428 NATURAL SCIENCE. June. 1897. 



produce a cut in exactly the desired direction. Sections of from eight to twelve 

 square inches, with a thickness of one-fiftieth to one-hundredth of an inch, can be cut 

 with true smooth surfaces. 



At the Tennessee Exposition, which opened on May i, the U. S. Government 

 has interesting scientific exhibits; those illustrating the work of the Department of 

 Agriculture are specially complete. The Bureau of Ethnology has concentrated its 

 energies on a representation of a Kiowa camping circle. 



The progress of skiagraphy in medicine and surgery is rapid. A very complete 

 installation was sent out to the seat of war in Greece, by the Daily Chronicle ambulance 

 fund, and was of great help in localising bullets. A laboratory for the purpose has 

 been founded at the Trousseau Hospital by the Municipal Council of Paris. 



According to Science, Prof. Lawrence Bruner, of the University of Nebraska, 

 sailed on April 27 for Buenos Ayres, where he will spend a year investigating the 

 injurious locusts which have of late increased enormously in three of the eastern 

 provinces of the Argentine Republic. The expenses are paid by a committee of 

 Buenos Ayres business men. 



On his forthcoming Arctic Expedition, Lieut. Peary intends to take with him 

 Esquimaux, not only men but women. The Esquimau is a pronounced family-man, 

 and prefers his wife to the North Pole. 



The administration of the grants to schools in Scotland for science and art is to 

 be transferred to the Scotch Education Department. The details of the transfer will 

 be matter of departmental arrangement. 



We learn from our always interesting contemporary, the Shooting Times, that 

 General Sir Julius Raines has decided to bequeath to the nation his fine collection of 

 Japanese masks made of fossil mammoth ivory. 



A SEVERE earthquake took place in the West Indjes on April 29. The island of 

 Montserrat seems to have been about the centre of the disturbance ; but most loss of 

 life occurred in Guadeloupe, while Antigaa also suffered severely. An earthquake 

 also occurred at Lima at 2 a.m. on May i. 



The chapter-house at Canterbury, which has been magnificently restored under 

 the direction of Sir Arthur Blomfield, will be re-opened by H.R.H. the Prince of 

 Wales on Saturday, May 29. Dean Farrar asks us to state that at 2 p.m. on May 

 31, Sir Henry Irving will read Tennyson's " Becket " therein, for the benefit of the 

 Thirteenth Centenary Fund. St. Thomas Becket entered the chapter-house on the 

 evening of December 29, 1170, only a few minutes before his murder. Reserved 

 seats for the reading may be procured, at one guinea each, by letter to Mr. Crow, 

 Mercery Lane, Canterbury. 



Under the title of the Kent Coal Exploration Co., Limited, a company has 

 just been floated to explore for minerals, especially coal and iron, by means of deep 

 borings, in the County of Kent and elsewhere in the South of England. There is 

 already a Kent Coal Fields Syndicate, Limited, with which the present company 

 will co-operate. It is proposed to enter into conditional agreements with landowners 

 to explore for the Coal Measures, in consideration of the grant of leases of minerals 

 at royalties. All the borings may not be immediately successful in finding coal, but 

 each will throw fresh light on the structure of the country, and the details will be 

 eagerly followed by geologists no less than by those in search of dividends. 



