448. 



NATURE. 



[February 2, igii 



body knows Darwin's own account, how, as the laborious 

 vears passed, he so lost his taste for poetry that he could 

 not endure to read a word of it ; Shakespeare became so 

 dull it nauseated him, and music set him thinking too 

 energetically on what he had been working at, instead of 

 giving him pleasure. If all this loss was the price of 

 years of fruitful concentration in the master, who can 

 wonder if the scientific and documentary age is an age 

 of prosed 



NOTES. 



We are delighted to learn that the sum of 25,000!. 

 required for the purchase of the site for new chemical 

 laboratories at University College, London, has now been 

 obtained, thanks to a generous gift of 4500Z. from Mr. 

 Ralph C. Forster, The Grange, Sutton, Surrey. He is 

 a member of the firm of Messrs. Bessler, Waechter, 

 and Co., merchants, of Salisbury House, E.C. He was 

 Sheriff for the county of Surrey in 1906. The total sum 

 required for the purchase of the site and the erection of 

 the laboratories was 70,000/. It is estimated that a 

 sum of between 45,000!. and 50,000!. is still required 

 for the erection of the buildings. It is hoped that this 

 object will commend itself to the generosity of some 

 public-spirited citizen, who will come forward with what 

 is required to complete the scheme. 



The Chemical Society of France has recently elected the 

 following foreign honorary members : — A. v. Baeyer, 

 Munich; Emil Fischer, Berlin ; P. Guye, Geneva; L. 

 Henry, Louvain, Belgium ; C. Istrati, Bucharest ; A. 

 Lieben, Vienna ; Louguinine, St. Petersburg ; Raphael 

 Meldola, London ; Patern6, Rome ; Sir Wm. Ramsay, 

 London ; and Ira Remsen, Baltimore. The late Prof. S. 

 Cannizaro had also been nominated by the council, but 

 his death prevented his nomination being confirmed by 

 the general meeting of the society. 



An international committee of representative men of 

 science of distinguished eminence has been formed to 

 raise the funds necessary to celebrate appropriately the 

 jubilee of Prof. Gaston Darboux's connection with French 

 university education, the distinguished work he has done 

 for mathematics, and his services as permanent secretary 

 of the Paris Academy of Sciences. Donations may be 

 sent to Prof. Guichard, the general secretary of the inter- 

 national committee, at the Sorbonne, Paris. It is pro- 

 posed to present Prof. Darboux with a medal, reproducing 

 his portrait, together with an address signed by the sub- 

 scribers. Subscriptions of 25 francs will give the right to 

 a medal in bronze, and of 50 francs to a medal in silver, 

 which will be reduced reproductions of that to be offered 

 to Prof. Darboux. 



The death is announced, in his seventy-first year, of 

 M. E. A. L6veill6, formerly president of the French 

 Entomological Society. 



The president of the Bureau des longitudes in Paris for 

 the present year is M. G. Bigourdan. M. B. Baillaud is 

 the vice-president, and M. H. Andoyer the secretary. 



O.N Wednesday next, February 8, a portrait of Prof. 

 W. Boyd Dawkins, F.R.S., will be publicly presented to 

 the University of Manchester by the subscribers. The 

 presentation will take place in the Whitworth Hall of the 

 University at 4 p.m. 



At a meeting of the research department of the Royal 

 Geographical Society on Thursday, February 16, Prof. 

 Edgeworth David, C.M.G., F.R.S., who was geologist on 

 Sir Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic expedition, will submit 



NO. 2153, VOL. 85] 



his views on certain important Antarctic problems, namely, 

 climate, physical structure, tectonic relations with th<' 

 Andes, &c. 



Four lectures on plague will be delivered on February 

 14, 15, 16, and 17 by Dr. F. M. Sandwith, Gr^sham pro- 

 fessor of physic, at the City of London School, Victoria 

 Embankment, E.C. The lectures are free to the public, 

 and will begin each evening at six o'clock. 



At a recent general meeting of the Liverpool Astro- 

 nomical Society it was resolved to raise a special fund for 

 the purpose of a memorial to the late Mr. R. C. Johnson, 

 whose long connection with the society, in which he filled 

 the positions of secretary and president, and his servicc^ 

 in the interests of astronomical science, suggest that somt- 

 permanent recognition of his work should be made. 



A MEMORIAL in marble to the late Sir John Evans, 

 K.C.B., has been placed by his friends in the parish 

 church of Abbot's Langley, Herts — a parish in which Sir 

 John resided for sixty years of his life. The inscription 

 on the tablet records not only the eminence of Sir John 

 Evans in science, but likewise the high administrative and 

 judicial positions he held in the county. 



During the last fifty years Profs. Luiji Palmieri, 

 M. S. di Rossi and others, have, with tromometers, micro- 

 phones, and various other contrivances, endeavoured to 

 record the internal murmurings and thunderings of 

 Vesuvius, Etna, and other volcanoes. One of the last 

 professors of vulcanology at the Royal University of 

 Naples was H. J. Johnston-Lavis, whose work has been 

 chiefly directed to the mineralogy and petrology of 

 volcanoes. Now it is rumoured that Italy is to have a 

 Vulcanological Institute, for the establishment of which 

 the chief governments will be invited to contribute 60,000/. 

 Mr. Immanuel Friedlaender, who resides in Naples and 

 has recently published a work on the volcanoes of Japan, 

 has promised, it is said, 4000Z. towards this fund.. 



The centenary of the foundation of the publishing firm 

 of B. G. Teubner, of Leipzig, will be commemorated on 

 Friday, March 3. A large number of representatives of 

 science and education have been invited to take part, and 

 hotel accommodation is being arranged on behalf of those 

 who have accepted the invitations. 



An oversea flight of about a hundred miles was made 

 by Mr. McCurdy on January 30 with an aeroplane of the 

 Curtis type, weighing 750 lb. and possessing a 6o-horse- 

 power motor. Mr. McCurdy attempted to fly from Key 

 West, Florida, to Havana, a distance of about no miles 

 across the Florida Straits. When about ten miles from 

 his destination he had to descend on account of the lubri- 

 cating oil having been exhausted.- The aeroplane was 

 equipped with pontoons, which enabled the descent upon 

 the sea to be made without injury to it or the airman. 



The British South Africa Company, Reuter's Agency 

 states, has decided upon the despatch of a special com- 

 mission to investigate sleeping sickness in Rhodesia. The 

 commission will consist of Dr. .Aylmer May, principal 

 medical oflicer of northern Rhodesia ; Dr. A. Kinghorn, 

 of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine ; Dr. Leach, 

 of the Northern Rhodesian Medical Service ; Mr. O. 

 Silverlock, entomologist ; and Mr. Jollyman, bacteriologist. 

 As explained in Nature of December i (p. 147), it i> 

 believed that in north-eastern Rhodesia and Nyasaland 

 sleeping sickness is not transmitted by Glossina palpalis, 

 but is probably carried by G. morsitans, a species which, 

 unlike G. palpalis, is not confined to well-defined and 



