;26 



NA TURE 



\August I, 1889 



measure which cannot fail to produce an excellent effect on the 

 higher branches of technical education in England. 



We regret to have to announce the death of the Rev. J. M. 

 Berkeley, the eminent cryptogamic botanist. 



The Professorship of Civil Engineering and Mechanics in 

 the University of Glasgow is likely to be vacant by the resigna- 

 tion of Prof James Thomson, on account of weak health. The 

 appointment, which is supposed to be worth about .<^6oo a year, 

 is in the gift of the Crown. 



The eleventh Congress of the Sanitary Institute, which is to 

 meet at "Worcester from September 24 to 28, will be divided 

 into three Sections, viz. Section I. Sanitary Science and Pre- 

 ventive Medicine ; Section II. Engineering and Architecture ; 

 Section III. Chemistry, Meteorology, and Geology. Each Section 

 will begin its work on a separate day. A Conference of Medical 

 Officers of Health will be held during the Congress ; and there 

 will be a Health Exhibition in the Skating Rink and special 

 additional buildings from September 24 to October 19. This 

 Exhibition will include sanitary a;^paratus and appliances, and 

 articles for domestic use and economy. 



The International Congress on Hygiene, which is to meet in 

 Paris on Sunday, will be attended by nearly 600 members, re- 

 presenting twenty-five nationalities. The Paris Correspondent 

 of the Times says that the members will be lavishly entertained 

 at the Ministry of Public Instruction, at the Ministry of the 

 Interior, at the Hotel de Ville, and by the town of Rheims, 

 where they will visit the important works for the treatment of 

 sewage. Several European Governments will be officially re- 

 presented, notably Belgium, Denmark, Spain, and Turkey. 

 Brazil and nearly all the South American Republics send official 

 delegates. Prof Corfield, Mr. Shirley Murphy, Dr. Alfred 

 Carpenter, and some other Englishmen interested in sanitary 

 questions, propose to attend the meetings. 



The International Congress of Photography will meet in 

 Paris from August 6 to 17. The rules relating to the proceedings 

 of the Congress have been issued. 



The eighth Congress of Russian Naturalists will be opened 

 at St. Petersburg on January 7, 1890, and will last a week. 



The Russian Chemical and Physical Society, as we learn from 

 its Annual Report, has now 340 members. Its Journal contains 

 every year a most valuable index of all that is published in 

 Russia in the domain of chemistry and chemical technology. 



The monument erected by the Russian Consul at Kashgar, in 

 memory of Adolph Schlagintweit, is reported to be ready. It 

 is in the form of a pyramid with an iron cross on the top, and 

 has been erected on the very place where the great German 

 traveller was executed by order of the then ruler of Kashgar, 

 Vali-khan-tyuria. 



On Thursday last, the new galleries and the new green- 

 house of the Museum of Natural History of Paris were formally 

 opened by the Minister of Public Instruction, who was accom- 

 panied by the Director, Prof Fremy, and, among others, by M. 

 de Quatrefages, M. Gaudry, M. Chauveau, and M. E. Blanchard. 

 The new gallery is a fine building, three stoiies high, built of 

 iron and stone. The collections have already been in part trans- 

 ferred to it. The greenhouse is a very ordinary one. Enor- 

 mous substructures have been rendered necessary by the fact 

 that it is on the side of a small hill. The building was begun 

 ten years ago, and serves to show what progress has since been 

 made in the art of iron-building. 



According to the Rome Correspondent of the Daily News, 

 the Municipal Council of Rome has decided to devote a sum of 

 money to the formation of a Pasteur Institute. Confidence in 

 M. Pasteur's treatment of hydrophobia is increasing in Italy, as 

 is shown by the fact that little by little all the principal towns 



are providing buildings for the treatment of the disease by- 

 inoculation. 



Admiral Sir Robert Spencer Robinson, K.C.B., F.R.S., 

 died at his residence, 61 Eaton Place, on July 27, in his eighty- 

 first year. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 

 1869. Among his works was a treatise on the steam-engine 

 for marine purposes. 



Mr. W. F. H. Blandford succeeds Mr. A. E. Shipley, 

 who has resigned the post of Lecturer on Economic Entomology 

 at the Royal Indian Engineering College, Cooper's Hill. 



At the session of the Council of University College, London, 

 on July 6, the title of Emeritus Professor of Engineering and 

 Mechanical Technology was conferred on Prof. A. B. W. 

 Kennedy, F.R.S. 



The Association for the Improvement of Geometrical Teach- 

 ing has begun the formation of a library of reference of mathe- 

 matical text-books. This should increase the usefulness of the 

 Association to teachers of mathematics, especially to such as live 

 in the neighbourhood of London. The library already contains 

 a respectable assortment of works, contributed by various authors 

 and publishers. It is, of course, intended chiefly for works 

 of recent date, but it contains a loan collection of older works, 

 lent by Mr. F. Hockliffe, of Bedford, among which may be 

 mentioned Cocker's " Arithmetic," Tacquet's " Elementa Geo- 

 metrire," and D'Chales' " Elements of Euclid," The library 

 is at present under the charge of Mr. C. V. Coates (2 Prince's 

 Mansions, Victoria Street), who will be glad to receive dona- 

 tions of books, pamphlets, &c., on behalf of the Association. 



In the Report submitted to the general meeting of the Scottish 

 Meteorological Society on June 24, the Council state that the 

 preparation of No. VI. of the Society's Journal has been kept 

 steadily in progress, and is now in type, and will shortly be 

 issued to members. In this number a fuller account is given 

 than heretofore of the storms which strike the Scottish coasts, 

 drawn chiefly from the very full and accurate reports of storms 

 from the northern lighthouses. These reports of storms may 

 justly be regarded as the fullest accounts of storms made any- 

 where in the world by observers who record the phenomena 

 night and day. The Council are of opinion that it is not possible 

 to overrate the importance of these observations of storms in their 

 bearing on the discussion of the Ben Nevis observations and the 

 weather of North-Western Europe, which, it is proposed, will 

 engage the whole time next year of the Secretary and such 

 assistance as may be obtained. The photographing of meteoro- 

 logical phenomena continues in progress as opportunity offers, 

 and at the next meeting of the Society the directors will be in a 

 position to show to members a second series of these interesting 

 and important photographs. This year the snow disappeared 

 from the summit of Ben Nevis in the middle of May, being 

 about a month earlier than any previous year, and seven weeks 

 earlier than in 1885. Shortly thereafter, or in the beginning of 

 June, the spring near the Observatory dried up ; and during 

 that month the water supply for the Observatory had to be 

 carried on horseback, from a distance of two miles and a half. 

 The directors have had under consideration a proposed system- 

 atic observation of the numbers of dust particles in the atmo- 

 sphere with the instrument recently invented by Mr. Aitken, one 

 of the directors, and they are of opinion that, for many reasons^ 

 the best place for most satisfactorily conducting the observations 

 is the Ben Nevis Observatory. Mr. Aitken has kindly agreed 

 to superintend the construction of the instrument, and to see to 

 the placing of it in a suitable position. It has been resolved to 

 apply for a grant from the Government Research Fund to aid 

 in this novel and important inquiry. M. Mascart, Director of 

 the Meteorological Service of France, has also resolved to carry 

 on the same investigation in Paris. 



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