Aug. 5, 1875] 



NATURE 



279 



the inventor of microscopic photographs for carrier 

 pigeons during the war. The 250 maps, covering a space 

 of more than a hundred yards square, are so reduced on 

 glass, that they can be packed in a portfoho weighing 

 half a pound when full, and examined with a small micro- 

 scope with perfect facility and clearness. 



M. Bouvier, a French naturalist, has presented a col- 

 lection of almost all the known species of Algce collected 

 in the fish market at Paris. 



NOTES 

 The following are the officers of the forty-fifth meeting of the 

 British Association which will commence at Bristol on Wednes- 

 day, August 25, 1875 : — President-elect— Sir John Hawkshaw, 

 F.R.S. Vice- Presidents-elect— The Right Hon. the Earl of 

 Ducie, F.R.S., the Right Hon. Sir Stafford H. Northcote, 

 Bart., F.R.S., the Mayor of Bristol, Major-General Sir Henry 

 C. Rawlinson, F.R.S., Dr. W. B. Carpenter, F.R.S. , W. 

 Sanders, F.R.S. General Secretaries — Capt. Douglas Galton, 

 F.R.S., Dr. Michael Foster, F.R.S. Assistant General Secre- 

 tary—George Griffith, F.C.S. General Treasurer- Prof, A. W. 

 ^YiHiamson, F.R.S. Local Secretaries— W. Lant Carpenter, 

 F.C.S., John H. Clarke. Local Treasurer— Proctor Baker. 

 The sections are the following : — Section A : Mathematical and 

 Physical Science. President — Prof. Balfour Stewart, P\R.S. 

 Section B : Chemical Science. President — A. G. Vernon Har- 

 court, F.R.S. Section C : Geology. President — Dr. T. 

 Wright, F.R.S.E., F.G.S. Section D: Biology. President 

 — P. L. Sclater, F.R.S. Department of Zoology and Botany, 

 ]:)r. P. L. Sclater, F.R.S. (President), will preside. Depart- 

 ment of Anatomy and Physiology. Prof. Clebnd, F.R.S. 

 (Vice-President), will preside. Department of Anthropology. 

 Prof. RoUeston, F.R.S. (Vice-President), will preside. Sec- 

 tion E : Geography. President — Major-General Strachey, 

 F.R.S. Section F: Economic Science and Statistics. Pre- 

 sident—James Heywood, F.R.S., Pres.;.S. S. Section G: 

 Mechanical Science. President— William Froude, F.R.S. 

 The First General Meeting will be held on Wednesday, 

 August 25, at 8 P.M. when Prof. Tyndall, F.R.S., will 

 resign the chair, and Sir John Hawkshaw, C.E., F.R.S., 

 President-elect, will assume the presidency, and deliver an 

 acMress. On Thursday evening, August 26, at 8 P.M., a 

 soiree; on Friday evening, August 27, at 8.30 p.m., a Dis- 

 course by W. Spottiswoode, LL.D., F.R.S., on "The Colours 

 of Polarised Light ; " on Monday evening, August 30, at 8.30 

 P.M., a Discourse by F. J. Bramwell, C.E., F.R.S., on " Rail- 

 way Safety Appliances;" on Tuesday evening, August 31, at 

 8 P.M., & soiree; on Wednesday, September I, the Concluding 

 General Meeting will be held at 2.30 P.M. A special lecture to 

 working-men will be given by Dr. Carpenter, F.R.S., on the 

 evening of Saturday, Aug. 28; the subject will be "a piece of 

 limestone." The Local Committee have done everything in 

 their power to make the Bristol meeting a success. All the non- 

 local sectional secretaries will be lodged at the Queen's Hotel, close 

 to the reception-room, at the Local Committee's expense ; this 

 will no doubt conduce much to the easy working of the meeting. 

 The experiment of a room for the exhibition of specimens and 

 apparatus, tried first last year at Belfast, will be repeated this year. 

