88 



NATURE 



\_May 22, 1879 



Secretary — J. E. H. Gordon, B.A. General Treasurer — Prof. 

 A. W. Williamson, Ph.D., F.R.S. Local Secretaries— H. 

 Clifton Sorby, F.R.S. , J. F. Moss. Local Treasurer — Henry 

 Stephenson. The following are the sections and their presi- 

 dents: — A. — Mathematical and Physical Science. — President: 

 George Johnstone Stoney, F.R.S. B. — Chemical Science. — 

 President: Prof. James Dewar, F.R.S. C. — Geology. — Presi- 

 dent : Prof. P. Martin Duncan, F.R.S. D. — Biology.— Presi- 

 dent : Prof. St. George Mivart, F.R.S. E. — Geography. — 

 President : Clements R. Markham, C.B., F.R.S. F.— Econo- 

 mic Science and Statistics. — President : G. Shaw Lefevre, M.P., 

 Pres. S.S. G. — Mechanical Science.— President : J. Robinson, 

 Pres. Inst. Mech. Eng. This list of sectional officers will be 

 completed and will be submitted to the General Committee on 

 Wednesday, August 20. The Reception Room will be opened 

 on Monday, August 18, at I p.m., and on the following days at 

 8 A.M., for the issue of tickets to Members, Associates, and 

 ladies, and for supplying lists and prices of lodgings, and other 

 information, to strangers on their arrival. No tickets will be 

 issued after 6 p.m. Tickets for the meeting may also be ob- 

 tained from August I until August 6, on application to the 

 General Treasurer, Prof. A. W. Williamson, British Associa- 

 tion, University College, London, W.C. The first General 

 Meeting will be held on Wednesday, August 20, at 8 p.m., 

 when Dr. William Spottiswoode, Pres. R.S., will, resign 

 the chair, and Prof. G. J. Allman, F.R.S., President Elect, 

 will assume the Presidency, and deliver an address. On 

 Thursday evening, August 21, at 8 p.m., a soirie ; on Friday 

 evening, August 22, at 8.30 p.m., a discourse by William 

 Crookes, F.R.S., on Radiant Matter; on Monday evening, 

 August 25, at 8.30 p.m., a discourse by the Rev. W. H. 

 Dallinger, on the Life Histories of the Minutest Organic Forms, 

 and their Bearing on the Doctrine of the Origin of Species ; on 

 Tuesday evening, August 26, at 8 P.M., a soirh ; on Wednes- 

 day, August 27, the concluding General Meeting will be held at 

 2.30 P.M. On Saturday evening, August 23, W. E. Ayrton, 

 Esq., will deliver a lecture to the Operative Classes, on Electri- 

 city as a Motive Power. Tickets can be purchased of the local 

 Secretaries. No report, paper, or abstract can be inserted in 

 the Report ofjthe Association unless it is in the Assistant Secre- 

 tary's hands before the conclusion of the Meeting. A room will 

 be provided for the reception of apparatus and specimens illus- 

 trative of papers communicated to the Sections. Excursions to 

 places of interest in the neighbourhood of Sheffield will be made 

 on Thursday, August 28. 



We regret to hear of the decease of M. Edouard Pictet, of 

 Geneva, at the early age of forty-four. He was the son of Prof. 

 F. J. Pictet, of the same city, formerly a writer on neuropterous, 

 insects, latterly a pala;ontologist, who died about seven years 

 ago. M. E. Pictet inherited his father's scientific tastes, and in 

 1865 published a " Synopsis des Nevropteres d'Espagne," based 

 upon a journey made in that country a few years previously. 

 Latterly he had been much occupied in investigating the physical 

 conditions of the Lake of Geneva, in company with Forel and 

 others of his compatriots ; and his official duties, municipal and 

 otherwise, took up much of his time. He visited London at 

 the time when the Loan Exhibition of Scientific Instruments 

 was on view at South Kensington. The family Pictet has 

 included amongst its members several illustrious scientific men, 

 and is one of which Switzerland is justly proud. M. Raoul 

 Pictet, the celebrated investigator of the liquefaction of gases, is 

 a cousin of the subject of this note, and M. H. de Saussure 

 also belongs to a collateral branch of the same family. 



