November 4 1897J 



NATURE 



J3 



After Frankfurt had ceased to be a free city, and imperial ideas 

 swept over the old place. Dr. Volger found himself increasingly 

 out of harmony with the new regime, and he withdrew from 

 Frankfurt, first to Soden and lately to Sulzbach. In accordance 

 with his express wish, his funeral at Frankfurt, on the 20th ult., 

 was strictly private. 



We have received the Year-book of the Cambridge Philoso- 

 phical Society, containing the addresses of the Fellows of the 

 Society, and a list of the English and Foreign Societies with 

 whom the publications of the Society are exchanged. It would 

 appear that the Society is a convenient meeting-ground for 

 ■Cambridge men engaged in scientific work. Papers for pre- 

 sentation to the Society are received by the Secretaries at the 

 library of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, Cambridge. 

 The Proceedings are published three times yearly — the publica- 

 tion of the Transactions is to be accelerated : the meetings 

 are held every fortnight during full term. The following is a 

 list of the new honorarj' members, elected May 24, 1897 : — 

 Major Macmahon, R.A , Prof. Charles A. Young (Princeton), 

 Prof. Michelson (Chicago), Dr. Boltzmann (Vienna), Prof. 

 Righi (Bologna), Prof. Mendeleeflf (St. Petersburg), Sir Archi- 

 bald Geikie, Prof. Dana (New Haven, Conn), Sir John Kirk, 

 Prince of Monaco, Rev. Canon Norman (Durham), Prof. 

 Wilhelm Pfefifer (Leipzig). 



An instructive fisheries exhibition, arranged to illustrate the 

 fishing industries and the application of science to agriculture, 

 was opened in the Zoological Museum of the University College, 

 Liverpool, on Friday last. The exhibits are fully described in 

 a guide to the exhibition published by the authorities. There 

 is a series of the food fishes of this district, with the more im- 

 portant food matters of each ; also a series of useful and useless 

 fishes which compete with one another by eating the same food. 

 Another exhibit contains specimens of the shell-fish of the dis- 

 trict, showing stages in the life-history and growth, legal and 

 illegal sizes, pearl formations, and pearls. A case is devoted to 

 a display of printed matter, plates, photographs, drawings, and 

 lantern slides, illustrating the publications, both administrative 

 and scientific, of the Lancashire Sea Fisheries Committee, and 

 other work bearing upon the fisheries of the district. The 

 drawings and sketches include a number made by Prof. Herd- 

 man in illustration of his joint investigation with Prof. Boyce 

 on the diseases of oysters and the connection between the oyster 

 and disease. The exhibition will no doubt promote a more 

 widespread interest upon the important question of sea-fishing, 

 and thus assist in increasing the harvest of the sea. As Prof. 

 Herdman pointed out at the opening ceremony of the exhibition, 

 fishes are animals, their food is composed of animals, and their 

 enemies are animals. In all the operations of their life, their 

 feeding and breeding, and so on, they are subject to the same 

 biological laws which regulate the lives of all animals in the sea. 

 The investigation of fishery questions is applied biology, and if 

 our fisheries are to be benefited they must be treated in a 

 cientific manner. We do not trust to unaided nature for our 

 -applies of bread-stuffs and beef. Why then should we trust to 

 nature for fish? As there is an agriculture of the land, so there 

 must be an aquiculture of the sea. Fishermen must in the future 

 be farmers of the sea-shore, not hunters as they have been in 

 the past. 



Sir J. Wolfe Barry, in an address at the opening of the 

 new session of the Institution of Civil Engineers on Tuesday, 

 said that the Institution now numbers on its roll 7075 persons. 

 Reviewing the subject of the examinations recently instituted, 

 he pointed out that they are intended to show that candidates 

 for election into the class of Associate Members are acquainted 

 with those general principles which have always been and must 



NO. 1462, VOL. 57] 



be recognised as the basis of the engineering profession, and 

 also to make clear that each candidate possesses a somewhat 

 fuller scientific knowledge of the elements of the particular 

 branch in which his special training has lain. Practical know- 

 ledge is no less necessary now than formerly ; for the examina- 

 tions have not been instituted in lieu of other qualifications set 

 out in the by-laws, but in addition to and supplementary of them. 



We have received the Report on the Administration of the 

 Meteorological Department of the Government of India in 

 1896 97. It is divided into two parts ; the first gives a general 

 account of the results during the past year, and the second gives 

 details of administration, chiefly in the form of tables. In the 

 branch of marine meteorologj' two clerks have been regularly 

 engaged in collecting data from ships visiting Calcutta and 

 Bombay, and more than two thousand logs have been extracted. 

 The observations are tabulated day by day, and ^re utilised in 

 the preparation of charts of the Monsoon area. Observations 

 have been made for some years past in certain forest areas with 

 reference to the influence of forest-growth upon the distribution 

 of rainfall, but have now been discontinued. Photogrammetric 

 cloud observations have been regularly made since March last at 

 Calcutta and Allahabad with the best type of instruments, which 

 were constructed in Paris. Storm warnings are issued when 

 necessary, partly from Calcutta and partly from Simla, and 

 timely notice appears to have been given of all the more im- 

 portant disturbances. Among the various useful publications, 

 we may mention the printing of the hourly observations formerly 

 made at Trevandrum, under the superintendence of the late J. 

 Allan Broun. The work of publication of the hourly values is 

 now completed, and Mr. Eliot has undertaken their discussion, 

 from which we anticipate some valuable results. He hopes to 

 complete it during the present year, 



A RECENT number of the Cape of Good Hope Agrictilttiral 

 Journal contains an important report on rinderpest by three 

 Russian investigators, M. Nencki, N. Sieber, and W. Wyzni- 

 kiewicz. These gentlemen were appointed by the Russian 

 Government two years ago, to study how far sheep of the 

 Merino family are subject to rinderpest, and at the same time to 

 investigate the nature of the contagium of this disease. Their 

 inquiries were carried on first in the Kuban-Cossack country, 

 and later at the Institute for experimental medicine in St. 

 Petersburg. They claim to have discovered the genuine con- 

 tagium of rinderpest, which does not belong to the bacterial 

 class of germs, but appears to partake more of the character of 

 the amoeba. After experimenting with about a hundred different 

 media, in the hope of separating out the specific rinderpest 

 agent, their efforts were rewarded by the discovery of "slightly 

 luminous bodies in size from 1-3 ^, mostly round, a few being 

 oval, pear-shaped, or drawn to a point. On the larger ones 

 swellings may be seen, and, in a few, a grain lying in the centre. 

 The larger and duller individuals show amoeboid developments ; 

 some also have one, seldom two, ciliated protrusions." With 

 fresh cultures of these organisms the rinderpest can be generated. 

 Such cultures, however, are very perishable, and it is recom- 

 mended to re-inoculate the culture daily. The best material for 

 the cultivation of these organisms is apparently that which is 

 rich in animal mucus, and by employing solutions containing 

 an abundance of mucine, the authors succeeded in at length 

 obtaining them in a living condition outside the animal's body. 

 Great difficulty was experienced in ensuring the virulence of 

 rinderpest cultures, but this trouble has to a considerable extent 

 been overcome, "All organs and juices of diseased animals 

 contain the rinderpest germ," the authors assert; and now that 

 their methods have been brought before the scientific world, it 

 only remains for other investigators to repeat and, we trust, 

 confirm the important results which have been obtained. 



