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NATURE 



[Feb. 27, 1890 



the value of the land upon the value of the surrounding 

 property. The Commissioners had been pressed year after year 

 to apply their surplus revenues to educational purposes. They had 

 pressed the Government to come to some conclusion on the sub- 

 ject, as it had been going on for from three to ten years. They 

 could rot go on waiting continually, and the Government at last 

 came to the conclusion — and, he thought, came to a wise con- 

 clusion — to accept the offer. He thought the Committee would 

 see that they had been very patient. Mr. W. H. Smith, reply- 

 ing to the objection that the vote ought to have been included 

 in the ordinary estimates, pointed out that if the vote were not 

 taken at once, probably it could not be reached before June or 

 July, or even August. It was unreasonable to ask the Commis- 

 sioners to wait until that time. He had resisted the expenditure 

 at South Kensington as long as he could, and until he was satis- 

 fied that in the interests of the country it was necessary. He 

 strongly resisted the expenditure before, but when the Commit- 

 tee they had appointed reported that further accommodation was 

 required, they had no alternative but to carry out their recom- 

 mendations. The proposal of the Government was accepted 

 by a majority of 77 — the number of those in favour of the re- 

 duction of the vote being 67, while 144 voted on the other side. 



We regret to notice the death, on February 2, of M. Ch. 

 Fievez, the assistant in charge of the spectroscopic department 

 of the Royal Observatory of Brussels, at the comparatively early 

 age of 45. M, Fievez did not enter the Observatory until 1877, 

 having been originally intended for the military profession. M. 

 Houzeau, then the Director of the Observatory, being desirous 

 of creating a spectroscopic department, sent Fievez, to whom 

 he proposed to commit its management, to study under Janssen 

 at Meudon, with whom he remained six months. Fievez's most 

 important work was the construction of a chart of the solar 

 spectrum on a scale considerably greater than that of Angstrom ; 

 but besides this he was not able to effect much in astronomical 

 spectroscopy, owing to the unfavourable position of the Obser- 

 vatory for such observations. He therefore turned his attention 

 principally to laboratory work, and in this department made a 

 detailed study of the spectrum of carbon, besides numerous ex- 

 periments on the behaviour of spectral lines under the influences 

 of magnetism and of changes of temperature. M. Fievez was 

 Correspondant of the Royal Academy of Belgium, and Foreign 

 Member of the Society of Italian Spectroscopists. 



Students of palaeontology heard with much regret of the 

 recent death of Prof, von Quenstedt, of Tubingen. He was the 

 most famous of German palaeontologists, and did much im- 

 portant work in mineralogy also. He had an especially profound 

 knowledge of the Lias of Wiirtemberg and its fossils. His work 

 on "Der Jura" is well known, and so recently as 1885 a new 

 edition, greatly modified, of his " Handbuch der Petrefacten- 

 kunde " was issued. Dr. von Quenstedt died at an advanced 

 age on December 21, 1889. 



A WRITER who is contributing to Industries a series of 

 articles on the "Recent Growth of Technical Societies," infers, 

 from a comparison of the balance-sheet for 1878 with that for 

 1888, that the Proceedings of the Royal Society are "evidently 

 less sought after than they were." An average of four years 

 would have pointed to an opposite conclusion. For the years 

 1876-79 the average sale was ;i^743 ic Td , while that of 1886-89 

 was ;^8lo 3^'. 3^/. The writer leaves out of account, moreover, 

 that in 1878 the Royal Society, according to their published list, 

 presented their Transactions and Proceedings to 276 institutions, 

 while at present they give them to no fewer than 363 insti- 

 tutions. 



Much interest has been excited by the announcement of the 

 discovery of coal in Kent. The search for coal at a point near the 

 South-Eastern Railway, adjoining the experimental heading for 



the Channel Tunnel, has been carried on for several years. The 

 following report, by Mr. Francis Brady, C.E., the engineer-in- 

 chief of the South-Eastern and Channel Tunnel Companies, was 

 published in the daily papers on February 20 : — " Coal was 

 reached on Saturday last, the 15th inst., at 1 180 feet below the 

 surface. It came up mixed with clay, and reduced almost to 

 powder by the boring tools. A small quantity of clean bright 

 coal found in the clay was tested by burning, and proved to be 

 of good bituminous character. The seam was struck after pass- 

 ing through 20 feet of clays, grits, and blackish shales belonging 

 to the coal-measures, which at this point lie close under the 

 Lias, there being only a few intervening beds of sand, limestone, 

 and black clay separating them. The correspondence of the 

 deposits with those found in the Somersetshire coal-field is thus 

 pretty close, the difference consisting in the absence of the red 

 marl at the Shakespeare boring. The lines of bedding in the 

 shale are distinctly horizontal. This is an indication that the 

 coal-measures will probably be found at a reasonable depth 

 along the South-Eastern Railway to the westward. I beg to 

 hand you herewith two specimens of the clay containing coal, 

 one taken at 1180 feet, and the other at 11 82 feel. I also in- 

 close a specimen of clean coal taken to-day at 1183 feet 6 inches 

 from the surface." With regard to this report. Prof. Boyd 

 Dawkins writes to us : — " As the enterprise resulting in the 

 discovery of coal near Dover was begun in 1886, and is now 

 being carried on under my advice, I write, after an examination 

 of the specimens from the boring, to confirm the published 

 report of Mr. Brady, so far as relates to the coal. The coal- 

 measures with good blazing coal have been struck at a depth of 

 1 160 feet, well within the practical mining limit, and the ques- 

 tion is definitely answered which has vexed geologists for more 

 than thirty years. Further explorations, however, now under 

 consideration, will be necessary before the thickness of the 

 coal and the number of the seams can be ascertained. This 

 discovery, I may add, with all the important consequences 

 which it may involve, is mainly due to the indomitable energy 

 of Sir Edward W. Watkin." 



The second meeting of the Australasian Association for the 

 Advancement of Science seems to have been in every way most 

 successful. It was held at Melbourne, and began on January 7. 

 At the Sydney meeting last year there were 850 members. This 

 year the number rose to 1060. Baron von Midler, F. R.S., was 

 the President. Great efforts were made to secure that members 

 from a distance should enjoy their visit to Melbourne, and the 

 serious work of the various Sections was varied by pleasant ex- 

 cursions. An excellent " Hand-book of Melbourne," edited by 

 Prof. Baldwin Spencer, was issued. 



This year the University of Helsingfors will celebrate its 

 two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. It was founded at Abo, 

 but transferred to Helsingfors in 1820. 



At a recent meeting of the French Meteorological Society, M. 

 Wada, of the Tokio Observatory, gave a resume of the seismo- 

 logical observations made in Japan during 1887. The number 

 of earthquake shocks amounted during the year to 483. The 

 hourly and monthly distribution of the shocks at Tokio during 

 the last 12 years shows a slight excess in favour of the night- 

 time, above the day ; and also an excess in winter and spring, 

 over the other seasons. The area affected during the year 1887 

 represented five times the superficies of the empire. M. Wada 

 gave details of the shocks, their direction, intensity, and 

 distribution. 



Tidings of another great volcanic eruption have come from 

 Japan. Mount Zoo, near the town of Fukuvama, in the Bingo 

 district, began to rumble at 8 o'clock on the evening of Jauuary 

 16, and the top of the mountain is said to have been soon 

 "lifted off." There was a din like a dynamite explosion, and 



