34 



NATURE 



[November i i, 1897 



The list of lectures to be delivered at the London Institution 

 from November to February next has been issued, and com- 

 prises, among others, discourses on " Signalling across Space," 

 by Prof. Silvanus P. Thompson ; " On the Frontier of History 

 in Britain," by Prof. Boyd Dawkins ; "The Weather Office 

 and its Work," by Charles Harding ; *' Microbes — Friendly 

 and otherwise," by Prof. W. B. Bottomley ; "My Scrambles 

 amongst the Alps," by E. Whymper ; "The Position of the 

 Mammalia in the Animal Series," by Prof. G. B. Howes; 

 " Haunts and Habits of British Birds," by R. Kearton ; " In- 

 candescent Gas Lighting," by Prof. Vivian Lewes ; " Geological 

 Changes beneath the Ocean," by Prof. John Milne ; " The 

 First Crossing of Spitsbergen," by Sir W. Martin Conway. 

 The Christmas course for juveniles will be by Mr. F. Enock, 

 Av'.io will speak on " Insects at Home, at Work, and at Meals." 



Particulars of lectures to working men, in connection with 

 the Royal College of Science, London, have been published. 

 The first course is to be given by Prof. G. B. Howes, and will 

 consist of six lectures dealing with " The Kinship of the Ver- 

 tebrata. " The first lecture will be delivered on Monday, 

 November 15. Subsequent courses will be given by Prof. Le 

 Neve Foster, on mining, and by Prof. Tilden, on chemistry. 



The Sunday Lecture Society has arranged for the delivery, 

 before Christmas, of the following science lectures on Sunday 

 .afternoons, at 4 o'clock, in St. George's Hall, Langham Place. 

 ■On November 14, " Andree and the North Pole : a Problem of 

 to-day," by A. Montefiore Brice ; November 21, "Wireless 

 Telegraphy," by R. Kerr; November 28, "The Land of 

 Dragon Trees," by Dr. D. Morris; December 12, "Colour," 

 •by Dr. C. W. Kimmins ; December 19, "Some Animal Co- 

 operative Societies," by Dr. Andrew Wilson. 



It will be remembered that in 1895 the original MS. of 

 <iilbert White's "Natural History of Selborne" was sold by 

 Messrs. Sotheby for ^^294. It is now announced that the same 

 firm will, on November 25, offer for sale an even more interest- 

 ing batch of writings by the same author. These MSS. are the 

 original letters which were sent by post by Gilbert White to 

 Thomas Pennant between August 10, 1767, and July 8, 1773. 

 These letters were returned to Gilbert White when he first con- 

 <;eived the idea of writing his famous natural history, and from 

 them was drawn up the autograph MS. sold in 1895. The 

 letters are all holograph but four, which are in the handwriting of 

 an amanuensis, signed by Gilbert White, and all but three occupy 

 four pages folio. They are additionally interesting and valuable 

 from the fact that many of the details recorded in them were 

 altered, omitted, or augmented in the published work. The 

 second lot of Gilbert White MSS. is " A Garden Kalendar," 

 <lating from 1751 to 1767. It is the author's holograph manu- 

 script, and occupies 424 pages. This has never been published, 

 •excepting the portion May i to November 16, 1759 ;• it is in the 

 form of a consecutive diary, recording the writer's almost daily 

 operations on his own land, and notes of the results of experi- 

 ments tried by him in forcing and hothouse work. All the MSS. 

 liave been continuously in the possession of the White family. 



