92 NATURAL SCIENCE. Aug., 



In a supplement to the Leeivard Islands Gazette, Mr. C. A. Barber 

 reports on the failure of the cacao crop in Dominica in the season of 

 1892-93. The failure is apparently not the result of any specific 

 disease, but partly due to a reaction after a previous very successful 

 season, and partly to a slovenliness in cultivation which is general 

 in the island, and tends to induce an unhealthy tone in the trees, 

 whereby the effect of climatic or unfavourable local influences is 

 exaggerated. 



Mr. H. O. Forbes' memoir on " The Chatham Islands : their 

 Relation to a former Southern Continent," appeared last month, not 

 in the Geographical Society's Journal, but in the Supplementary Papers 

 of the same Society. 



We understand that a shaft is to be sunk at the Dover Boring, 

 at an estimated cost of ^50,000. It was chiefly owing to the fact that 

 the work was entirely under the control of Mr. Brady and Sir Edward 

 Watkin that the boring was ever completed ; it will be interesting now 

 to see whether, under a board of directors, so much will be accom- 

 plished with so steady an end in view as was the work in which only 

 two participated. Professor Boyd Dawkins is, we believe, one of the 

 board. 



We are glad to observe that our reference to the neglected state 

 of the geological collection in the Museum of the University of Malta 

 has attracted some attention in that benighted island. We may 

 assure those interested that our information was not obtained from a 

 resident, but from a geologist who is acquainted with most of the 

 University collections of Europe, and who tells us that that of Malta 

 was, five months ago, in a more disgraceful condition than any other 

 he had visited. A correspondent, who states that he writes "officially," 

 but at the same time requests that his name may not be divulged to 

 anyone, points out that Mr. John H. Cooke is teacher of Mathematics 

 and English in the Lyceum, not lecturer in the University. 



The Geological Committee of Russia has just marked the com- 

 pletion of its first ten years' work by the issue of a geological map of 

 the empire, produced chiefly under the direction of Drs. Karpinsky, 

 Nikitin, Tschernyschevv, Sokolow, and Michalski. The map bears 

 45 district notations, partly in colour, partly in signs, and the scale is 

 about 40 miles to the inch. Much of the country is monotonous, 

 being covered with post- Tertiary deposits, but the more striking 

 features — such as the limit of extension of erratic blocks and the 

 transgression of the old marine deposits in the Caspian region — are 

 all duly indicated. 



