542 



NATURE 



[Oct. 2, 1879 



gentlemen have been appointed the first lecturers :— Preventive 

 Medicine— Dr. B. W. Richardson, F.R.S. ; Practical Sanitary 

 Science : [a) Medical and Chemical— Prof. Covfield ; (b) En- 

 gineering and Constraction — Capt. Douglas Gallon, R.E., C.B., 

 F.R.S. Jurisprudence and Sanitary Law— Mr. W. H. Michael, 

 Q.C., F.C.S. It is proposed that each session should occupy 

 about twelve lectures, and the course will embrace the subjects 

 included in the examinations of the Sanitary Institute of Great 

 Britain and other examining bodies. The school will be open 

 to all classes and to persons of either sex. 



The Social Science Congress was opened at Manchester 

 yesterday, under the presidency of the Bishop of Manchester. 



We record with sincere regret the death of Mr. Henry 

 Negretti, the well-known optician, and inventor of the deep- 

 sea thermometer to which his name is attached. Mr. Negretti 

 died on Wednesday last week at the age of sixty-two years. 

 What his inventive genius did for the work of scientific research 

 many of our readers know. His death is a real loss to science, 

 as it will be to many who had substantial cause to know the 

 depth of his generosity. 



Mr. R. J. UssHER, the explorer of the Pleistocene caves near 

 Cappagh, Co. Waterford, has added to his discoveries a "sub- 

 marine crannog." This is a new feature in reference to the 

 Irish lake dwellings ; for although some of them were known to 

 be of very ancient date yet no trace of them had been recorded 

 from the submerged bogs. 



The commemoration of the eighteenth centenary of the destntc- 

 tion of Pompeii — rather a strange event on which to hinge a 

 celebration of any kind— appears to have been a great success. 

 It attracted a large concourse of visitors, for whose delectation 

 several excavations were made, and innumerable objects of 

 great interest brought to light. One house excavated seems to 

 have been a bird -seller's shop, judging from the small bones 

 found, the little drinking vessels, and the quantities of millet 

 and hemp seed, and what looked like small beans. The memor. 

 able feature of the commemoration, however, is the volume 

 issued by the Directorate of the Museums of Naples. The 

 eminent astronomer. Prof. Palmieri, contributes a paper on 

 Vesuvius in the times of Strabo and Spartacus, and on the 

 changes it underwent a.d. 79. The Chevalier Ruggiero dis- 

 courses effectively on the eruption itself, and Signor Scacchi 

 describes the houses demolished by lightning. The other 

 fifteen contributions which complete the volume treat of every 

 aspect of the public and private life of Pompeii. 



The second part of the magnificent " Herefordshire Pomona," 

 brought out by the Woolhope Club, has been issued. We are 

 pleased to hear that the work has been so successful that the 

 club have resolved to increase the size of the parts, so as to 

 complete the work as soon as possible. To the present part Dr. 

 Bull contributes a curious and interesting paper on "Modern 

 Apple Lore," as also "A Sketch of the Life of Lord Scudamore," 

 with a very fine large portrait ; and Sir H. E. C. Scudamore 

 Stanhope a paper "On the Cordon System of Growing Pears." 

 The part contains many plates of exquisitely coloured illustra- 

 tions of varieties of apples and pears. 



The Engineering Laboratory, in connection with the Techni- 

 cal Department of University College, was opened to students 

 yesterday. A private view to representatives of the press was 

 given on Tuesday afternoon. The faculties of Arts and Laws 

 and of Science were opened yesterday by an Introductory address 

 by Prof. Charles Graham on Technical Education. 



In a paper on Experimental Determination of the Velocity of 

 Light, read at the Saratoga meeting of the American Association 

 by Mr. A. A. Michelsen, of the U.S. Navy, the authorconcludes 

 as the result of an elaborate series of experiments, that the 

 velocity of light in vacuo is 299,828 kilometres per second. See 

 Nature, vol. xviii. p. 195. 



General Myeb, the, chief officer of the U.S. Signal Office, 

 has issued the first number of a French edition of the meteoro- 

 logical observations taken at the several meteorological stations- 

 placed under his supervision. 



M. Angot, Professor of Physics to the Lycee Fontanes, h.T.s 

 been appointed meteorologist to the Central Bureau of Paris. 



The French Northern Railway Company posts up daily at its 

 principal stations the warnings and weather maps, issued by the 

 Central Bureau of Paris. The meteorological , news of the 

 principal sea-ports on the railw,iy system of the Company are 

 also noted. 



A meteorological station, as we announced in our last 

 impression, will be established at Mont de Mignons, in the 

 vicinity of Nice. It should be added that an agronomical 

 station will be placed in the same locality. The total expense is 

 estimated at 40,000/. 



The special Museum of Algerian industrial and natural 

 products, established in the Palais de I'lndustrie twenty years ago, 

 has been broken up. A part of it has been sent to the Museum 

 of the French Colonies at the Ministry of Marine and Colonies, 

 and the other to the Ethnographical Museum, which is being 

 fitted up at the Trocadero. 



In a small pamphlet entitled " Notes from the History of my 

 Parrot in Reference to the Nature of Language " (a reprint frou 

 the Journal of Mental Science) Dr. Samuel Wilks aims a'; 

 proving that language, in its larger sense, has its rudimentarj- 

 framework in the inferior creatures. The result of his observa- 

 tions as to the parrot's faculty of acquiring language are " that t 

 has a vocal apparatus of a most perfect kind, that it can gathe.- 

 through its ear the most delicate intonations of the human voice, 

 that it can imitate these perfectly by continued labour, and 

 finally, hold them in its memory; also that it associates these 

 words with certain persons who have uttered them ; also that it 

 can invent sounds corresponding to those which have emanated 

 from certain objects." 



The terrific hurricane which passed over Brisbane and the 

 suburbs on the night of June 23, unfortunately did some ver/ 

 serious damage in the Botanic Gardens and in the Acclimatisation 

 Society's grounds. Numbers of large trees were torn up by thi; 

 roots, and branches were scattered in all directions. At Bowe : 

 Park numerous valuable trees and plants were injured, and it will 

 take much time and labour to repair all the mischief. 



The Cilj/ Press states that it is intended shortly to present the 

 honorary freedom of the Leathersellers' Company to Prof. 

 Owen. 



By the last mail from China we learn that there has been a 

 severe earthquake in Western China, which is said to have 

 caused serious damage in the provinces of Szechuen, Shensi, 

 and Kansu. From Manila the intelligence also comes that 

 Surigao has experienced several disastrous earthquakes Avhich 

 commenced on July I. The shocks are described as even 

 stronger than that felt there in 1875. Between July I and 13. 

 beyond which latter date we have no news, no less than seventy 

 shocks had been felt. The damage to houses had been consider- 

 able, but no lives had been lost. 



Mr. E. Knipping, of Ycdo, has just published a broc/iurc on 

 the typhoons which occurred about a year ago in the China ami 

 Japan seas. Mr. Knipping has embodied in it the results of his 

 own personal experience and information, derived from the lo^s 

 of ships which were caught in the gales. 



The Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Society for 

 1878-9 contain, as usual, several papers of value. Mr. J. II. 

 Gurney describes a visit he paid to "the Gannet City," as he 

 calls the Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth. "Norfolk Decoys " 

 is an interesting paper by Mr. T. Southwell, and Mr. John 

 Cordeaux contributes "Some Recent Notes on the Avi-Fauna 



