Oct. 3, 1889] 



NATURE 



547 



one bulk-modulus, k ; between which there is essentially 

 the relation 



ik = yi + 2//j, 



whatever be the law of force. The law of force may be 

 so adjusted as to make «i = « ; and in this case we have 

 3^' = 5«, which is Poisson's relation. But no such relation 

 is obligatory when the elastic solid consists of a homo- 

 geneous assemblage of double, or triple, or multiple 

 Boscovich atoms. On the contrary, any arbitrarily chosen 

 values may be given to the bulk-modulus and to the 

 rigidity, by proper adjustment of the law of force, even 

 though we take nothing more complex than the homo- 

 geneous assemblage of double Boscovich atoms above 

 described. 



The most interesting and important part of the subject, 

 the kinetic, was, for want of time, but slightly touched in 

 the communication to Section A. The author hopes to 

 enter on it more fully in a future communication to the 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh. WILLIAM THOMSON. 



NOTES. 



The model of a memorial to Prjevalsky, which is to be 

 erected on the shore of Lake Issyk-kul, is being exhibited at St. 

 Petersburg. It represents a rock, upon which an eagle is 

 descending, having a map of Asia in its talons, and an olive 

 branch in its beak. The monument will have the inscription : 

 " To the first explorer of Nature in Central Asia." 



The Durban Correspondent of the Times telegraphs that the 

 Cape Government has decided to adopt Prof. Seeley's proposal 

 for a geological survey under his charge. He believes that other 

 eruptive diamond-bearing tracts like Kimberley exist elsewhere. 



It is understood that a sum of ^20C0 has been presented to 

 the University of St. Andrews for the purpose of erecting build- 

 ings and equipping a chemical laboratory in connection with the 

 Chemical Chair in the United College of St. Andrews. 



The late Alderman George, of Leeds, has bequeathed ;i^io,ooo 

 to the Yorkshire College. 



The Harveian Oration will be delivered at the Royal College 

 of Physicians by Dr. James E. Pollock, at 4 o'clock precisely, on 

 Friday, October 18. 



The Queen has been pleased, on the recommendation of the 

 Secretary for Scotland, to appoint Mr. R. Fitzroy Bell, advo- 

 cate, to be Secretary to the Scottish University Commissioners, 

 constituted under the Universities (Scotland) Act of last 

 session. 



On Monday the International Congress of the Ethnographic 

 Sciences was opened in Paris, at the Trocadero, under the 

 presidency of M. Jules Oppert, Member of the Institute and 

 Professor at the College of France. In opening the proceedings 

 M. Oppert defined the province of ethnography, and enumer- 

 ated six sections into which the Committee of the Congress had 

 divided the ethnographic sciences. These were : (1) general 

 ethnology ; (2) ethics and sociology ; (3) ethnographic pyscho- 

 'ogy ; (4) comparative religion, with a sub-section devoted to 

 Buddhism ; (5) philology ; and (6) archaeology and the fine arts. 



The Congress on Hydrology and Climatology meets in Paris 

 to-day. After the meeting there will be an excursion to the 

 Vosges. 



At the Colonial Exhibition in Paris, visitors may now obtain 

 pamphlets, issued by the French Government, concerning the 

 different colonies, their resources, and the advantages they offer 

 to immigrants. Those relating to the Victoria and the New 

 Zealand exhibits are very good. 



At St. Petersburg, on September 7, several Pulkova astrono* 

 mers and geodesists took advantage of the ascent of a balloon, 

 belonging to the Technical Society, to test the accuracy of 

 barometrical measurements. The aeronauts, who reached a 

 height of 1800 metres, took with them, besides chronometers 

 and various meteorological instruments, a barometer, a baro- 

 graph, and an aneroid ; and they obtained, in addition to the 

 curve of the barograph, the various heights at which the balloon 

 stood during its ascent and descent for twenty-eight different 

 moments. The heights obtained from these measurements 

 will be compared with those found by geodetical angular 

 measurements, which were made at five different places as far 

 distant from one another as Cronstadt, the St. Petersburg 

 University, Kolpino, and Pargolovo ; that is, at distances of 

 more than thirty miles between the extreme stations. The 

 geodetical measurements thus secured are now being calculated. 



The Brussels Correspondent of the Times points out that the 

 number of foreign students at the German Technical High 

 Schools is steadily increasing, especially at Berlin, where, last 

 year, there were thirteen English students preparing for the 

 professions of mechanical and mining engineers, architects, and 

 chemists. 



We regret to announce the death, at Manila, on July 28 last, 

 of Senor Don Sebastian Vidal, Inspector-General of the Philip- . 

 pine Island Forests and Director of the Manila Botanic Garden. 

 He held the post for a considerable period, and was the author 

 of numerous important works on Philippine botany. He paid 

 two visits to this country in his official capacity ; a first of two 

 months' duration, in the autumn of 1877, and a second of four 

 months', in 1883-84. Both periods were spent at Kew in work- 

 ing up the Philippine flora ; and he deposited in the Herbarium 

 a set of no less than 4062 specimens for future reference. His 

 published works are : — "Catalogo metodico de laPlantas Leiiosas 

 observadasen la Provincio de Manila," 1880; "Resenade la Flora 

 del Archipielago Filipino," 1883 ; ' ' Sinopsis de Familias yGeneros 

 de Plantas Lenosas deFilipinas," 1883, with an atlas of 100 folio 

 lithographed plates ; " Phanerogamae Cumingiana; Philippin- 

 arum," 1885 ; and " Revision de Plantas Vasculares Filipinas," 

 1886. The two latter were the result of his last visit to Kew, and 

 he was assisted in their preparation by Mr. R. A. Rolfe of that 

 establishment. Senor Vidal was the first to investigate the 

 Philippine flora since the time of Blanco (when geographical 

 botany as a science was practically non-existent), and we owe to 

 him, not merely a widely extended knowledge of its constitution, 

 but also the establishment of the fact that the Philippine flora, 

 though substantially Malayan in character, yet presents a num- 

 ber of very important peculiarities. We cannot but announ::e 

 the death of so energetic and promising a worker with profound 

 regret, and hope that his successor will carry on the work with 

 the same amount of success. 



An Indian native paper announces that the Newab of Junagadh 

 has communicated with the Meteorological Department of the 

 Government of India offering to start an observatory at Verawal, 

 and to make suitable arrangements for the exhibition of storm sig- 

 nals for apprising the shipping of the port of the advent of storms 

 in the Arabian Sea. The Dewan of His Highness has offered a 

 building for housing the meteorological instruments, and pro- 

 poses to erect a shed for the reception of the thermometers on a 

 site near the seashore of Verawal, and to a<-sist generally the 

 Meteorological Department to start an observatory. 



Mr, Howard Cunningham, the Honorary Curator of the 

 Wiltshire Museum, writes complaining that the monoliths of 

 Stonehenge are being defaced by the names and initials of visitors, 

 and that the inclosure has become " like a pigsty," owing to the 

 litter of broken bottles and other relics of the British holiday- 

 maker. The state of one of the most ancient and interesting of 



