448 



NATURE 



{March 13, 1890 



Dynasty tombs at the same place, the mutilations of tombs at 

 Beni Hassan, the malicious removal of curious bas-reliefs at Tel- 

 el-Armana, and other recent acts of vandalism. Such outrages 

 as these ought surely to be made practically impossible. All 

 that is needed is that the matter shall be seriously taken in hand 

 by the Foreign Office. 



An attempt is being made by the Society of Antiquaries of 

 London to raise a fund, the interest of which shall be used from 

 time to time to defray the expense of excavations, or to advance 

 archaeological knowledge in such other ways as may seem suitable 

 to the President and Council of the Society. The object is one 

 which ought to commend itself to all who interest themselves in 

 archaeology. The Society wants a capital sum of only £'yyoo. 

 Subscriptions should be sent to the treasurer, Dr. E. Freshfield, 

 5 Bank Buildings, E.G. 



Mr. Gladstone has consented to open the new Residential 

 Medical College at Guy's Hospital on Wednesday, March 26, 

 at 2 p.m. 



The treasures of the Ruskin Museum at Sheffield are being 

 transferred from the small building at Walkley, in which they 

 have hitherto been kept, to more convenient premises. The 

 Museum will be reopened by Lord Carlisle on July 15. 



The March number of the Kew Bulletin opens with an account 

 of Indian Yellow, or Purree, about the origin of which there used 

 to be much uncertainty. Some time ago, in consequence of 

 inquiries made in India at the request of the authorities at Kew, 

 the mystery was cleared up ; and full information on the subject 

 will be found in the present paper. Another paper deals with 

 Bombay aloe fibre, and there are sections on the commercial 

 value of loxa bark, and on barilla. 



An industrial and artistic Exhibition will shortly be opened 

 in Oueno, the most beautiful park in Tokio. M. de Lezey, 

 writing to La Nature on the subject from Tokio, says that the 

 Exhibition will be particularly rich in collections of Japanese 

 antiquities. 



On February 22 the Johns Hopkins University celebrated the 

 twelfth anniversary of its opening. It was announced that, of 

 the various pressing needs of the University for expansion, that 

 of the chemical laboratory was to be met by turning over to it 

 for reconstruction the ill-ventilated Hopkins Hall, 



The collections belonging to the Academy of Natural Sciences 

 of Philadelphia grow so rapidly that the accommodation provided 

 for them is wholly inadequate. A new building is to be erected, 

 and the State Legislature has voted $50,000 as a contribution 

 towards the expenditure. It is hoped that another "appropria- 

 tion " of the same amount will be made, and that the rest of the 

 money required will be privately subscribed. 



German papers announce the death of Dr. Karl Emil von 

 Schafhautl, Professor of Geology, Mining, and Metallurgy at 

 Munich University, keeper of the geognostic collection of the 

 Bavarian State, and member of the Academy of Sciences. He was 

 not only an eminent physicist and geologist, but also a theoretical 

 musician of some note. He was born at Ingolstadt on February 

 26, 1803, and died at Munich on February 25 last. 



The death of Victor, Ritter von Zepharovich, is also announced. 

 He was Professor of Mineralogy at the German University of 

 Prague, a member of the Academy of Sciences at Vienna, and 

 author of the " Mineralogical Dictionary of the Austrian 

 Empire," and many valuable mineralogical and crystallo- 

 graphical works. He was born at Vienna on April 13, 1830, 

 and died at Prague on February 24 last. 



On Tuesday evening, Dr. Dallinger delivered an interest- 

 ing lecture at the Royal Victoria Hall, on " The Infinitely Great 



and the Infinitely Small," to an audience numbering about 400, 

 composed principally of working men. The lecture was illus- 

 trated by numerous lantern-views, and was evidently much 

 appreciated. 



In the Engineer oi the 7th inst., there is an excellent article 

 on the latest express compound locomotive on the North-Eastern 

 Railway. This engine is for the east coast Scotch traffic on the 

 section between Newcastle and Edinburgh — about 125 miles. 

 A trial was made with a train of thirty-two coaches (total 

 weight of train 270 tons) between Newcastle and Berwick, a 

 distance of sixty-seven miles ; and the time was seventy-eight 

 minutes, or three minutes less than the Scotch express. With 

 the heaviest loads an assistant engine will not be necessary. In 

 another trial with a special train of eighteen six-wheeled coaches, 

 a speed of about ninety miles per hour was obtained. This is the 

 highest recorded speed by several miles. Diagrams were taken 

 at various speeds, one set at a speed of eighty-six miles per hour 

 on the level. This speed was carefully measured by stop-watch 

 and mile-posts ; the highest speed observed was just over ten 

 seconds per quarter mile run. It is evident from these facts that 

 passengers to the north will not waste much time on the journey 

 when the summer traffic begins on the east coast route. 



Some time ago we referred to a paper in which Dr. Daniel G. 

 Brinton developed the theory that the ancient Etruscans were 

 an offshoot or colony of the Libyans or Numidians of Northern 

 Africa — the stock now represented by the Kabyles of Algeria^ 

 the Rifians of Morocco, the Touaregs of the Great Desert, and 

 the other so-called Berber tribes. This paper Dr. Brinton has 

 followed up by another, in which he compares the proper names 

 preserved in the oldest Libyan monuments with a series of 

 similar names believed to be genuine Etruscan. The resem- 

 blances in many cases are certainly striking, and Dr. Brinton's 

 ideas on the subject deserve to attract the attention of scholars. 



At a meeting of the Royal Botanic Society on Saturday, 

 reference was made to a very interesting collection of seeds of 

 economic and food plants, timber trees, &c., of Uruguay, pre- 

 sented by Consul Alex. K. Mackinnon. On the table were 

 plants in flower of Narcissus poeticus, lately received from Qhina, 

 and several varieties of the same flower from the Scilly Isles, 

 illustrating the cosmopolitan nature of this family of plants. In 

 the Scilly Isles narcissi are grown by the acre, and over ten tons 

 of the flowers are sent off weekly to market. 



In the current number of the Revue des Sciences natu7-elles 

 appliquees, M. Megnin has a valuable paper on the existence of 

 tuberculosis in hares. About two years ago he described a 

 peculiar disease brought on by the presence of some species of 

 Strongylus in the lungs of hares. The disease dealt with in the 

 present paper is wholly different. 



M. H. Beauregard, aide-naturaliste in the Paris Museum of 

 Natural History, has published an elaborate monograph on the 

 Vesicant tribe of insects. It is illustrated by many fine plates. 



The skeleton of a mammoth has been discovered in the 

 Russian province of Tula, and the Moscow Society of 

 Naturalists have sent a commission to excavate it. 



Messrs. Macmillan and Co. are issuing a thoroughly 

 revised edition of "A Treatise on Chemistry," by Sir H. E. 

 Roscoe, F.R.S., and C. Schorlemmer, F.R.S., and have just 

 published Part II. of Vol. III., dealing with the chemistry of the 

 hydrocarbons and their derivatives. Since this part of the work 

 was published in 1884, many additions have been made to our 

 knowledge of this department of organic chemistry ; and the 

 authors, as they themselves explain, have sought to represent 

 the present position of the science by introducing the results of 

 the latest and more important researches, with the effect that 

 the greater part of the volume has been re-written. 



