426 



NATURE 



[Sept. 9, 1875 



NOTES 

 We have received from the Central Meteorological Institute 

 of Sweden the Daily Weather Charts published by the Office 

 for the months of January, February, March, and April last. 

 These charts, constructed from data supplied from nine stations 

 in Sweden, nine in the British Isles, four |in Norway, two in 

 Denmark, and four in Russia, including Arkangel, are valuable 

 additions to the daily weather literature of Europe, and supply 

 important data, showing more particularly the influence of the 

 Scandinavian mountains and of the Baltic at different seasons on 

 European storms, and the influence of the systems of high and 

 low pressures over the Baltic and neighbouring regions on the 

 weather of Great Britain at the time. 



In the Bulletin Hebdomadaire of the Scientific Association o' 

 France for September 5, Prof. V. Raulin, after referring in 

 strong, but not too strong, terms to the practical neglect with 

 which the investigation of inundations has been treated in the 

 south-west of France, energetically urges the organising of 

 Hydrometric Commissions similar to that of Lyons, to collect 

 together observations of the rainfall and heights of the rivers, 

 and compare and discuss them with the view of deducing there- 

 from the laws which rule the commencement, development, and 

 progress down the several river basins, of ordinary floods, but 

 more particularly of those great inundations which prove so 

 disastrous to life and property. He recommends the formation 

 of Hydrometric Commissions at Bordeaux for the basin of the 

 Gironde ; at Libourne, for the basin of the Adour ; and at Car- 

 cassonne or Narbonne, for the basin of the Aude, When the 

 enormous saving to life and property which would have been 

 effected through such organisations, had they existed, is con- 

 sidered, during the late deplorable inundation, we cannot for a 

 moment doubt that Hydrometric Commissions similar to that of 

 Lyons will at once be organised in the basins of the Garonne and 

 its affluents. 



The annual Provincial Congress of the Iron and Steel Insti- 

 tute was opened in the Owens College, Manchester, on Tuesday, 

 Mr. William Menelaus, the President of the Institute, in the 

 chair. The Mayors of Manchester and Salford and the Bishop 

 of Manchester were present by invitation, at the opening pro- 

 ceedings, and the more distinguished members of the Institute 

 present included Mr. Henry Bessemer, Sir Joseph Whitworth, 

 Mr. J. Lowthian Bell, and Mr. Crawshay. The Bishop of 

 Manchester gave a very happy address. Referring to the fact 

 that the Duke of Devonshire is an ordinary member of the Insti- 

 tute, one indication among others that the Duke is a man of 

 high scientific attainments in the department of science with 

 which the Institute is connected, the Bishop said that what struck 

 him was how the old order had changed, "giving place to the 

 new," and he was rather inclined to think the new order perhaps 

 somewhat better than the old. The local authorities and the 

 leading industrial firms in Manchester and the surrounding dis- 

 tricts have done their part towards rendering the meeting a suc- 

 cess. On Tuesday evening the Reception Committee received 

 the members of the Institute at a conversazione in the Town 

 Hall, and last evening the members dined at Hulme Town Hall. 

 A large part of the time of the meeting will be spent in visits to 

 places of industrial interest in Manchester and neighbourhood. 



The proposed University College for Bristol received some 

 impulse from the members of the British Association at a meet- 

 ing held last week. Sir John Hawkshaw said foreign industrial 

 competition with England was a very real thing, and would soon 

 be much greater unless scientific education was fostered. Sir W. 

 Thomson begged the promoters not to starve the literary depart- 

 ment, and Prof. Balfour Stewart said that would not be any 

 departure from science, for there was n')w a science of culture 

 and literature. Prof. Jowett said that the appointment of the 



first professors would be the most critical event in the history of 

 the College, for on their force of character depended the creatioi 

 of the College out of nothing. Although not more than abou 

 20,000/. has been already promised, it is intended to commence 

 operations soon, in the belief that practical successful working 

 will eventually bring in all the funds that are required. 



Last Saturday evening the Brothers Henry, the great French 

 asteroid finders, visited the equatorial buildings of the Paris 

 Observatory, under the guidance of M. Leverrier. Along with 

 them was Mr. Watson, the celebrated. American astronomer, 

 who has himself discovered no fewer than nineteen small planets. 

 Mr. Watson was the head of the American Transit Expedition 

 to Pekin. 



The death of M. de Remusat renders almost certain the elec- 

 tion of M. Dumas to fill the place vacated by the demise of 

 M. Guizot in the French Academy. It is not only that M. 

 Remusat voted for M. Jules Simon and that the votes were equal, 

 when the election was postponed for six months, but M. Jules 

 Simon has desisted from his candidature, and intends come 

 forward for the seat of his friend Remusat. 



At the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford, on Sept. 3, gh. 55m. 

 Greenwich mean time, a meteor was observed about three times 

 the apparent magnitude of Jupiter, proceeding from Saturn 

 downwards about twelve degrees, in the direction of 5 Piscis 

 Australis. Colour, blue to green ; time visible, five seconds. 

 At disappearance it threw off a piece about the apparent size of 

 Saturn. 



The Geological Society of France held a congress at Geneva 

 last week, and visited some of the places most interesting to 

 geologists in that part of Switzerland. 



Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, "of Melbourne, has just 

 published a second supplement to his previous lists of " Select 

 Plants readily eligible for Victorian Industrial Culture." The^t- 

 lists of Baron Mueller's are useful to a certain extent, many 

 economic plants being thus brought together, arranged alpha- 

 betically under their scientific names, and short descriptions 

 given of their uses. Whether many of them are worth the 

 trouble of cultivation as industrial or economic plants, is a ques- 

 tion which the cultivator can only know by experience, but 

 which the botanist will be able to decide upon by a mere glance 

 at the list. Thus we find included Aloe dichotoma, the Tree- 

 Aloe of Damara and Namaqualand, referred to in Nature, 

 vol. xi. p. 89 ; scarcely an industrial plant, we should say. A 

 peculiar and interesting addition to this second supplement is a 

 geographic index, the plants being alphabetically arranged under 

 distinct heads, such as " Northern and Middle Europe," " Coun- 

 tries at or near the Mediterranean Sea," "Middle and Temperate 

 Eastern Asia," &c. 



The coffee plant has been grown in Queensland for some 

 years, but it is only of late that its cultivation has been attempted 

 with a view to its exportation as a commercial article, and we 

 now learn that the plants have become attacked by blight, cr 

 fungus, which has given rise to some anxiety and inquiry as to 

 whether the disease is identical with the Hemileia vastatris, 

 which has proved so destructive to coffee plants in Ceylon. We 

 shall probably soon hear more about this, as tlie subject of the 

 extension of coffee culture in Queensland is about to be taken 

 up by Mr. L. A. Bernays, F.L.S., Clerk of the Legislative 

 Assembly of Queensland, and a vice-president of the Queens- 

 land Acclimatisation Society, and who moreover is known as 

 the author of a little work on the cultivation and propagation of 

 the olive in AustraUa. 



The Literary and Natural History Society of Keswick has 



