160 NEWS [avcusT 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 down 
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 Wature 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 Scientitic 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. 
