7o NATURAL SCIENCE. Jan., 1895. 



The Belgian Academy of Science in Brussels has offered prizes to the value of 

 six hundred francs for the best treatise on one of the following subjects: (i) Re- 

 searches on the number of chromosomes, before fertilisation, in an animal or a 

 plant. (2) New researches on the quaternary flora, especially on peat-mosses. 

 (3) Is there a nucleus in Schizophytes ? If so, what is its structure and the mode 

 of its division ? The author must give a critical resume of all work hitherto pub- 

 lished on this subject. Treatises should be written in French or Flemish, and sent 

 with motto and sealed name to Chev. Edm. Marchal, Secretary of the Academy, 

 before August 1, 1895. 



The difficulty which has been experienced in England of obtaining a suffi- 

 cient supply of the new diphtheria antitoxin is likely soon to be remedied. Already 

 a supply is forthcoming from the Institute of Preventive Medicine, and Dr. Klein is 

 providing it in considerable quantities to such hospitals as care to apply for it. The 

 munificent action of the Goldsmiths' Company in making a grant of £1,000 for the 

 furtherance of research work in connection with the treatment, and for the supply of 

 serum for use among the poor, will commend itself to everyone. The administration 

 of the grant has been undertaken by the Conjoint Board of the Royal Colleges of 

 Physicians and Surgeons, and the research will be carried out in their Laboratory 

 on the Embankment. It cannot be doubted that much valuable information will 

 be obtained as to the more precise nature and action of the antitoxin, especially as 

 an accurate bacteriological diagnosis will be made in all cases. The Conjoint Board 

 of the Royal Colleges has offered to make the needful examination in all cases of 

 diphtheria admitted into the hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board for a 

 period of six months, and the latter body have agreed to an expenditure of £375 to 

 this end — no very astonishing remuneration when we read further that the daily 

 average of cases so examined is to be twenty. In this way a really valuable body 

 of statistics will, it is to be hoped, be forthcoming, and one which should place the 

 therapeutical value of the antitoxin on a firm basis, if basis it has. And accounts 

 already to hand of the results of the treatment in this country fully confirm the 

 favourable effects reported from the continent. 



The Bohemian Portable Biological Station, which we described in November, is 

 now placed on the shore of the Black Lake in the Bohmerwald, and a report of 

 recent researches is in course of preparation. The Director, Dr. Anton Fritsch, 

 still devotes his attention, at the same time, to pala^ontological studies. A new part 

 of his work on the " Fauna of the Gas-coal of Bohemia" has just appeared, and 

 he is now occupied with the examination of a series of fossil Arthropods from the 

 coal-field of Nyran. 



According to Die Natur, the marine laboratory which was founded by the 

 exertions of Professor R. Wagner and the Archimandrite Mileti in 1881 at Solovetzk, 

 an island in the White Sea, has now been improved into a two-storied building, with 

 convenient fittings and work rooms. Numerous sailing boats are at the disposal of 

 the workers, and efforts are being made to secure a small steam-launch. The 

 director, M. Knipovitch, has been at the head for the past three years. 



We have received a circular from Dr. Vittorio Simonelli and Dr. Carlo 

 Fornasini, stating that it is proposed to start a publication devoted to the Palaeon- 

 tology of Italy. The journal is to be called Rcvista Italiana di Paleontulogia. The 

 new periodical, which is intended to do for Italian geology what the Palaeontographica 

 Society does here and the Paleontologie Francaise does in France, will be published 

 at Bologna, in octavo. Number 1 will appear on February 28, 1895, and the 

 subscription price will be five lire annually. Subscriptions should be sent to 

 Via Zamboni, 65, Bologna. 



