Dec. 5, 1889] 



NATURE 



113 



not been unduly disturbed. Last year, at the request of the 

 authorities, he allowed some young birds to be taken from the 

 islands for the purpose of being placed on the lake at St. James's 

 Park, London. The following is an extract from a letter he 

 lately received from Mr. Killy, the bird-keeper there: — "The 

 only birds alive now of those brought from the Fame Islands are 

 the cormorants, which are thriving. The puffins all died during 

 the first three months. The guillemots lived somewhat longer, 

 the death of the last one being the result of an accident. The 

 one kittiwake also died by an accident. The terns died during 

 the severe frost, being apparently unable to get about on the ice, 

 their tail and wings collected the ice ; I suppose on account of 

 their being pinioned and not being able to use their wings freely." 



The Council of the Dundee and District Association for the 

 Promotion of Technical and Commercial Education has issued 

 its first Annual Report, and is able to give a very good account of 

 the results it has achieved. With regard to the future work of 

 the Association, the Council suggests that workshop instruction 

 for lads engaged at unskilled work ia factories and during the 

 day should be established in connection with the evening classes 

 of the School Board. It also proposes the drafting of additional 

 courses of instruction, especially in painting, decoration, and 

 pattern designing, and the encouraging of higher classes in these 

 subjects. In this connection the Council appropriately refers to 

 the fact that in 1884 the Technical Instruction Commissioners 

 reported that "the crowded schools of drawing, modelling, 

 carving, and painting, maintained at the expense of the muni- 

 cipalities of Paris, Lyons, Brussels, and other cities — absolutely 

 gratuitous and open to all comers, well lighted, furnished with 

 the best models, and under the care of teachers full of enthu- 

 siasm — stimulate those manufactures and crafts in which the fine 

 arts play an important part to a degree which is without parallel 

 in this cojn'.ry." 



A SERIES of questions on the effects of London fogs on cul 

 tivated plants has been issued by the scientific committee of the 

 Royal Horticultural Society. The experience of the current 

 season only is to be utilized. 



A SPECIMEN of the Rorqual inns :ulush2L% just come ashore on 

 the coast of the Medoc district. Dr. Beauregard, aide nahiraliste 

 at the Paris Museum, went to the spot to examine this interesting 

 cetacean. Unfortunately, the brain was already in a state of 

 decomposition, but the breasts and ears were dissected off for 

 complete examination. The animal was 14 metres long, and 6 

 metres in circumference at the thickest part of the body. 



Prof. Chauveau has lately published in Va^ Archives de 

 Pathologie Expe'rimenta/e a contribution to the study of " trans- 

 formism " in microbiology. His researches relate to Bacilhis an- j 

 thracis, and show that by experimental means various important j 

 biological alterations may be obtained. 1 



Prof. Marshall Ward is about to deliver, at th eCity and I 

 Guilds of London Institute, a course of six lectures on timber, 

 its nature, varieties, uses, and diseases. The lectures will be 

 given on Monday and Thursday evenings, at 7.30 (December 12, 

 16, and 19, and January 23, 27, and 30). The object of the 

 course is to explain as simply and cleady as possible, with the 

 aid of numerous lantern illustrations, the nature, properties, 

 varieties, and uses of the ordinary timbers used in construction, 

 and to give an intelligible account of dry-rot, and allied diseases 

 of timber. 



The second series of lectures given by the Sunday Lecture 

 Society will begin on Sunday afternoon, December 8, in St. 

 George's Hall, Langham Place, at 4 p.m., when Mr. W. Lant 

 Carpenter, B.Sc, will lecture on "The Wonders of the Yellow- 

 stone Park — a Personal Narrative," with oxy-hydrogen lantern 

 illustrations from the lecturer's own camera. Lectures will also 



be given by Commander V. L. Cameron, R.N., Mr. J. F, 

 Blake, Mr. Henry Blackburn, Mr, Wilmott Dixon, Mr. Stantoa 

 Coit, and Mr, Eric S. Bruce. 



The annual general meeting of the Institution of Electrical 

 Engineers will be held at the Institution of Civil Engineers, 25 

 Great George Street, Westminster, on Thursday, December 12, 

 at 8 o'clock in the evening, for the reception of the annual 

 report of the Council, and for the election of Council and 

 Officers for the year 1890. The following paper will be further 

 discussed : " Electric Engineering in America," by Mr, G. L. 

 Addenbrooke. 



It is stated that a scheme is on foot for establishing a Natural 

 History Society in the Punjaub. It is to be hoped that it will 

 be successful, and that the Society will flourish as other Indian 

 scientific societies are doing. 



In the introductory lecture to the agricultural class at the 

 University of Edinburgh, delivered at the opening of the present 

 session. Prof. Wallace chose as his subject some aspects of 

 Australasian agriculture. In this lecture, which has now beea 

 printed. Prof. Wallace urges that sheep farmers in this country 

 will shortly feel the effects of rivalry with the flock masters of 

 Australia. There are 100,000,000 sheep in Australia, mostly 

 merinos, which are not, by the way, a flesh-yielding but a wool- 

 giving race. Prof. Wallace hazards the opinion, by a very easy 

 process of arithmetic, that, before many years have passed, 

 Australia will be possessed of over 200,oco,ooo. He makes, also, 

 the astonishing statement that merino mutton is equal in flavour 

 and texture to our best Highland, Welsh, or South Down 

 mutton. Upon these two assumptions, for they are nothing 

 more, he foretells calamities to the meat producers of this country,, 

 which he, it is to be hoped, will not live to see. 



A stalactite cave has been discovered in Ascheloh, near 

 Halle, in Westphalia ; it is reported to be more than 100 metres 

 long. 



A SHARP shock of earthquake was felt at Oran, Algeria, on 

 November 27, at 3 p.m. It lasted ten seconds, the oscillations 

 being from east to west. 



According to a telegram sent through Reuter's agency from. 

 Belgrade on December 2, violent shocks of earthquake, accom- 

 panied by loud subterranean rumblings, were felt on Sunday 

 afternoon at Kregugewatz, Jagodina, and Kupsia. The disturb- 

 ance generally travelled from east to west, but some of the shocks 

 moved from north to south. 



Mr, H, C. Russell, Government Astronomer of New South. 

 Wales, has published the results of meteorological observa- 

 tions made in that cjlony during 1887. The number of report- 

 ing stations is now 862, being 94 more than in 1886, the 

 increase being almost wholly in rain stations. The arrangement 

 of the tables, which give the most important data for each 

 station separately, is the same as in previ )us years ; but there 

 are also two new tables giving the mean maximum and minimum, 

 temperature at Sydney for each month from 1856 to 1887. The 

 mean temperature of the whole colony for the last seventeen 

 years is 61° 2. At Sydney the mean for thirty years is 62°7.. 

 The diagrams appended to the volume give a good idea of the 

 weather conditions at Sydney, and clearly exhibit the peculiari- 

 ties of certain periods, such as the very short winter of 1873,. 

 and the long one of 1874, also the long summer of 1877-78, 

 with four months of hot weather, and the short summer of 

 1886-87, when there was only one month of hot weather. In 

 1878 the lowest winter temperature occurred in June, and in 

 1872 in August. A comparison is made of the rainfall at the 

 principal places in the various colonies. The contrast between 

 the amount at Brisbane and Sydney an i that at Melbourne is 

 very striking. At the former places as much rain sometimes. 



