302 



NATURE 



\_July 26, 1888 



number of the Ibis, and four genera and twelve species appear 

 to be quite new to science. Mr. Whitehead spent altogether 

 eight months on the mountain of Kina Balu, and is at present 

 known to have dircovered thirty-one new species of birds. On 

 his last expedition he met with fifteen different kinds of rodents, 

 and his collections of reptiles and insects are also very large. 



Mr. Alfred Everett, the well-known explorer of Borneo 

 and the Philippine Islands, has had to return to England to 

 recruit his health, sorely shattered by his nineteen years' 

 residence in the tropics. He has brought with him a collection 

 of birds and animals, amongst which are apparently many 

 interesting species. He also discovered in the Brunei district 

 the nest of Machcerhamphus alcinus, the curious crepuscular 

 Honey-Kite of the East, but unfortunately the tree in which it 

 was placed proved to be inaccessible. This remarkable genus 

 of Hawks occurs in the Malayan peninsula, Borneo, and again 

 in New Guinea. It has an Ethiopian representative, M. 

 anderssoni, which inhabits Damara Land and Madagascar. 



The summer meeting of the Institution of Mechanical En- 

 gineers will be held in Dublin on Tuesday, 31st inst., and the two 

 following days, under the presidency of Mr. Edward H. Carbutt. 

 An influential Committee has been formed for the reception of 

 the Institution, under the chairmanship of Lord Rosse, F. R. S. 

 On Friday, August 3, a visit will be paid to Belfast, on the 

 invitation of a local Committee presided over by the Mayor, Sir 

 James H. Haslett. 



The half-yearly general meeting of the Scottish Meteoro- 

 logical Society was held in the hall of the Royal Scottish Society 

 of Arts, Edinburgh, on Monday, July 23, at two p.m. The 

 following was the " business" : — (1) Report from the Council of 

 the Society ; (2) the temperature of the air and surface-water 

 of the North Atlantic, by H. N. Dickson ; (3) the climate of 

 the Isle of Man, by A. W. Moore ; (4) note on earth currents 

 on Ben Nevis, in connection with anticyclones, by R. T. 

 Omond ; (5) St. Elmo's fire observed at the Ben Nevis Observa- 

 tory, by A. Rankin. Photographs of clouds, &c, from Ben 

 Nevis were exhibited. 



The Berlin Academy has granted to Dr. R. von Lendenfeld 

 the sum of 1000 marks to aid him in investigating the 

 physiological functions, chiefly the digestion, of sponges. 



A -Hungarian deputy, M. Hlavka, has given a sum of 

 200,000 florins towards the establishment of a Czeck Academy 

 of Science at Prague. 



The death of Prof. H. Carvill Lewis, in the full vigour of 

 manhood and of work, will be a painful surprise to many friends 

 on both sides of the Atlantic. He died of typhoid fever at 

 Manchester on July 21, a few days after landing in England, at 

 the beginning of a journey undertaken in continuance of his 

 investigations into the glacial deposits of Europe. 



The death is announced of Dr. Ludwig Julius Budge, the 

 eminent physiologist and anatomist. He was born at Wetzlar, 

 September 6, 181 1, and died at Greifswald on July 14. 



The Geologists' Association have issued the programme of a 

 long excursion to the Forest of Dean, Wye Valley, and South 

 Wales, from August 6 to II. 



The Revue Internationale, published at Rome, contains 

 a description of the eighth centenary of the University of 

 Bologna, and a dignified reply to the criticisms of the 

 correspondent of the Times. The correspondent maintained 

 that all delegates of foreign Universities, including American 

 Colleges, ought to have received honorary degrees, without 



saying what the number and what the value of such dis- 

 tinctions would have been. The honorary degree was given 

 " agli scienziati saliti in a/tissimafama," and this would hardly 

 apply to all the chosen or self-constituted representatives of the 

 world's Universities. We quote the folowing words from the 

 article in the Revue International for July : — "II a paru dans le 

 Times quelques correspondances tres acerbes, sans grande portee 

 cependant, etant donne le caractere du journal. En lisant le Times, 

 la pensee du lecteur se reporte souvent instinctivement a ce Sir 

 John Davenne, qui, au dire de Ruffini, etait un parfait galant 

 homme, un vrai gentilhomme, mais auqucl il pouvait arriver — 

 un peu par l'effet de son caractere individuel, un peu par l'efifet 

 du caractere national — de ne pas se montrer trop impartial, trop 

 juste, ni trop tempere dans ses jugements." 



Despatches have been received from Dr. Nansen announcing 

 the safe departure of his expedition for Greenland from the Isa 

 Fjord, in Iceland, on board the steam whaler Jason. 



An astronomical observatory is about to be erected within the 

 walls of the Foreign College at Pekin. 



A correspondent of an English newspaper published in 

 China furnishes the following account of the new foreign College 

 being erected at Tientsin by the Viceroy Li Hung Chang : — " In 

 coming up the Peiho to Tientsin, the first object of importance 

 that will now strike the eye of a stranger is the new College 

 building which is being erected just outside the mud rampart by 

 the Viceroy, for the instruction of Chinese youth in the mysteries 

 of the English language and of foreign science. This is a massive 

 edifice, two stories high, built around the four sides of a square 

 which forms a large interior court not less than one hundred 

 feet on either side, around which, on the inner sides of the 

 buildings, are spacious verandas. The construction of the 

 building, under the careful supervision of a capable foreign 

 engineer, is all that could be desired. If the educational results 

 are equal to what has been accomplished by brick and mortar, 

 the Viceroy will have great occasion to be proud that he has 

 been privileged to start such an institution. It was hoped that 

 the College would be ready for opening this autumn, but there 

 seems little prospect that it can be opened before next spring." 



It is reported from China that Dr. Dudgeon, of Pekin, has 

 published in Chinese a work on anatomy which he has had in 

 preparation for some years ; that a companion work on materia 

 medica is in the press, with treatises on physiology and photo- 

 graphy, in the latter of which the dry process is explained. Dr. 

 Dudgeon is also preparing' bi-lingual vocabularies of medical and 

 anatomical terms. 



We are glad to learn that the Mikado of Japan has been 

 pleased to bestow the Order of the Rising Sun on Prof. John 

 Milne, of the Imperial University of Tokio, the well-known 

 investigator of seismic phenomena. 



Vol. 11. Part 1 of the Journal of the College of Science of the 

 Japanese Imperial University, contains an important summar 

 by Prof. Sekiya of the results of seismometric observations 

 Tokio during two years, from September 1885 to September i8L ; , 

 with special reference to the measurements of vertical motion 

 The observations recorded by Prof. Sekiya were for the mo: 

 part made with Prof. Ewing's seismographs, some on the sol 

 marshy ground of the lower part of the city, and some on th 

 stiff soil of the upper parts. Particulars are recorded very fully 

 for 119 earthquakes in a table setting forth the greatest hori- 

 zontal and vertical motion, the period of the motion, the 

 maximum velocity and rate of acceleration, the duration of the 

 disturbance, and the approximate locality of the origin. At the 

 end of the paper the results are collated, and averages a 

 deduced, from which it appears that the greatest horizont 



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