i6 



NATURE 



[May 3, 1888 



NOTES. 



The Council of the British Association has nominated Prof. 

 Flower for the Presidency of the meeting to be held next year 

 at Newcastle. 



The annual conversazione of the Royal Society will be held 

 on Wednesday, May 9. 



The Council of the Marine Biological Association has 

 appointed Mr. Gilbert C. Bourne, M.A., F.L.S., Fellow of 

 New College, Oxford, to be Director and Secretary of the Ply- 

 mouth Laboratory. Mr. Bourne began the study of biology 

 under Dr. P. Herbert Carpenter at Eton College, and in 188 1 

 obtained an exhibition in natural science at New College. After 

 studying under Prof. Moseley at Oxford and Prof. Aug. Weis 

 mann at Freiburg in Baden, Mr. Bourne was placed in the first 

 class in the honour school of natural science at Oxford in 1885. 

 Immediately after taking his degree he proceeded to Diego 

 Garcia in the Indian Ocean, with the purpose of investigating 

 the fauna and flora of that island. On his return to England 

 he became assistant to Prof. Moseley at Oxford, and has per- 

 formed the duties of Lecturer and Demonstrator in Animal 

 Morphology for the last two years. In October last Mr. Bourne 

 was elected to an open Fellowship at New College. 



On the evening of April 5, about one hundred and fifty persons 

 interested in science met in the hall of the Columbian University, 

 Washington, to pay a tribute to the memory of Asa Gray. 

 Prof. Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 presided, and addresses were delivered by Prof. Chickering, 

 Dr. Vasey, Prof. L. F. Ward, and Dr. C. V. Riley. 



The sixty-first meeting of the German Association of Natural- 

 ists will take place at Cologne from the i8ih to the 23rd of 

 September next. Prof. Bardenheuer and the chemist Th. Kyll 

 are the secretaries. The subjects to be considered will be 

 divided into thirty sections. 



The following sums for the furtherance of scientific studies 

 have been presented by the Academy of Sciences at Berlin : 

 1500 marks (.£75,) to Dr. Goldstein (Berlin), a physicist ; 2000 

 marks (^100) to Dr. Fabricius (Berlin), the archaeologist, and 

 Dr. Suhlmann (Wiirzburg) ; and 900 marks (^45) to Prof. 

 Gerhard (Eisleben). 



Captain C. E. Dutton, of the U.S. Geological Survey, is 

 writing his monograph on the Charleston earthquake. The re- 

 ports on which it will be based are complete, and in shape for 

 the printer. Science is of opinion that no earthquake of ancient 

 or modern times has been observed with such care and fulness 

 of detail. Besides the observations made by Professors in several 

 Colleges, by hundreds of railway officials, and at signal stations, 

 a large number of intelligent private citizens have given an 

 account of their own experiences. The volume which Mr. Dutton 

 is editing will also contain a report on the Sonora earthquake. 



On the night of April 17 a magnificent display of the aurora 

 borealis was observed at Motala, in Sweden, in the northern sky. 

 On the same night at 9.5 p.m. a phenomenon was seen in the 

 north-western sky at Orebro, also in Central Sweden, having the 

 appearance of a bright horizontal flash of lightning, but without 

 any report. It was followed by the appearance of an unsteady 

 and varying aurora. The thermometer stood at 21 C. 



On the night of March 27 a rumbling noise like that of a 

 distant earthquake was heard at Aaseral, in Southern Norway, 

 but no shock was felt. It could not have been thunder, as the 

 weather was clear and intensely cold. 



According to the official report of the recent great earth- 

 quake in Yunnan Province of China, the shocks commenced 

 between 5 and 6 p.m. on January 14, and lasted till 4 o'clock 

 the following morning. During this period about ten serious 



shocks were counted, all being accompanied by a noise like 

 thunder. In district cities in the south of the province, the town 

 walls were either thrown down or cracked, while public offices 

 and temples shared the same fate. In the city of Shih-ping large 

 numbers of private houses were destroyed, those in the south 

 and east quarters suffering most, while those which remained 

 standing had cracked or slanting walls. Two hundred persons 

 were killed in this town alone, and 3000 were injured. In and 

 around this single city about 5000 persons were killed and in- 

 jured. Most of the people were left without homes, and were 

 starving, as the provisions were buried in the ruins of the houses. 

 In one town the gaol was thrown down by the shocks, and all 

 the prisoners escaped. The earthquake is said to be the most 

 destructive ever recorded in China. The locality in which it was 

 most violent is mountainous, and produces copper and a parti- 

 cular kind of tea for which Yunnan is famous. The area of 

 disturbance is said to be about 770 miles from east to west, and 

 60 from north to south, Shih-ping being near the centre. The 

 direction of the shocks appears to have been at right angles to 

 the prevailing direction of the valleys, lakes, and rivers of the 

 region. This, at least, is how the Pekin correspondent of a 

 Shanghai newspaper reads the report ; and he adds that from the 

 centre of intensity, a little to the west of the city of Shih-ping, 

 there was a decided extension of the earthquake-wave north- 

 ward in the direction of the Yunnan lake Tienchih, as well as 

 westward to the city of Weiyuen. 



IT is curious to notice that on the day when this earthquake 

 occurred there was one also at Luchon, a town in the Szechuen 

 Province, about 350 English miles north-east of the locality of 

 the Yunnan earthquake. Much loss of life is said to have taken 

 place here also, and there was a great subsidence of land. No 

 official report respecting this second earthquake has yet made 

 its appearance. 



The Manilla Government has intrusted to the Sub-Director of 

 the local Observatory the task of studying the causes of the 

 numerous storms which prevail along the coast of the Philippine 

 Archipelago as well as inland, with a view to drawing a 

 meteorological chart of the islands, and of establishing their 

 magnetic positions. 



The Pilot Chart of the North Atlantic Ocean for the 

 month of March, issued by the United States Hydrographer, 

 contains the following interesting facts. Three pronounced 

 cyclonic storms passed over the North Atlantic during the 

 month. One of these was in some respects one of the 

 most remarkable and destructive storms ever experienced 

 along the Atlantic coast of the United States. After 

 traversing the entire American continent from west to east 

 without any noteworthy energy, it gained terrific force on 

 reaching the coast to the southward of Hatteras on the nth. 

 Its progress eastward was delayed from the nth to the 15th 

 by an area of high barometer, and it then resumed its course 

 easterly with renewed energy, crossing the 40th meridian in 

 about 50 N. latitude. Much less fog was experienced off the 

 Grand Banks than usual during March. Field ice was encoun- 

 tered as far south as 43 N., and between 46 and 60° W., but 

 the amount reported was not great. Earthquakes were expe- 

 rienced by the United States store-ship at Coquimbo on January 

 4, and by the British ship Diadem in latitude 26° 2' N., 

 longitude 63 19' W , on March 1. The sensation in the latter 

 case was as though the vessel had grounded upon a reef. 



In the storm to which reference is made in the preceding note, 

 oil seems to have been freely used off the coast of the United 

 States for the calming of the waves. According to Science, more 

 than a dozen captains and sailing-masters caught in the tempest 

 when at its worst believe their vessels were saved by this ex- 

 pedient. The sailing-master of the yacht Iroquois reports that 



