Nov. 7, 1889] 



NATURE 



17 



when light is transmitted, and in greatest quantity in the 

 brightest areas. Thus a positive in starch is produced 

 which can be developed by suitable treatment with 

 iodine. [A leaf was then developed, and handed round 

 to the audience for inspection.] The author showed that 

 it might be possible to obtain a permanent print by suit- 

 able washing and treatment with a soluble silver salt, 

 silver iodide being formed. The author regards this dis- 

 covery as a most striking illustration of the way in which 

 plants are working for themselves, and so for all living 

 things, and points out that the e.xtraordinary manner in 

 which the green parts of plants (so to speak) catch the 

 radiant energy of the sun, and employ it for analytical 

 and synthetical chemical processes, may be easily and 

 clearly demonstrated. 



NOTES. 



We understand that the late Mr. John Ball, F.R. S., has 

 bequeathed his botanical library and herbarium to Sir Joseph 

 Hooker, to the Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew for 

 the time being, and to the President of the Royal Society for the 

 time being, requesting them to give the same to such person or 

 persons or public institution in this country, the British colonies, 

 or elsewhere in the world, as they or any two of them may 

 select, with the sole object of promoting the knowledge of 

 natural science. Right is, however, reserved for Kew to select 

 previously such specimens or books as it may want. 



The following is the list of names recommended by the Pre- 

 sident and Council of the Royal Society for election into the 

 Council for the year 1890, at the forthcoming anniversary meet, 

 ing on the 30th inst. : — President : Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 

 I5art. Treasurer : Dr. John Evans. Secretaries : Prof. Michael 

 Foster, the Lord Rayleigh. Foreign Secretary : Dr. Archibald 

 Geikie. Other Members of the Council : Prof. Henry Edward 

 Armstrong, Prof. William Edward Ayrton, Charles Baron 

 Clarke, Prof W. Boyd Dawkins, Dr. Edward Emanuel Klein, 

 Prof E. Ray Lankester, Dr. Hugo Miiller, Prof Alfred 

 Newton, Captain Andrew Noble, C.B., Rev. Stephen Joseph 

 Perry, Sir Henry E. Roscoe, Dr. Edward John Routh, William 

 Scovell Savory, Prof Joseph John Thomson, Prof Alexander 

 William Williamson, Colonel Sir Charles William Wilson, 

 R.E. 



In the list of Englishmen decorated in connection with the 

 British Section of the Paris Exhibition, the names of the follow- 

 ing men of science are included : — Grand Officer of the Legion 

 of Honour: Sir Wdliam Thomson, F. R.S. Officeis of the 

 Legion of Honour: Sir Douglas Galton, K.C.B., Sir Henry 

 Roscoe, M.P., F.R.S., Mr. W. H. Preece, F.R.S. Cbevalieis 

 of the Legion of Honour : Prof Francis Elgar, Prof W. Roberts- 

 Austen, F R.S., Dr. C. Le Neve Foster. Officer of Public In- 

 struction : Mr. C. V. Boys, F.R.S. 



The Naturforschende Gesellschafc at Emden is to celebrate its 

 seventy-fifth anniversary on December 29 next. The Society was 

 founded in 1814 by twenty-four burgesses of Emden. The 

 festivities in December will consist of a general meeting of the 

 Society and the Society's correspondents at noon in the Museum, 

 and a Festessen at four o'clock. 



A REPORT of the proceedings of the International Zoological 

 Congress, held in Paris two months ago, will be published 

 shortly. 



A French translation of Dr. Wallace's "Darwini^m" will 

 be published next year. 



The greater part of the ethnographical collection sent to 

 the Paris Exhibition is to remain iu Paiis, in the Colonial 

 Museum, 



The following botanical appointments are announced: — The- 

 Directorship of the Botanic Garden at Berlin, vacant by the 

 death of Dr. Eichler, having been conferred on Prof. Engler, of 

 Breslau, Prof Urban becomes Second Director of the Berlin. 

 Botanic Garden ; and Prof PrantI, of Aschaffenburg, succeeds- 

 Prof Engler as Director of the Botanic Garden at Breslau. 

 Prof Sadebeck, of Hamburg, is appointed Director of the 

 Botanic Garden in that town, in the place of the late Dr. 

 Reichenbach. Dr. G. von Lagerheim vacates the Professor- 

 ship at Lisbon, to which he was lately appointed, and goes ta 

 Ecuador as Professor of Botany and Director of the Botanic 

 Garden at Quito. Dr. H. Molisch, of Vienna, takes the Chair 

 of the late Dr. Leitgeb in the Polytechnic at Gratz. Dr. F. 

 Hueppe is appointed Professor of Bacteriology at the University 

 of Prague, and is succeeded in the same Chair at Wiesbaden by 

 Dr. G. P'rank, of Berlin. The venerable Professor von Naegeli 

 retires from the Directorship of the Botanic Garden at Munich. 

 Mr. F. S. Earle, Prof. E. S. Goff, and Prof. L. R. Taft have 

 been appointed special agents in the Section of Vegetable 

 Pathology of the United States Department of Agriculture. 

 Mr. H. H. Rusby has been appointed Professor of Botany and 

 Materia Medica in the New York College of Pharmacy. 



The Economic Museum, Calcutta, has completed and de- 

 spatched the first instalment^of important Indian fibres required 

 by the India Office for presentation to the Museums of the 

 Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and Edinburgh, and to the 

 Chambers of Commerce at Dundee and Manchester. 



A I'RIZE of about £10 is offered by the Geographical Societies 

 of Dresden and Leipzig, for " a physicogeographical description 

 of the course of the Elbe between Bodenbach and its entrance 

 on the flat country, with special reference to depth, quantity of 

 water and its variations, ice, and changes in the form of the 

 banks." The date is the end of 1890. 



In his address at the opening of the winter session of the Uni- 

 versity of 'i'oronto. Sir Daniel Wilson, the President of the 

 University, referred to the recent Toronto meeting of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

 "Everything available for the special requirements of the 

 Association," he said, "was placed at the disposal of the Sec- 

 tions ; and we are gratified by the assurance that, at the close of 

 a highly successful meeting, our visitors carried away with them 

 pleasant memories of their reception here. " The meeting of the 

 representatives of science in the buildings of the Toronto Uni- 

 versity was in some respects, as the President pointed out^ 

 peculiarly opportune. "The long-felt need of adequately 

 furnished and equipped laboratories and lecture-rooms for our 

 scientific staff was anew brought into prominence by the restora- 

 tion to the University of its Medical Faculty ; and we now enter 

 on the work of another year provided with buildings admirably 

 adapted for biological and physiological study and research. 

 Plans, moreover, have been approved of, which, when carried 

 out to their full extent, will furnish equally satisfactory accom* 

 modation for the departments of botany, chemistry, geology^ 

 and palaontology, along with laboratories, work-rooms, museum, 

 and other requisites for efficient instruction in the various 

 branches of science." 



The thirty-fourth general meeting of the Society for Psychical 

 Research was held on Friday afternoon, October 25, at the 

 Westminster Town Hall. The President (Prof. Sidgwick) gave 

 an account of the International Congress of Experimental 

 Psychology held in Paris last August. The Congress had 

 adopted the scheme of a census of hallucinations, already set 

 on foot by the Society for Psychical Research in England, 

 France, and the United States, and it was hoped that the col- 

 lection of statistics might gradually be extended to other Euro- 

 pean countries. Much matter valuable to psychologists was- 



