Dec. I, 1887] 



NA TURE 



1 1 1 



of the diamond. The corpuscles are said to amount to 

 I per cent, of the meteoric stone. 



Carbon, in its amorphous graphitic form, has been long 

 known as a constituent of meteoric irons and stones ; 

 lately, small but well-defined crystals of graphitic carbon 

 having forms often presented by the diamond, were 

 described in our columns as having been found in a 

 meteoric iron from Western Australia. If this supple- 

 mentary discovery be confirmed, we may at last be 

 placed on the track of the artificial production of the 

 precious stone. 



NOTES. 

 On Tuesday afternoon an important meeting was held in the 

 Town Hall, Manchester, in support of the National Association 

 for the Promotion of Technical Education. A powerful and 

 most interesting address was delivered by Prof. Huxley. After- 

 wards, in accordance with a resolution moved by Sir H. 

 E. Roscoe, and seconded by Sir W. H. Houldsworth, the 

 meeting appointed an influential Committee to consider the 

 proposals communicated by the National Association for the 

 Promotion of Technical Education, and to take action thereon. 

 Now that the vital importance of the subject is beginning 

 to be understood in the district, there can be little doubt 

 that Manchester will soon be supplied with a thoroughly sound 

 and adequate system of technical instruction. The residuary 

 legatees under the will of the late Sir Joseph Whitworth have 

 just presented to the town a plot of land, called Potter's Park, 

 which they have bought for 2'47.ooo. On a part of this land it 

 is proposed that the following institutions shall be erected : 

 (i) an appropriate Institute of Art, with galleries for paintings, 

 for sculpture and moulded form, and for architectural illustra- 

 tion ; (2) a comprehensive Museum of Commercial Materials 

 and Products ; (3) a Technical School on a complete scientific 

 and practical scale. Much money will have to be provided 

 before this scheme can be fully carried out, but in so great a 

 centre of manufacturing and commercial energy the necessary 

 funds should be raised without serious difficulty. The managers 

 of the late Manchester Exhibition, like the Whitworth 

 legatees, are vigorously supporting the movement, and their 

 example will certainly be extensively followed. The progress 

 made at Manchester is most satisfactory, and there are also many 

 signs of an advance in the right direction at Liverpool and 

 Newcastle. 



The latest news from Mr. John Whitehead is that he has 

 returned from Palawan with a rich collection, especially in 

 birds, of which he believes that he has obtained over eighty 

 species not previously recorded from the island, and a large 

 number of migrants. Palawan is an interesting place for a 

 naturalist, as it lies so near the Philippine Archipelago, and 

 yet contains a very strong Bornean element". Mr. Whitehead 

 proposes shortly to make another ascent of Kina Balu Mountain, 

 where last spring-he obtained nineteen new species of birds, 

 described by Mr. Bowdler Sharpe in the Ibis for October. 



Letters have recently been received from Mr. H. O. Forbes, 

 who is now at Granville in British New Guinea. He has not 

 recovered from the overwhelming disaster at Batavia, when the 

 whole of the matSriel for his explorations was lost by the up- 

 setting of a boat in the surf, but his spirits and those of his 

 brave wife appear indomitable, and he hopes yet to proceed into 

 the interior of New Guinea. He remarks that the Horse-shoe 

 Range of the Astrolabe Mountains is unkown to residents in the 

 island. This is the place whence Mr. Hunstein sent the 

 wonderful birds of Paradise described by Dr. Finsch and Dr. 

 Meyer, but Mr. Forbes says that he cannot find out the position 

 of the range to which Hunstein attached the name. Mr. Forbes 

 states that he has penetrated further inland than any other ex- 



plorer, but that "no European foot has yet trod any portion of 

 the real Owen Stanley Range. " Surely some assistance can be ren- 

 dered to this good naturalist, who has expended ;^2000 of his own 

 money in the cause of science, to enable him to prosecute 

 further researches. It only requires a glance at Mr. Forbes's 

 work on the Malay Arcliipelago to show that he is a worthy 

 follower in the footsteps of Wallace. 



At a dinner given by the Library Committee of the Corpora- 

 tion of London on Monday, Prof. Stokes responded for 

 " Science." He said men of science knew how fascinating the 

 pursuit of science was, even apart from its applications. It 

 differed from art, however, in this respect, that when the scientific 

 man had arrived at his result it was in very many cases of such 

 a nature that only comparatively few men, who themselves had 

 been trained more or less in science, could enter into and derive 

 pleasure from it. 



The discussion on Sir Frederick Abel's paper on "Accidents 

 in Mines,'' at the Institute of Civd Engineers, came to a con- 

 clusion on Tuesday evening, the debate having extended over 

 four meetings, a number of well-known colliery owners and 

 managers coming up from the country to take part in it. 

 Safety-lamps, gas, coal-dust, winding-gear, and other topics 

 were exhaustively discussed, and it was evident that amongst 

 practical men a considerable difference of opinion exists on 

 many of the questions raised. Sir Frederick having directed 

 attention to the communication in Nature, vol. xxxvi. pp. 437 

 and 438, Mr. Harries gave further particulars bearing upon the 

 meteorology of colliery explosions. He showed how the popular 

 belief that disasters are always accompanied by a low barometer 

 is fostered by English and foreign newspaper reporters and writers 

 habitually making statements on the subject which cannot be 

 justified by the facts. Very few of the explosions of 1886 and 1887 

 have been coincident with a low barometer, and out of the list of 

 disasters in the eleven years 1875-85 given by Sir Frederick Abel 

 only 1875 per cent, of the accidents, and 17 '4 per cent, of the 

 deaths, occurred when the mercury was at 29J inches or below. 

 One half of this small percentage of explosions took place with a 

 low but rapidly rising barometer, and at a time when gas is shown 

 by careful observations to have commenced issuing from the 

 strata. The importance of studying the influence of anticyclones 

 in connection with mining was still further emphasized, as coal- 

 dust is more inflammable and more ditficult to moisten when the' 

 air is cold and dry than in the time of cyclones, when the air is 

 warm and damp. In ihe new rooms recently added to the 

 Institute, an interesting series of appliances for use in mines was 

 on exhibition, a number of safety-lamps of different patterns, oil 

 and electric, the Fleuss apparatus, Loeb's respirator, safety wind- 

 ing-gear, anemometers, and a collection of photographs of miners 

 actually at work, hewing, timbering, &c., from Mr. Sop with, 

 Cannock Chase. 



Mr, Goschen will deliver his inaugural address as President 

 of the Royal Statistical Society on Tuesday, December 6, when 

 the first ordinary meeting of the present session will be held. 

 The Statistical Society usually holds its meetings at the Royal 

 School of Mines in Jermyn Street ; but on the present occasion, 

 as the Council have reason to expect an extra large attendance 

 of the Fellows and their friends, it has been arranged that the 

 meeting shall take place at Willis's Rooms, King Street, St. 

 James's, at the usual hour, 7.45 p.m. 



We regret to have to record the sudden death of Dr. Max 

 Schuster, Privat-docent and Assistant in the University of 

 Vienna. His laborious researches on the optical characters of the 

 Felspars are known to every petrologist ; and his treatise on the 

 features of Danburite, in its almost painful minuteness of obser- 

 vation and calculation, is one of the seven wonders of modern 

 crystallography. His kindliness of manner, and his enthusiasm. 