The twentieth annual meeting of the Indian Association for 

 the Cultivation of Science was recently held at Calcutta, and a 

 copy of the report adopted upon that occasion is before us. In 

 the course of the year covered by the report, lectures were de- 

 livered before the Association upon various divisions of physical 

 and natural science. The Association does not appear, how- 

 ■ever, to be in a very flourishing condition, and it needs more 

 financial support to put it on a satisfactory basis. In an oration 

 -characteristically Indian, the Honorary Secretary urged the 

 necessity of national support in order to make the Institution 

 worthy of India, and pleaded for the endowment of a Science 

 NO. 1463, VOL. 57] 



Institute in the metropolis of India. One passage from this 

 aspiring address reads thus: — -"Whether our Association will 

 endure to continue to be the regenerating influence for our 

 country may still be in the region of doubt ; but if the relation- 

 ship of cause and eff"ect be eternal, then I can assure you, gentle- 

 men, that circumstanced as our country is it will have to 

 advance, unless otherwise doomed by an eternal decree — it will 

 have to advance, I say with all the emphasis in my power, 

 through the regenerating influence of science and of science 

 alone, and that, therefore, other but similar institutions will have 

 to take the place of ours." Surely such zeal for the cultivation 

 of science, and faith in the social influence of scientific thought, 

 will not go unrewarded. 



The Meteorological Commission of the Cape of Good Hope 

 have published a valuable discussion of the rainfall of Cape 

 Colony for the ten years 1885-94, based upon the monthly and 

 yearly averages for 278 stations, and accompanied by sixteen 

 explanatory maps. The work has been prepared by Dr. Buchan, 

 and has, therefore, every guarantee of scientific accuracy. We 

 extract a few brief notes from his remarks. The annual map 

 shows that the distribution of rainfall over South Africa to the 

 north of the latitude of Clanwilliam (32° 10' S. ) steadily increases 

 from west to east, the amount on the Atlantic coast falling short 

 of 5 inches ; whereas on the east coast, for some distance to the 

 north and south of Durban, it exceeds 40 inches. The smallest 

 mean annual rainfall is 245 inches at Port Nolloth ; it rises 

 above 10 inches over the eastern and southern regions and above 

 20 inches in certain restricted regions, including Kimberley and 

 the Cape. In the south-east some places have a mean range 

 above 30 inches, the largest being 38'io inches at Kologha (lat. 

 32' 31' S., long. 27° 21' E.). The heaviest rainfalls in any 

 year are reported from the south-west of the Colony, and the 

 least in the north-west ; at Port Nolloth the fall in the driest 

 year does not amount to an inch. Dr. Buchan traces the causes 

 of the very variable rainfall to the geographical distribution of 

 pressure with the resultant winds therefrom, and to the 

 geographical distribution of temperature. 



We are sorry to notice the report that, owing to the present 

 condition of the sugar industry, the publication of Timehri, the 

 organ of the Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society of 

 British Guiana, is to cease with the December number. We 

 have on rhany occasions drawn attention to the magazine, in the 

 contents of which is always to be found something of interest 

 and scientific value. 



Under the name Capra mengesi. Prof. Dr. Noack, of 

 Brunswick, has recently described a new Arabian wild goat, of 

 which he has obtained specimens from Herr J. Menges, the well- 

 known German traveller and collector. The wild goat of Sinai 

 {Capra sinaitica) was known to extend along the mountains 

 down the eastern side of the Red Sea, but this new species is 

 from the Hadramaut range on the coast of the Indian Ocean, 

 which was recently visited by the late Mr. Bent, but apparently 

 still requires further investigation. Prof. Noack also describes 

 a new wolf (Cants hadramaiUiciis), from the same district. 



Peiermann' s Mittheilungen contains an able paper, by Dr. 

 Gerhardt Schott, on the currents of the Great Banks of New- 

 foundland. The most interesting results, obtained from dis- 

 cussion of an immense number of observations, are (i) confirm- 

 ation of the fact that the so-called " Gulf Stream " does not 

 exist as a warm current east of 40° W. , and has no rapid 

 movement east of 60° W. ; (2) the Labrador current does 

 not anywhere touch the United States seaboard, and has 

 nothing to do with the "cold wall"; {3) on the bank itself 

 there is practically no current. It appears, unfortunately for 

 navigation, that the positions of the warm and cold streams are 



