March 13, 1879] 



NATURE 



445 



NOTES 



Fifty-three candidates for the Fellowship are "up" at the 

 Royal Society, 



The sum proposed in the Civil Service Estimates to be spent 

 on the main fabric of the new Natural History Museum at South 

 Kensington during the next financial year is 47,476/., being the 

 balance of a simi of 409,466/., the "revise estimate" of the 

 total cost of the erection of the building. It is also proposed to 

 spend 20,000/, on "internal fittings," From the reply lately 

 given in the House of Commons to Lord Arthur Russell, it 

 seems that the Botanical and Mineralogical Departments will 

 be transferred into the new buildinTf before the close of the year. 



At a meeting on March 7 at Cambridge of the general com- 

 mittee of the Darwin Memorial Fund, to decide whether the 

 memorial should assume the form of a bust or a picture, and to 

 select either the sculptor or painter willing to execute such 

 memorial, it was stated that the funds promised amounted to 

 over 400/., which sum would be sufficient to procure either a 

 bust or a picture. After some discussion it was resolved by a 

 large majority that the memorial should take the form of a 

 picture, and Mr. W. M, Richmond was selected as the artist to 

 execute the same. 



We are informed that the committee appointed to receive 

 subscriptions for presenting a bust of Mr, Wm. Spottis\voode, 

 P.R,S., to the Royal Institution, as a testimonial of his valuable 

 services as its treasurer and secretary successively, have engaged 

 Mr. Richard Belt as the sculptor. 



Since Parliament reassembled the finest example of practical 

 telegraphy that has probably ever been witnessed has been going 

 on between London and Ireland. Two news wires have been 

 worked siuiidtaneously and continuously between London, 

 Dublin, Cork, Belfast, and Londonderry at the unprecedented 

 speed of 130 words per minute. The Post Office authorities 

 have recently been making very great improvements in their fast 

 speed apparatus. The forthcoming International Conference 

 and the success of the American quadruplex system are probably 

 stirring them up to maintain their pre-eminence in this field, 

 England cannot run second to any nation in telegraphy. 



We are greatly disappointed and much surprised to learn that 

 the application of the Scottish Meteorological Society for assist- 

 ance to establish an observatory on Ben Nevis has been rejected 

 both by the Meteorological Council, with its yearly 15,000/., 

 and the Government Grant Committee, with its 5,000/. The 

 former had other matters to attend to, the latter handed the 

 application over to the Council of the Royal Society, labelled 

 "highly commendable." We have recently shown our readers 

 with what heartiness and cosmopolitanism such nationally bene- 

 ficial undertakings are managed in France ; yet in this disgrace- 

 fully wealthy countrj-, with 15,000/. a year expressly devoted to 

 meteorofogy, a plan of promoting meteorological research that 

 would lead to results of the highest consequence must collapse 

 for want of a paltry 500/. to start it. It would be a shame if so 

 really national an enterprise were to depend entirely on private 

 subscription. 



Mr. Moncure Conway proposes to hold a "Memorial 

 Service" on the late Prof. W. K. Clifford at South Place 

 Chapel, Finsbury, on Sunday morning next. After the service, 

 Mr. Conway will deliver a discourse, taking Prof, Clifford for 

 his subject. 



It is stated that the Botanical Exchange Club will have to be 

 dissolved after the next distribution, in consequence of the diffi- 

 culty of finding any one with the requisite critical knowledge of 

 British plants and the leisure to enable him to perform the duties 

 of curator. The club has been of great ser\'ice in furnishing a 



meditmi of intercommunication between British botanists ; and 

 the annual reports of the curator have frequently been essays of 

 considerable value. It is greatly to be lamented that one restilt 

 of the increasing attention paid by botanists to the physiological 

 side of the science should be the discontinuance of so useful an 

 institution. 



At the annual meeting of the' Geological Society, the 

 Wollaston gold medal was awarded to Prof. Bernard Studer, 

 "the father of Swiss geology ; " the Murchison medal to Prof 

 M'Coy, of Melbourne ; the Lyell medal to Prof. E. Hebert, of 

 Paris : the Bigsly medal to Prof. E. D. Cope, of Philadelphia.; 

 the balance of the Wollaston Donation Fund to Mr. Samuel 

 Allpart ; the proceeds of the Murchison Geological Fund to Mr. 

 J, W. Kirkby ; a moiety of the balance of the proceeds of the 

 Lyell Fund to Prof. AUeyne Nicholson, and the other moiety to 

 Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S. 



It is stated that Capt. Sir George Nares, K.C.B., has been 

 appointed to be the chief of the Harbotir and Marine Department 

 of the Board of Trade, in succession to Rear- Admiral Bedford. 

 Sir G. Nares is now in command of Her Majesty's ship Alert, 

 which is on a scientific cruise in the Straits of Magellan. Capt. 

 J. F. L. P. Maclear has been appointed to the Alert. 



A committee has been organised to obtain subscriptions for 

 erecting a statue to Nicephore Niepce, the inventor of photo- 

 graphy. A circular has been published and wUl be sent to all 

 scientific societies over the world. 



The movement for the propagation of electric lighting in Paris 

 has not abated. A new paper entitled La Lumih'e elect rique 

 will be started in a few days vmder the editorship of M. de Parville. 

 M. Regnier, the inventor of a lamp working by contact will begin 

 experiments at Breguet's workshop. M. Ducretet is busy w ith his 

 new lamp with a floating positive-carbon in mercury, and the Alli- 

 ance Company will try Werdermann's on a large scale. The gas 

 company and Jablochkoff are preparing to illuminate the spaces 

 which have been allotted to them. Although the scientific 

 question may be considered settled except under improved elec- 

 trical conditions the Paris electricians are sanguine that the final 

 verdict will not be given against the electric light. 



The experiments with the electric light recently made in the 

 reading-room of the British Museum have satisfied the trustees 

 of its applicability for the purposes of the room as far as the 

 amount and distribution of light are concerned, although the full 

 number of lamps was not employed. On three occasions the 

 hght was turned on at dusk, in order to enable readers to 

 continue their studies without interruption for another hour. As 

 far as could be ascertained they were enabled to work by it 

 without difficulty, even at the tables where the light was weakest 

 The experiments are discontinued for the present, but a further 

 trial of the light will probably be made some months hence, 

 with the view to utilise it on dark days, and for extending the 

 hours for using the reading-room in the winter. 



The Report by the Regius Keeper of the Edinburgh Botanic 

 Garden for 1878 complains of the want of accommodation in 

 various ways, and of the insufficiency of the present grant. 

 These complaints are not now made for the first time, and we 

 trust they will meet with speedy attention in the proper quarter. 



Recent explorations of the lake-dwellings of the Lake of 

 Geneva prove that they were destroyed by fire during a spring, 

 when the w^aters of the lake stood at the same level as now, A 

 layer of charcoal from the burnt dwellings is to be found along 

 the whole coast, beneath a layer of sand and gravel. 



Remains of lake dwellings of the highest scientific interest 

 have been discovered by members of the Donaueschingen His- 

 torical Society under the guidance of Dr. B. Spuren. The 