 The President will be the guest of the Mayor, who will occupy 

 for the first time the new Mansion House just given to the city 

 by Thos. Proctor, Esq. Most of the other office-holders, as 

 also all the foreign members, who have intimated their intention of 

 being present, and several English members, have received pri- 

 vate invitations from gentlemen resident in Bristol and neigh- 

 bourhood. Many other hospitable arrangements have, we 

 believe, been made, and altogether, so far as enjoyment and 

 comfort are concerned, this promises to be one of the most satis- 



factory meetings of the Association. As we previously inti- 

 mated, a specially prepared Guide, compiled by several gentle- 

 men, will be pubhshed by Wright and Co. , of Bristol ; a 

 lodging list with useful map will be issued this week. The 

 whole of the Victoria Rooms, Clifton, will be used as a recep- 

 tion-room. All the evening meetings and soirks will take place 

 at the Celston Hall, and satisfactory arrangements have been 

 made for the meetings of sections. Several interesting excur- 

 sions have been arranged for, including two to the Mendips, and. 

 handsome offers of entertainment have been made by those 

 gentlemen to whose neighbourhood the excursions are to be 

 made. 



A NEW physical observatory is to be erected at Fontenay, the 

 head of which will be M. Janssen. It will be erected on the very 

 spot where it was intended to build one when it was proposed 

 some years back to remove the Paris Observatory. In a few 

 months, then, Paris will have four observatories — the National, 

 the Physical, and two meteorological observatories — one at 

 Montsouris under M. Marie-Davy, and another which is being 

 built at the Acclimatisation Gardens. It is said that some 

 members of the Municipal Council will propose to connect 

 all these observatories with the National one by a special wire 

 to register automatically all the meteorological observations by 

 the Rysselberghe process, which we noticed last week in con. 

 nection with the Geographical Exhibition. 



The Smithsonian Institute and the Indian Bureau are engaged 

 in forming for the U.S. Centennial, a collection exhibiting the 

 past and present history of the Aboriginal races of America. 



"The German Abyssinian Company." — A company has 

 been incorporated in Ikrlin which proposes to found at Choa, 

 the most southern province of Abyssinia, a permanent settle- 

 ment, in order from thence to send out scientific expeditions into 

 the unexplored portion of Africa, and to develop the commerce 

 of the country. The objects of the Company are, however, sup- 

 posed to be more commercial than scientific. 



The Khedive has issued a decree ordering the enforcement of 

 the metrical system in Egypt from the 1st of January, 1876. 



Dr. Hawtrey Benson, of Dublin, writing to the Dublin 

 Daily Expi ess under date July 27, describes a remarkable shower 

 of small pieces of hay which he witnessed at Monkstown that 

 morning. It appeared in the form of "a number of dark floccu- 

 lent bodies floating slowly down through the air from a great 

 height, appearing as if falling from a very heavy dark cloud, 

 which hung over the house." The pieces of hay picked up v/ere 

 wet, "as if a very heavy dew had been deposited on it. The 

 average weight of the larger flocks was probably not more than 

 one or two ounces, and, from that, all sizes were perceptible 

 down to a simple blade. The air was very calm, with a gentle 

 under-current from S.E. ; the clouds were moving in an upper- 

 current from S.S.W." The air was tolerably warm and dry, 

 and the phenomenon is thus accounted for by Dr. J. W. Moore : 

 ** The coincidence of a hot sun and two air currents probably 

 caused the development of a whirlwind some distance to the 

 south of Monkstown. By it the hay was raised into the air, to 

 fall, as already described, over Monkstown and the adjoining 

 district." 



In the Paris Bulletin International for July 30 last Prof. 

 Raulin of Bordeaux gives the result of an examination of a com- 

 parison of the gross amount of the rainfall for the ten years 1851- 

 60 with that for the ten years 1861-70, from which it is shown 

 that, as regards the southern half of France, the rainfall during 

 the former of these decennial periods exceeded that of the latter 

 at forty-six out of the fifty-three stations at which observations 

 were made for the twenty years. A similar distribution of the 

 rainfall during these two dfcennial periods appears to have taken 



