June 15. 1911] 



NATURE 



525 



The death is reported, in his seventy-fourth year, of Dr. 

 Cyrus G. Pringle, botanical collector to Harvard Uni- 

 versity and curator of the herbarium of the University of 

 \'ermont. His best known work was done in connection 

 with the exploration of the flora of Old Mexico, about 

 fifty of the most important herbaria in the world having 

 benefited by his researches in that country. Before his 

 Harvard appointment he was a collector for the American 

 Museum of Natural History in New York. 



The vessel carrying the collection of wild animals pre- 

 sented to H.M. the King by South Africa arrived in the 

 Thames on June i. The collection, which was brought 

 home in charge of two keepers sent out by the Zoological 

 Society, is stated to include about 200 animals. These are 

 now housed in buildings specially erected for their recep- 

 tion in the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park, and are 

 exhibited to the public as the King's South African 

 collection. They were inspected by the King on June 4. 



Representatives of the Hessian Government, of the 

 town of Darmstadt, and of numerous chemical works 

 joined with many others on June i in congratulations to 

 Dr. Willy Merck, of E. Merck, Darmstadt, upon the 

 celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his entry 

 into the firm as a partner. In the name of the Grand 

 Duke of Hesse, the representative of the Hessian Govern- 

 ment handed to Dr. Merck the grand medal for art and 

 science conferred upon him in recognition of his services, 

 not only in promoting the advance of chemical research 

 work and in developing this branch of the country's indus- 

 try, but also as a distinguished patron of art. 



Mr. Harvie Brown writes to us suggesting that the 

 great Scots pine trees on Auchnacarry are probably of 

 much greater age than the two hundred or three hundred 

 years at which they were recently estimated in our 

 columns (June i, p. 447). Mr. Harvie Brown is very 

 probably in the right. But we are informed by the timber 

 merchants, Messrs. Souness and Spiers, Edinburgh, that 

 they will be at work in the forest within the next two or 

 three weeks, and that plenty of trees and logs will then 

 be available for ascertaining the actual age. 



A Bill has been introduced in the House of Representa- 

 tives of the United States of America " to establish in the 

 District of Columbia a laboratory for the study of the 

 criminal, pauper, and defective classes." We understand 

 from Mr. Arthur MacDonald, of Washington, who has been 

 prominent in advocating the establishment of such labora- 

 tories, that the Russian Government has already set aside 

 a large sum of money for this purpose. The fundamental 

 problem in such studies, it seems to us, is to determine 

 which individuals among the criminal, pauper, and feeble- 

 minded population occupy that position through accidental 

 misfortune, and which are congenitally defective. It is 

 useless, or worse, to spend money in the hope of curing 

 the latter class. Permanent care and control is for them 

 the only hope, and for society the most feasible way of 

 preventing the ever-growing burden of their criminal or 

 incompetent descendants. 



\ violent earthquake occurred in Mexico on June 7 

 at 4.35 a.m., and gave rise to unusually large disturb- 

 ances in distant seismographs. In Mexico city many 

 poorly-built houses were destroyed, and 17a persons were 

 killed. The shock or shocks lasted there for about six 

 minutes. The total number of deaths is estimated at 

 1300, of which 500 occurred at Zapotlan. The volcanoes 

 of Colima and Popocatapetl are also said to be in active 

 eruption. The position of the origin is still unknown. 



NO. 2172, VOL. 86] 



An earthquake capable of affecting European seismo- 

 graphs so strongly must have caused widespread destruc- 

 tion in the central area, and it is possible that this area 

 may be isolated from the surrounding country, so that the 

 full extent of the disaster may not be realised, or, for 

 political reasons, detailed telegrams may be censored. It 

 is clear, however, that the epicentre was at some distance 

 from those of the Mexican earthquakes of 1905 and 1907. 

 In those years the towns which suffered most were 

 Chilpancingo and Acapulco, which lie from 200 to 250 

 miles south of Mexico city. Zapotlan is about 275 miles 

 west of that city, and is situated in a well-known seismic 

 district, having on several occasions been damaged or 

 destroyed by earthquakes. 



For the use of the members of the sixteenth annual 

 Congress 61 the South-Eastern Union of Scientific Socie- 

 ties, held at St. Albans last week, the Hertfordshire 

 Natural History Society and Field Club has issued an 

 excellent guide to the topography, natural history, 

 archaeolc^y, &c., of the city and the surrounding neigh- 

 bourhood, the account forming part iii. of vol. xiv. of the 

 society's Transactions. Mr. John Hopkinson has acted 

 as editor, and has himself contributed the sections on 

 tofHJgraphy, geology, hydrology, and climate, while the 

 other sections have been written by various members of 

 the society. The guide is illustrated by a map of the 

 district, a plan of modern Verulamium, and several local 

 views, and will be of permanent value to residents in and 

 visitors to the neighbourhood. The congress lasted from 

 June 7 to 10, and at the inaugural meeting a resolution 

 was passed expressive of the hope that the negotiations 

 between the Society of .\ntiquarians and the Earl of 

 Verulani for the excavation of the site of Verulamium, 

 which — owing in part to the death of King Edward — fell 

 through last year, may be resumed and brought to a 

 successful issue. Lieut. -Colonel D. Prain, F".R.S., was 

 nominated president of next year's congress in siucossion 

 to Sir David Gill, K.C.B., F.R.S. 



The Huxley lecture at the University of Birmingham 

 was delivered this year, on May 29, by Prof. Henri 

 Bergson. He chose " Life and Consciousness " as the 

 subject of his lecture. He proposed the view that a 

 world-wide antagonism exists between matter, which is 

 essentially automatic and governed by necessity, and 

 consciousness, which is characterised by the power of 

 choice and creation. Consciousness, he believed, entered 

 matter in order to entice it to organisation ; but in thus 

 binding itself to matter, consciousness lost much of its 

 original liberty, and was continually being dogged and 

 cramped by automatism. Prof. Bergson conceived con- 

 sciousness as flowing through matter much as a stream of 

 fluid flows through a tunnel ; in digging galleries in this 

 hard rock, consciousness found itself impeded at point 

 after point. Thus it had repeatedly to make fresh starts 

 in its ceaseless efforts to create, until finally, in the course 

 of this crooked path of evolution, it created man. In 

 man alone, the chains which elsewhere bound conscious- 

 ness to matter were broken. Here, maintained the 

 lecturer, every contracted habit could be opposed by 

 another habit, every kind of automatism by another auto- 

 matism. Consciousness thus acquired its liberty by setting 

 one necessity to fight another. In this way it has ex- 

 panded *to such a state of freedom that in man, perhaps, 

 it may be able to endure beyond his earthly life. 



The fine series of big-game and other sporting trophies 

 arranged in a special building at the Festival of Empire 

 and Imperial Exhibition at the Crystal Palace, and opened 



