1 I 2 



NA TURE 



[May 31, 1888 



In 1872 he was elected a member of the Academy 

 of Sciences; in 1880, Director of the Conservatoire des 

 Arts et Metiers; and in 1887, Vice-President of the 

 Academy of Sciences. Notwithstanding the manifold 

 calls on his time, he worked hard to secure the success 

 of the Exhibition of 1867, and of all the succeeding Paris 

 Exhibitions. 



Believing it to be important that men of science should 

 take part in politics, he entered the Chamber as Deputy 

 for La Manche, and became Minister of Agriculture in 

 the Brisson Ministry, in which he was of eminent service. 



During the war of 1870 he gave proof of ardent 

 patriotism. Night and day, during the siege of Paris, 

 he made incessant observations in order to facilitate the 

 despatch of letters by balloon. For six months he did 

 not miss the departure of one of the balloons ; he was 

 always present, encouraging the aeronauts, and giving 

 them valuable directions. When M. Tissandier was' 

 about to leave Paris in a balloon, laden with messages 

 for the Government at Tours, M. Herve Mangon said 

 to him, " Vous avez bon vent est-nord-est ; vous allez 

 filer dans la direction de Dreux," and the balloon 

 descended at the gates of that very town. 



M. Herv^ Mangon was the son-in-law of J. B. Dumas. 

 He had a wide circle of friends, and many young men of 

 science owe him a deep debt of gratitude for the en- 

 couragement they received from him in their work. For 

 a long time he suffered from a painful malady, and on the 

 15th of May he died at Paris, in his sixty-seventh year. 



NOTES. 

 The annual Ladies' Conversazione of the Royal Society will be 

 held on Wednesday, June 6. 



Mr. R. G. Haliburton writes from Oran, Algeria, that a few 

 hours after he had read the account in the Times of the recent 

 soirie of the Royal Society, at which two skeletons of Akkas, 

 sent by Emin Pasha from Equatorial Africa, were exhibited, the 

 discovery, made by himself in February last, of the existence of 

 another dwarf race, in North Africa, also only 4 feet high, and 

 called by the same name, Akkahs, was confirmed by the receipt 

 of a letter on the subject from our late Minister at Morocco, Sir 

 John Drummond Hay. 



The creation of the new Chair of Philosophic Biologique is to 

 be proposed to the Sorbonne in the course of the next few days. 

 There will be much opposition to the scheme, but_not enough to 

 prevent it from being carried out. 



The ceremony 'in honour of Prof. Donders, at Utrecht, on 

 Monday, passed off most successfully. Many friends and admirers, 

 not only from all parts of Holland, but from the Dutch colonies 

 and other countries, assembled to show their respect for the 

 illustrious investigator, and the Dutch Government was repre- 

 sented on the occasion by the Home Minister. A medal com- 

 memorative of the ceremony was struck, and the King of Holland 

 conferred on Prof. Donders the distinction of Commander of the 

 Golden Lion. King Humbert sent him the Order of the Crown 

 of Italy, and Sir Joseph Lister congratulated him on behalf of 

 the Royal Society of England. In responding to the address 

 recognizing his services to science and humanity, Prof. Donders 

 declared that although the law rendered it necessary for him, on 

 the attainment of his seventieth birthday, to resign his professor, 

 ship, he did not consider that he had finished his task. The sum 

 subscribed as an expression of gratitude for Prof. Donders' work 

 is to be appropriated, in accordance with his own decision, for 

 the benefit of young physiologists and ophthalmologists at the 

 University. 



During the recent cruise of the Liverpool Marine Biology 

 Committee in the s.s. Hycena, the electric light was applied to 



deep and surface tow-netting after dark with important results. 

 We hope shortly to publish fuller details. 



A marine zoological station, on the plan of the one at 

 Naples, is shortly to be established at Ostend. The proposal is 

 supported by four Belgian Universities. 



A letter has been received by Sir J. D. Hooker from Mr. 

 Joseph Thomson, dated Mogador, May 6, stating that he is on 

 the eve of starting by a route through the province of Shedma 

 to Saffi, where, after a short stay with M. Hunot, H.B.M.'s 

 Consul there, he will go direct to Demenat, an entirely unex- 

 plored part of the Atlas, north-east of the city of Morocco. 

 Mr. Thomson describes the past seaso.i as having been excep- 

 tionally late and cold, and with an extraordinary rain and snow- 

 fall ; the season's rainfall at Mogador having been more than 

 32 inches, against an average of less than 18 inches. 



It is stated that Mr. Knipping, of the Meteorological Depart- 

 ment of Japan, is coming to Europe on a mission to report en 

 European meteorological observatories. 



In the American Meteorological Jotirnal for April, Mr. A. L. 

 Rotch continues his article on the history of the meteorological 

 organizations, dealing with the German Institute, and the various 

 newspaper services. Prof. F. Waldo contributes a very interest- 

 ing paper on the instruments for making observations of the 

 amount and direction of the wind. Special attention is given to 

 Dr. Robinson's anemometer, as the instrument almost universally 

 adopted, and so called from his investigation of its principle, 

 published in 1850. Its invention is attributed toEdgeworth, who 

 first used it as a scientific instrument, but a similar apparatus, 

 made of wood, with oval cups, is described in the Mongolische 

 Volker, 1770. Dr. Robinson found that the velocity of the cups 

 must be multiplied by the factor 3 in order to get the true wind 

 velocity, and this value was generally adopted. Mr. Stow and 

 Prof. Stokes in this country, and Dr. Dohrandt in Russia, first 

 questioned the accuracy of this value, and recent careful experi- 

 ments by Mr. Dines, just communicated to the Royal Meteoro- 

 logical Society, show that the factor for anemometers of this class 

 must be reduced to about 2'1$. And further, it has been found 

 that the formula for conversion of velocity to pressure (P= •005V' 2 } 

 adopted by Smeaton (Phil. Trans. 1763), and repeated subse- 

 quently in text-books, requires amendment, so that the pressures 

 deduced from velocity anemometers have been greatly exagger- 

 ated. In fact great doubt has been expressed by competent 

 authority as to the value of the records of this class of instru- 

 ments. Prof. Waldo's discussion of the subject is therefore 

 very opportune. 



At Cragside, Rothbury, Northumberland, the seat of Lord 

 Armstrong, a very fine female of Pallas's sand grouse {Syrrhaptesr 

 paradoxus) killed itself against the telegraph-wires near Crag- 

 side on Wednesday, May 23. The bird was picked up by the 

 gamekeeper, and was sent by Lord Armstrong to Mr. John 

 Hancock at the Natural History Museum, Newcastle-on-Tyne, 

 where it will be carefully preserved. This bird was in fine 

 plumage, and was proved by dissection to be a female, the ovary 

 containing seven ova about the size of No. 1 shot, and numerous 

 others of very much smaller size. It is a curious coincidence 

 that the first specimens of Pallas's sand grouse, recorded in 1863, 

 were shot at Thropton, a few miles west of Rothbury, on May 

 21, and were sent to Mr. Hancock. The crop of another 

 specimen (male) of this bird, which we are told was obtained at 

 Winlaton, five or six miles west of Newcastle-on-Tyne, was sent 

 to the Museum on the 23rd inst. The crop was full of the seed 

 of a wild plant, probably charlock or wild mustard {Sinapis 

 arvensis, L. ). 



Dr. Trim en's report on the five Royal Botanic Gardens of 

 Ceylon, which has just been issued, contains much interesting 



