574 



NA TURE 



[Oct. 



ii. i 



City parochial charities, the Charity Commissioners are to 

 acquire the buildings, with seven acres of land, at present occu- 

 pied by the Royal Naval School at New Cross ; and from the 

 same source they will set apart an endowment of .£2500 P er 

 annum. This will be met by the Goldsmiths' Company by the 

 appropriation out of their corporate funds (not trust funds, but funds 

 over which they have absolute control) of an annual endowment 

 of a similar amount — a gift equal to a sum of ^85, coo. It is 

 intended that the new Institute shall be called " The Goldsmiths' 

 Company's (New Cross) Institute." 



It is satisfactory to learn that all the scientific work connected 

 with the Fishery Board for Scotland is now absolutely in the 

 hands of a small Committee, of which Prof. Ewart is convener, 

 and that the Board has at last a scientific secretary. A Special 

 Committee on Bait, appointed by the Secretary for Scotland, 

 began its sittings on Monday. 



The first meeting of the Council of the Sanitary Institute, 

 which has recently been incorporated, was held at the Parkes 

 Museum last Friday. Sir Douglas Galton, K.C.B., F.R.S., was 

 unanimously appointed Chairman of the Council, and Mr. G. J. 

 Symons, F. R. S., the registrar. The Institute is founded to 

 carry on the work of the amalgamated Sanitary Institute of 

 Great Britain and the Parkes Museum, and it was decided to 

 hold the Institute's first examination for local surveyors and 

 inspectors of nuisances on November 8 and 9. A programme 

 of lectures for the winter session is being prepared. A letter 

 was read from the Charity Commissioners saying that they 

 considered that the new Institute was likely to prove a powerful 

 means for the diffusion of sanitary knowledge, and promising to 

 place at its disposal, for the delivery of lectures, the buildings 

 which the Commissioners propose to establish in various parts of 

 London. 



The delegates to the International Bureau of Weights and 

 Measures are hard at work at the Pavilion de Ereteuil, near St. 

 Cloud. They are taking steps to verify the " prototype metres " 

 which have been executed at the expense of the French 

 Government, and are to be delivered, to the various nations 

 which have ordered them. The expenditure of this establish- 

 ment, which is supported by contributions from several nations, 

 amounts to ^"4000. The head of the administration is M. 

 Broch, a Norwegian astronomer and meteorologist. Turkey 

 is nominally one of the subscribing nations, but she has never 

 contributed a farthing to the funds of the Bureau, and some time 

 ago the other nations were obliged to subscribe a supplementary 

 sum to make good the deficiency. 



The School of Art Wood-carving, City and Guilds Institute, 

 Exhibition Road, South Kensington, has been re-opened after 

 the usual summer vacation, and we are requested to state that 

 one or two of the free Studentships in the evening classes 

 maintained by means of funds granted to the school by the 

 Institute are vacant. To bring the benefits of the school within 

 the reach of artisans, a remission of half-fees for the evening 

 class is made to artisan students connected with the wood- 

 carving trade. Forms of application for the free Studentships 

 and any further particulars relating to the school may be 

 obtained from the manager. 



Ten lectures on " Electricity in the Service of Man " are to 

 be delivered by Mr. W. Lant Carpenter, under the auspices of 

 the London Society for the Extension of University Teaching, at 

 the Chelsea Town Hall. They will be delivered on Fridays at 

 8 p.m. The inaugural lecture, on electrical energy and its uses, 

 will be given on October 12, when Sir Henry Roscoe will take 

 the chair. 



The sixth session of University College, Dundee, was opened 

 by a public address by^ Prof. Ewing in the College Hall last 



Saturday evening. Prof. Ewing gave an interesting account of 

 the progress which has lately been made in the teaching of 

 science in Dundee. 



Herr Hernsheim, the German Consul at Matupi, one of 

 the South Sea Islands, has presented his native town, Mayence, 

 with an ethnological collection which gives an interesting picture 

 of the manners, customs, and conditions of life of the inhabitants 

 of the Bismarck Archipelago, and the Caroline, Marshall, 

 Pelew, and Solomon Groups. 



Towards the cost of the University just opened in Tomsk, 

 Count Demidoff contributed ^9000, M. Cybulsky £7500, 

 and the State the balance, ^"22,000. M. Sibiriakoff has made a 

 donation of ^"8500 for scientific Scholarships. 



The Hon. A. C. Houen, a Norwegian resident at Rome, has 

 presented the Christiania University with ^6500 for the pur- 

 pose of founding scientific Scholarships. He recently gave the 

 same institution ,£10,000 for a like object. 



At a recent meeting of the Geographical Society of Stock- 

 holm, Dr. F. Svenonius read a paper on the origin and present 

 state of the glaciers of Europe, dividing them into Alpine, 

 Greenland, and Scandinavian. Referring to the latter, Dr. 

 Svenonius stated that the glaciers of Sweden, to which he had 

 devoted years of r study, were far more important than was 

 generally imagined. They could be divided into some twenty 

 different groups, all being situated between 67" and 68^° lat. 

 N., i.e. between the sources of the Pile River and Lake Torne. 

 They number upwards of one hundred, and cover a total area of 

 at least 400 square kilometres. The largest is the Sorjik group, 

 the area of which is between 65 and 75 square kilometres. 



THEgreat "Bibliography of Meteorology," at which Mr. C. J. 

 Sawyer, of the United States Signal Service, has been working 

 for some years, is now completed. It comes down to the year 

 1881, inclusive; and Mr. Sawyer estimates that it contains 

 50,000 independent titles. General Greely, the Chief Signal 

 Officer, is anxious that the work should be printed ; and in his 

 last Annual Report he pointed out that, if this were done, future 

 international co-operation would probably secure, by a system 

 of rotation, from the various European Governments, the pub- 

 lication of a series of supplements which would keep the world 

 abreast of the steadily- increasing volume of meteorological 

 publicaticns. 



The Administration Report of the Meteorological Reporter 

 to the Government of Bengal for the year 1887-88 states that it 

 has been decided to submit, for two years only, brief accounts 

 of the principal points, while every third year a detailed Report 

 is to be prepared. The present Report is the first of the trien- 

 nial series. The most important changes during the year have 

 been in the storm-signal service. Until recently, regular storm- 

 signals were not allowed by the port authorities to be displayed 

 in Calcutta, so that ships on several occasions left their safe 

 anchorage in the port, and were proceeding down the river, 

 before they became aware of the display of storm-signals. This 

 condition has, however, been completely changed during the 

 year 1887-88, and signals are now shown, by orders of the 

 Bengal Reporter, in Calcutta, and have been extended to all 

 the ports from the south of Burmah down to the extreme south 

 of the Madras Presidency, or, roughly speaking, he has to warn 

 a coast-line of about 2400 miles in length. His work and responsi- 

 bility have therefore been very decidedly increased. The obser- 

 vations for the weather service are now taken at 8 a.m. instead 

 of 10 am. The advantage of this change, for the issue of 

 storm-warnings in useful time, is obvious. 



The Pilot Chart of the North Atlantic Ocean for September 

 shows that the weather during August was generally fine over 



