132 



NATURE 



[May 30, 1878 



NOTES 

 The Haarlem Society of Sciences resolved, some years ago, 

 to award, biennially, a medal to the individual who, by his 

 researches, discoveries, or inventions, during the previous 

 twenty years, had, in the judgment of the society, distinguished 

 himself in an exceptional manner in a particular branch of 

 science. This year the medal was to be devoted to astronomy, 

 and on the i8th inst. was awarded to Prof. Simon Newcomb, 

 We believe the medal would have been awarded to Sir George 

 Airy if the committee had felt themselves at liberty to embrace 

 a period greater than twenty years past ; but, according to the 

 rules regulating the award, they are rigidly confined to the 

 period stated, 



Mr. Carl Bock, F.G.S., who has had considerable experi- 

 ence in the collection of shells and other specimens of natural 

 history, is leaving England at the end of this week for Padang, 

 in Sumatra, in order to explore and collect in the highlands of 

 the interior of the island. 



Recent advices from Auckland state that Signor Beccari and 

 Capt. D'Albertis, a nephew of the New Guinea explorer, were 

 visiting the colony on their way to Europe, and that Signor 

 Beccari had with him some 12,000 specimens of the flora and 

 fauna of New Guinea. 



If Mr. Herbert Spencer remembers his Bible, an oft-quoted 

 passage must have occurred tcf him on Sunday (appropriately) — 

 " A prophet is not without honour save in his own country and 

 among his o^vn people." On that day, in Paris, where he has 

 been spending a few days, a semi-public dinner was given to the 

 English philosopher by a number of his admirers, headed by 

 the well-known publisher M. Germer-Bailliere. Mr. Spencer, 

 in replying to the toast of his health — and he actually 

 replied to a toast, and that too in a style not much out of the 

 common — ^hinted that he was better known and better appre- 

 ciated in France than in England, where, so far as we know, he 

 never appeared either on a public or semi -public occasion. A 

 decidedly social evening seems to have been passed by the 

 assembled savants, Mr. Spencer concluding his genial and com- 

 plimentary reply by drinking to the peculiarly French senti- 

 timent — Brotherhood [h la fraternity). 



M. Bardoux has written to the Meteorological Society 

 of France asking them to organise the congress of meteo- 

 rology. The committee of this ^association have written to 

 the Association Scientifique of France, and other societies, 

 requesting them to appoint a number of their members to serve 

 on the committee of organisation. The aeronauts are not pleased 

 because no invitation has been directed to any of the aeronautical 

 societies of Paris. 



Notwithstanding that M. Bardoux has published his 

 decree on the meteorological organisation of France the great 

 commission has held no sitting, and the list of presentations for 

 the successor to M. Leverrier has not yet been deliberated upon. 

 This singular delay is preventing the government from taking 

 any step towards the realisation of the newly-established 

 meteorological institution. 



The "Associations" are waking up once more and beginning to 

 warn all whom it may concern to be ready for the great annual 

 autumnal talk. So far as the British Association ;^is concerned 

 it has confined itself as yet to the usual preliminary advertise- 

 ment and the private invitation circular intimating that this will 

 be an Irish year — and no doubt Dublin will give a thoroughly 

 Irish welcome — that the opening day is August 14, and that 

 Dr. W. Spottiswoode is the President-Elect. Our Ameri. 

 can friends in this, as in some other things, are ahead of 

 us, for already we have received the printed circular of arrange- 

 tnents for the twenty-seventh meeting of their Association, 



which is to be opened at St. Louis a week after our own, on 

 August 21, with Prof. O. C. Marsh as President. Any English 

 men of science who are likely to be in the States aboiit the time 

 of the meeting and who would like to be present, should write 

 to Prof. F. W. Putnam, Salem, Mass,, the Permanent Secretary, 

 who, we are sure, will gladly give all necessary information. 



It is stated on good authority that the Water and Woods 

 Department of the French Exhibition will be preserved as a 

 permanent museum, and re-erected in the Bois de Boulogne after 

 the close of the Exhibition, All the specimens of woods exhibited 

 by foreign nations will be purchased if not presented by their 

 respective departments, and added to the intended museum. All 

 the parts of the central building have been constructed so that 

 they can be utilised for railway stations, large markets, &c., and 

 will be sold accordingly. It is stated that the greater part has been 

 already disposed of. We see that parliament has also authorised 

 the purchase of suitable apparatus for the Conservatoire des 

 Arts et Metiers. Although intended originally only to last up 

 to October it is pretty certain the Exhibition will not close 

 before November, according to the universal wish expressed 

 by exhibitors and public. 



With the month of June will be commenced the visits to 

 the Exhibition of the pupils of the several municipal schools of 

 Paris, under the guidance of their teachers, with free tickets 

 given by the Government in accordance with the votes of the 

 Chamber of Deputies. 



A SINGULAR blunder for a city that has established an official 

 committee on lightning conductors has been committed by the 

 architect of the Paris Exhibition ; iron conductors have been 

 placed on the central building which is in solid iron. This 

 extraordinary error was also committed in 1867, It shows how 

 little the principles enunciated by Franklin are understood even 

 by scientific people. 



Giffard's captive balloon is almost ready ; the two steam- 

 engines, 150 horse-power each, for working the monster 

 cylinder, will be tried next week. The cylinder, which weighs 

 49,000 kilograms, has a length of 12 m. and a diameter of 175 

 ctm. ; it will revolve with a velocity of 30 turns per minute. The 

 exact weight of the rope is 1,950 kilos, for a length of 600 m. 

 It has been made at Angers in less than a week, and will be 

 tried within a few days. Next week the apparatus for manu- 

 facturing hydrogen gas at a rate of 1,000 cubic m. per hour 

 will be completed. The varnishing of the monster balloon 

 began on Monday ; the preliminary ascents and police inspec- 

 tion will take place from June 10 to 20, and the balloon is 

 expected to be opened on the 22nd. The expense will probably 

 exceed ;^20,ooo. 



The portrait of Harvey, which we give this week, properly 

 belongs to the previous volume, and ought to be bound along 

 with it. Prof. Huxley's notice of Harvey will be found at 

 p. 417 of that volume. 



The Sydney Mail of March 30, we learn from T/ie Colonies, con- 

 tains a letter from a Mr. Severn, dated Newcastle (New South 

 Wales), March 24, in which he gives details of a singular discovery 

 he has made, whereby deaf people can be made to hear by means 

 of the telephone. After describing a very simple telephone 

 which he constructed out of a tin pot, the closed end of which 

 he opened and tied over it a piece of parchment, passing a fine 

 string through the centre and making a knot inside, he says : — 

 "Make a loop in the string some three feet long, put this loop 

 over the forehead of the listener (the deaf man), cause him to 

 place the palms of his hands flat and hard against the ears, let 

 the loop pass over the hands, and now this listener will hear the 

 smallest whisper, let him be deaf or not. This fact may appear 

 extraordinary ; it is, nevertheless, true that a deaf man may 