The death is announced of Mr. Thomas Wills, F.C.S., who 

 has acted as secretary to the Chemical Section of the Society of 

 Arts since it was first founded in 1874. Mr. Wills was born in 

 1850, in Devonshire ; he was educated at University College 



School and at King's College. In the early part of 1868 he 

 became an assistant to Dr. Odiing at St. Bartholomew's Hos- 

 pital, and in the latter part of that year, on Dr. Odiing being 

 elected to the FuUerian Professorship at the Royal Institution, 

 Mr. Wills was appointed his official assistant. In 1873 he re- 

 signed this pott to accept the position of Demonstrator in Che- 

 mistry at the Royal Naval College. The subject to which Mr. 

 Wills specially devoted himself was the application of chemistry 

 to the manufacture of gas, and on questions connected with this 

 subject he was rapidly becoming an authority. He was a con- 

 stant contributor to the Transactions of the Chemical and othef 

 societies. For several years he acted as secretary to Section B 

 (Chemistry) of the British Association, and he was a member of 

 the Association Committee for ascertaining the best methods of 

 improving the illuminating power of coal-gas. His most recent 

 piece of work was in connection with the subject of electric 

 lighting. Dr. Tyndall, in giving evidence upon the electric 

 light before a Committee of the House of Commons, referred 

 to Mr. Wills as having discovered that oxides of nitrogen were 

 given off by the voltaic arc, thus rendering the light to that 

 extent injurious. 



In the Paris Academy, Dr. Oppolzer has been elected a 

 Corresponding Member in the Astronomical Section in place of 

 the late Prof. Argelander, and M. Alphonse Favre in place of 

 the late Prof. Leymerie in the Section of Mineralogy. 



The professors of the Museum of Paris have presented two 

 candidates for filling the place vacated by the death of Claude 

 Bernard, who was professor •f general physiology in the estab- 

 lishment. The first candidate is M. Boubez, of the Institute, 

 and the second M, Moreau. 



A GENERAL MEETING of the Mineralogical Society of Great 

 Britain and Ireland will be held at the Meteorological Oflice, 

 116, Victoria Street, on Tuesday, June 3, at 8 p.m., when the 

 following papers will be read : — On abriachanite, a new Scottish 

 mineral, by Prof. M. F. Heddle and D. W. H. Aitken ; on 

 haughtonite, a new mica, by Prof. M. F. Heddle ; on christo- 

 phite from St. Agnes, Cornwall, by J. H. Collins, F.G.S. ; 

 minerals from Japan, by John Milne, LL.D., and T. Davies, 

 F.G.S. ; additional note on penwithite, by J. H. Collins, 

 F.G.S. The chair will be taken by Prof. T. G. Bonney, M.A. 

 Other communications intended to be read at this meeting 

 should be sent to J. H. Collins, secretary, at the Scientific Club, 

 4, Savile Row, London, W., not later than Saturday, May 31. 



The first public act passed by the U.S. Congress dmng 

 the present session, was one making an appropriation of 

 200,000 dollars for the construction, under the direction of the 

 Secretary of the Treasury, for the National Board of Health of 

 a vessel provided with suitable refrigerating apparatus, for the 

 purpose of determining the possibility of destroying the yellow 

 fever infection by intense cold. The act as first introduced had 

 special reference to the apparatus of Prof. Gamgee, but as passed 

 it is within the power of the Secretary to select any device that 

 will, in the opinion of the National Board of Health, best answer 

 its purpose. 



Prof. Duces, of Mexico, in a recent letter to the Smithsonian 

 Institution, speaking of the enormous numbers of the common 

 cow-bird, or Molothrus pecoris, in his neighbourhood, refers to 

 a certain flight supposed to have been about 12,000 yards in length, 

 six yards wide, and probably over a yard deep. He estimates 

 the number contained in it to be from 9,000,000 to 10,000,000. 

 A flock of 1,000 or 2,000 of these birds is very common, gener- 

 ally mixed with the Xanthormtis icterocephalus, and to some 

 extent with the red-winged blackbird. 



We learn that Dr. Edouard Bornet, of Paris, eminent for his 

 researches on the structure and reproduction of algae, and author 



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