, we learn from the Scientific American, the most 

 successful in the history of the U.S. Fish Commission. Millions of shad, trout, 

 cod, and other fry have been distributed. It is said that the cost of shad has 

 been decreased to the consumer by more than 30 per cent. 



The British Medical Journal publishes an inaugural lecture, delivered by 

 Major Ronald Ross at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, on the 

 possibility of eradicating malaria from certain localities by killing off the 

 mosquitoes {Anopheles) from the puddles. 



We learn from Nature that the Academy invited its readers to compose an 

 inscription of not more than forty words, suitable to be engraved upon the 

 statue of Charles Darwin, recently unveiled at Oxford. The following, 

 by Mr. Edwin Cardross, was considered best : — " Charles Darwin, the great 

 naturalist, memorable for his demonstration of the law of evolution in organic 

 life, achieved by scientific imagination, untiring observation, comparison, and 

 research ; also for a blameless life, characterised by the modesty, ' the angelic 

 patience, of genius.' " 



The Scientific American reports that the North Dakota Senate has passed a 

 bill requiring all applicants for marriage licences to be previously examined by 

 a board of physicians as to their mental and physical fitness. The certificates 

 must show that they are free from hereditary diseases, with special reference to 

 insanity and tuberculosis. " Legislation of this kind is interesting, but that is 

 about all that can be said for it, for there is nothing to hinder the contracting 

 parties from going over the border into adjoining States to have the ceremony 

 performed." 



Dr. Otto Thilo, Riga, Russia, makes an appeal for information regarding 

 the fish Thalassophryne, which he wishes to investigate in connection with his 

 work on poisonous organs. 



