iOO 



NATURE 



[January 27, 1898 



depending upon a supposed orbital motion of the stars 

 in the plane of the Milky Way. This term did not 

 appear, however, to have a real existence. The stars 

 were divided into four groups depending upon the 

 amount of the annual proper motion, and the four solu- 

 tions gave very accordant results in R.A. for the position 

 of the apex of the solar system. The declination ap- 

 peared less certain, but great confidence has been 

 attached to the results of this particular investigation. 

 Dr. Stumpe's talents as a computer have been generally 

 \ recognised. He took some share in the calculations of 

 the star places in the Bonn Zone Catalogue under Prof. 

 Deichmuller, and afterwards, on repairing to Berlin in 

 1 89 1, he was engaged in the preparation of the Zone 

 Catalogue 15° — 20' declination. Since that time he has 

 assisted Dr. Auwers in the many researches with which 

 that astronomer has been connected, and who loses in 

 him an able co-operator and a devoted assistant. 



NOTES. 



At the ordinary meeting of the Royal Society last week, 

 Sir Nathaniel Lindley, Master of the Rolls, was balloted for 

 and elected a Fellow under the special clause in the statutes 

 which permits the admission of members of the Privy Council ; 

 and similarly, to-day it is proposed to ballot for Sir Herbert E. 

 Maxwell. It may be recalled that Sir N. Lindley is a son of 

 the late Dr. John Lindley, the famous botanist. 



The original lists of the subscribers to the Indian Section of 

 the Pasteur International Memorial (British Division) have just 

 been received from Surgeon- Major-General Cleghorn. On 

 glancing down the columns where the profession of the donor is 

 given, the first thing which strikes us is the very varied character 

 of the generous contributors to this fund. We find, for example, 

 members of the Indian Civil Service, the Indian Medical 

 Service, officials in the opium department, in the salt depart- 

 ment, forest officers and a number of native forest students, 

 members of the legal profession (including a number of native 

 pleaders), merchants (one of whom mentions having been a 

 patient of Pasteur's), chaplains, medical and other missionaries, 

 numbers of jailors and warders, an indigo planter, locomotive 

 superintendents and assistants, the principal of a theological 

 seminary at Insein in Burma, the superintendent of a Govern- 

 ment lunatic asylum, civil apothecaries, bankers, revenue clerks, 

 collectors and magistrates, numbers of "private gentlemen" 

 (Indian), the Governor of Madras, the head-master of a 

 missionary school, &c. ; whilst the Army in India has also 

 furnished a large contingent of subscribers. In one district we 

 find a note saying that the inhabitants * ' are not willing to sub- 

 scribe to the Pasteur Memorial, but will willingly subscribe 

 towards the Pasteur Institute." The manner in which the fund 

 has been supported in India not only reflects the greatest credit 

 upon the subscribers, but also upon those who -have so efficiently 

 organised its collection. 



At the Royal Institution last week, Prof. E. Ray Lankester, 

 F.R.S., in commencing his course of eleven lectures on "The 

 Simplest Living Things," remarked that though of late years it 

 had become the custom to use the term physiology as meaning 

 the study of the chemical and , physical properties of living 

 things in contradistinction to the study of their structure, yet 

 fifty years years ago it denoted their general study, and the 

 Fullerian Professorship of Physiology — the chair to which Prof 

 Lankester has just been appointed — was intended for the further- 

 ance of physiology in the broad sense now given to the term 

 biology. It is proposed in a subsequent course to continue the 

 consideration of the simplest living things by a detailed 

 examination of the structure and activities of the different kinds 



bacteria, and to give an outline of the science of bacteriology. 



NO 1474, VOL. 57] 



Mr. Cornelius N. Hoagland has given to the Hoagland 

 Biological Laboratory of Brooklyn a mortgage for 24,000 dollars. 



Electricity is to be substituted for steam as the motive 

 power of the elevated railroad system of New York City. 

 Contracts for the new equipment have just been signed. 



M. J. O. E. Perkier, member of the section of anatomy and 

 zoology of the Paris Academy of Sciences, has been elected 

 membre libie of the Academy of Medicine, in succession to Dr. 

 Magitot. 



The Council of the Sanitary Institute have accepted an in- 

 vitation from the Lord Mayor and City Council of Birmingham 

 to hold its seventeenth congress and exhibition in that city in 

 September next. 



After sixteen years as professor of geography at the Royal 

 University of Turin, Prof. Guido Cora has resigned his charge, 

 in order to devote himself entirely to scientific researches in 

 geography and related sciences. He has transferred his re- 

 sidence (and the direction of his periodical Cosmos) to Rome 

 (Via Goito, 2). 



The death is announced of M. Bazin, the French engineer 

 whose "roller-boat" has on several occasions been referred to 

 in these columns. 



The unpublished manuscripts of the late Prof. Julius Sachs, 

 of Wiirzburg, have, in accordance with his wish, been placed in 

 the hands of Prof. Noll, of Briinn. 



Prof. A. S. Kimball, for many years professor of physics in 

 the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and the author of a number 

 of important papers on the subject of friction between sliding 

 surfaces, as well as of other original contributions to physical 

 science, died on December 2, 1897, after a long illness. 



Dr. Dawson Williams, assistant editor of the British 

 Medical Jownal, who has ' been connected with the editorial 

 department of the yournal for seventeen years, and has on 

 many occasions discharged the duties of acting editor, has been 

 appointed editor in succession to the late Mr. Ernest Hart. Mr. 

 C. Louis Taylor, who has been subeditor for the last eleven 

 years, has been appointed assistant editor. 



A curious incident in natural history is related by a corre- 

 spondent of the Aberdeen Journal (January 22). While ferret- 

 ing rabbits on the bank of a small stream, Mr. J. Robson, a 

 gamekeeper who has for about sixty years been out with rod 

 and gun between the Derwent and the Thurso rivers, states 

 that on the ferret coming out of a hole and running up 

 the edge of the stream, a trout leaped out of the water and fell 

 on the gravel in front of the ferret. The ferret attacked the 

 fish, and after considerable difficulty succeeded in capturing it. 

 Mr. Robson sententiously adds : "I then creeled them both." 



The fifty-first annual general meeting of the Institution of 

 Mechanical Engineers will be held in the rooms of the Institution 

 of Civil Engineers, Westminster, on Thursday and Friday, 

 February 10 and II. The retiring president, Mr. E. Windsor 

 Richards, will induct into the chair the president-elect, Mr. 

 Samuel W. Johnson. The paper on " Mechanical Features of 

 Electric Traction," by Mr. Philip Dawson, read at the last 

 meeting, will be further discussed, and the following papers will 

 be read and discussed, as far as time permits : — First Report to 

 the Gas Engine Research Committee : description of apparatus 

 and methods and preliminary results, by Prof. F. W. Burstall ; 

 steam laundry machinery, by Mr. Sidney Tebbutt. 



The death is announced from Halle of Dr. Ernst Ludwig 

 Taschenberg, well known as an entomologist. Born in 1818, 

 he was appointed in 1856 Director of the Zoological Museum at 

 Halle. His entomological studies, begun after his connection 



