434 



NATURE 



{Sept 4, 1879 



the course to be taken by Congress next session. A ship 

 fitted by him will start for Lady Franklin Bay, even if 

 Congress leaves him unassisted. 



NOTES 



The Central Meteorological Office of Italy (the Collegio 

 Romano) has just issued the third part of a most useful serie-, 

 forming one volume of 282 pp., imperial 8vo. (Imprimerie 

 Heritiers Botta, Rome, 1879), which vfill be of great service to 

 meteorologists generally. They contain a translation, in French, 

 of all the Reports (»'« extenso or abridged) prepared upon the 

 different questions comprised in the Programme of the Second 

 International Meteorological Congress held at Rome in April of 

 this year, together with many other papers communicated to the 

 Congress. The work has been undertaken with the view of 

 presenting to meteorologists, not only the whole of the questions 

 which have been discussed by the Congress, but also the ensemble 

 of the experiments and documents which have formed, so to 

 speak, the basis of each discussion, and which represent, at the 

 same time, the opinion of the distinguished men from the whole 

 of Europe upon the most important points of international 

 meteorology. The translation has been carried out under the 

 able superintendence of Prof. Guido Gras i, director of the 

 Roman Central Office, and we congratulate that office upon the 

 careful translation of the reports from the various languages 

 and upon their speedy issue in one convenient volume. 



Our readers will be pleased to learn that Prof. Huxley's 

 Introductory Primer to Macmillan's series of Science Primers 

 will probably be published during the autumn ; a considerable 

 portion of it is already in type. 



The inauguration of Arago's statue will have the Iclat of a 

 national y?/^. The Municipal Council of Paris, of which Arago 

 was an active member during Louis Philippe's reign, «ill send a 

 deputation. The Bureau des Longitudes, the Observatory of 

 Paris, and the Academy of Sciences, institutions which for years 

 owed their lustre to the great Arago, are sending special represen- 

 tatives delegated for the purpose. M. Etienne Arago, the younger 

 brother of the departed astronomer, a dramatic author, and M. 

 Emmanuel Arago, his son, an influential member of the Senate, 

 will be present at the ceremony, and will deliver addresses. 



As will be seen from our British Association Reports 

 the Zoological Station at Naples has undertaken the publi- 

 cation of a new Zoological Record, in which equal attention 

 will be paid to all departments of zoology. A large staff 

 of zoologists of various nationalities will act as recorders, 

 under the editorship of Prof. J. V. Carus, of Leipzig; and 

 the first volume, dealing with the literature of the current 

 year will appear in 1880. All those engaged in zoological work 

 on any group of. the animal kingdom are invited to send a copy 

 of their papers to Prof. J. V. Carus, Leipzig, Querstrasse, 30; 

 and to write on the address "for the Jahresbericht." Papers so 

 sent will be distributed by Prof. Carus amongst the recorders, 

 and after being abstracted for the Record, will be deposited in 

 the library of the Zoological Station at Naples. 



The St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists has undertaken the 

 publication of a complete Ornithology of Northern Russia. 

 All who possess any data on that subject, or collections of birds, 

 are requested to communicate them to " the St. Petersburg 

 Society of Naturalists, at the University of St. Petersburg." 



M. Dokuchaieff, who was sent by the St. Petersburg 

 Society of Naturalists for the exploration of the river and lacus- 

 trine quaternary deposits on the banks of the Oka, has dis- 

 covered at the confluence of this river with the Frubesh, an 

 immense quantity of stone implements. The dunes on the banks 

 of the Oka in the neighbourhood of Kasiraov town have also 



yielded a good many remains of prehistoric man. But the spot 

 richest in remains is undoubtedly that five miles distant from 

 Moorom town, where M. Dokuchaieff has found a remarkable 

 variety of stone arrows, knives, and needles. As to the pieces, 

 of wood which are very common in the blue clays of fluvio- 

 lacustrine origin, and which were considered as remains of 

 lacustrine dwellings, these are simply remains of forests which 

 furmerly covered all these deposits. 



Mr. Crookes' admirable set of instruments for exhibiting the 

 properties of radiant matter will be lectured upon at the Sor- 

 bonne at the beginning of next October, at the inauguration of 

 the Autumn term of the Academy of Sciences. 



On October 6 next, a new Polytechnic Institution will be 

 inaugurated at Hanover. The new building has recently been 

 completed, and no cost has been spared to render it worthy to 

 rank amongst the most complete and extensive buildings of the 

 kind. Deputations from all the other polytechnic high school 

 of Germany will participate in the inauguration-festivities. 



The death is announced of Dr. Otto Funke, Professor of 

 Physiology at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau (Baden). 

 Dr. Funke was an eminent physiologist, and lived at Leipzig for 

 many years previous to his call to Freiburg, He died on 

 August 16, at the age of fifty-one years. 



The Congress of German Viticulturists is now meeting at 

 Coblenz, and is discussing a number of viticultural questions of 

 importance, including, of course, the much-ventilated phylloxera 

 question. At the same place a meeting of Rhenish agriculturists 

 will take place between September 7 and 10, accompanied by an 

 agricultural exhibition. 



The Zoological Section of the Westphalian Provincial Society 

 for Arts and Sciences had an interesting exhibition at the 

 Zoological Gardens of Miinster from August 17 to August 24 

 last. It consistedexclusively of invertebrate animals, illustrations 

 of their habits and specimens of their products. The exhibition 

 comprised insects (bees, beetles, butterflies, flies, grasshoppers, 

 &c.), centipedes, spiders, crustaceans, annelids, molluscs (cepha- 

 lopoda, gasteropoda, conchifera), echinoderms (holothuriiv, 

 echlnoidea, asteroidea), ccelenterata (medusa:), polyps, sponges, 

 and infusoria. Most of the animals were represented in living 

 as well as preserved specimens. 



During the second week in August the German Anthropolo- 

 gical Society met at Strasburg, under the presidency of Prof. 

 Fraas. 164 members were present. Amongst the numerous 

 interesting papers read we notice the following : — On the pre- 

 historic map of Southern Germany and Eastern France, by 

 Herr von Troeltsch ; Professors Oehlenschlaeger (Munich) and 

 Waguer (Karlsruhe) spoke on the same subject ; Prof. Schaaff. 

 hauten (Bonn) lectured on skull measurements; Dr. Much 

 (Vienna), on prehistoric traces of copper-mining ; Prof. KIop- 

 fleisch (Jena), on his own excavations in Thuringia ; a specially 

 interesting papers was that by Ilerr Fischer (Freiburg), on the 

 method of determining the age of stone weapons and utensils. 

 Other papers were read by Dr. Gross (Naefels), on the 

 pile-dwellings in the Biel Lake ; Dr. Krause (Hamburg), on 

 artificial alterations of the skulls of the natives of the New- 

 Hebrides ; Dr. Mehlis (TUckheim), on the excavations at Lim- 

 burg ; Dr. Hook, on the stone age in Egypt. The next meeting 

 of the Society will take place at Berlin, under the presidency of 

 Prof. Virchow. 



The International Society for the prevention of the pollution 

 of rivers, the soil, and the atmosphere, will hold its third meeting 

 at Baden-Baden on the i6th and 17th inst. 



At Rome a new Society for furthering the introduction of 

 cremation was formed on August 12 last. Many eminent medical 

 men are members. 



