July 2 1, 1887] 



NATURE 



279 



NOTES. 



A Bill dealing with the question of technical education was 

 ^bmitted to the House of Commons on Tuesday, and read a 



St time. We print elsewhere the speech delivered by Sir \V. 

 lart Dyke in introducing the measure. 



The Report for 1886 of the Science and Art Department has 

 Bt been issued. 



The summer meeting of the Institution of Mechanical 

 jineers will be held in Edinburgh, on Tuesday morning, 

 jtUgust 2, and Wednesday morning, August 3, in the University. 



le chair will be taken at half-past nine o'clock by the President, 

 Mr. Edward H. Carbutt, in the Natural History Lecture 

 Theatre. The following papers have been offered for reading 

 and discussion, not necessarily in the order here given : — On the 

 stnicture and progress of the Forth Bridge, by Mr. E. Malcolm 

 Wood, of London ; notes on the machinery employed at the 

 Forth Bridge works, by Mr. William Arrol, of Glasgow ; on 

 tlie paraffin oil industry in Scotland, by Mr. St. John V. Day, 

 Honorary Local Secretary; description of the electric light on 

 the Isle of May, by Mr. David A. Stevenson, of Edinburgh ; 

 description of the new Tay Viaduct, by Mr. Fletcher F. S. 

 Kelsey, Resident Engineer ; on electro-magnetic machine-tools, 

 by Mr. Frederick John Rowan, of Glasgow ; on the dredging of 

 the lower estuary of the Clyde, by Mr. Charles A. Stevenson, 

 of Edinburgh ; on the position and prospects of electricity as 

 applied to engineering, by Mr. William Geipel, of Edinburgh. 

 Various excursions are being arranged, and it is desired that 

 members who propose to be present, and to accept the several 

 invitations, should let their intention be known without delay. 



The summer meetings of the Institution of Naval Architects 

 will be held at Newcastle-on-Tyne on July 26 and 28, and at 

 Sunderland on July 27. The following papers will be read 

 at Newcastle : on the application of hydraulic pressure to 

 naval gunnery, by the Right Hon. Lord Armstrong, F.R.S. 

 Vice-President, and Mr. J. Vavasseur, Associate ; recent deve- 

 lopments in marine engineering, by Mr. Frank C. Marshall, 

 Member of Council ; Tyne improvements, by Mr. P. J. 

 Messent, Engineer to River Tyne Commissioners. At Sunder- 

 land the following papers will be read : on some recent 

 experiments with basic steel, by Mr. W. H. White, Director of 

 Naval Construction, •. Vice-President ; on the present position 

 occupied by basic steel for ship-building, by Mr. B. Martell, 

 Chief Surveyor to Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign 

 Shipping, Vice-President. There will be excursions to places of 

 scientific interest in the neighbourhoods. 



Mr. Thomas Hudson Beare has been unanimously ap- 

 pointed by the Governors of the Heriot-Watt College, Edin- 

 burgh, Professor of Mechanics and Engineering in that insti- 

 tution. Mr. Beare came over to this country from Australia in 

 1880, having gained the South Australian Scholarship at the 

 University of Adelaide. He then became a student at Uni- 

 versity College, London, to which he afterwards returned about 

 three years since to be one of the principal demonstrators under 

 Prof. Kennedy in the Engineering Laboratory. 



The Geographical Society of St. Petersburg has decided 

 to send an Expedition to Turkestan for the scientific investiga- 

 tion of the earthquake at Wemy. Prof. Muschketoff, the head 

 of the Expedition, will be accompanied by five other men 

 of science, including the St. Petersburg geologist, M. W. S. 

 Dmitrewski. 



The seventh Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information, issued 

 from the Royal Gardens, Kew, contains a careful and interesting 

 paper on annatto, a colouring substance obtained from the seeds 



of Bixa Orellana. This colouring substance has long been knowi» 

 and used for various purposes. It is, however, liable to so 

 many fluctuations, and the prices generally are so low, that it 

 has never received serious attention in British colonies, and 

 hence few, if any, plantations have been exclusively devoted in 

 such colonies to the annatto plant. The annatto of commerce 

 is practically a forest product obtained from wild or semi-wild 

 plants, and the supply has only kept pace with the demand. Of 

 late years a slight revival has taken place in the use of annatto, 

 especially in America, and inquiries have in consequence been 

 made for information as regards culture and preparation. This 

 information the writer of the paper in the Bulletin supplies, and 

 his notes will be of great service to all who may wish to become 

 growers of annatto. 



On May 9 the Governor of Jamaica addressed to the 

 Governors of Barbados, the Leeward Islands, the Windward 

 Islands, and British Honduras, a letter relating to the scheme 

 for the establishment of botanical stations in some West India 

 Islands in connexion with the Botanical Department in Jamaica. 

 From this letter, which is printed in the seventh Kew Bulletin 

 of Miscellaneous Information, we are glad to learn that the 

 Government of Jamaica is prepared to adopt the proposed 

 scheme from August I, or from any subsequent date. 



Before the end of the year the great Tweeddale collection 

 and library will, it is hoped, be safely housed in the Natural 

 History Museum. This princely donation to the national col- 

 lection is the gift of Capt. R. G. Wardlaw Ramsay, to whom it 

 was bequeathed by his uncle, the late Marquess of Tweeddale. 

 With the exception of the Hume Collection it is the finest series 

 of Indian birds in existence, and is especially rich in species from 

 the Philippine Archipelago, where Mr. Alfred Everett collected 

 for some years for Lord Tweeddale. Capt. Ramsay's collections 

 from the Karen Hills, in Burmah, are also most important, 

 this being one of the few localities unworked by Mr. Hume's 

 collectors. 



The American Museum of Natural History, New York, has 

 just acquired the ornithological library of Mr. D. G. Elliot, a 

 well-known American naturalist. This library consists of about 

 1000 volumes, and is one of the most important in America. 

 Mr. Elliot has at the same time presented his collection of 

 humming-birds to the above Museum. It is, according to the 

 Auk, "represented by about 2000 specimens, and includes some 

 fifty or more types. Its importance is further enhanced from its 

 having formed the basis of Mr. Elliot's recent monograph of the 

 family. It doubtless ranks as second in the world in point of 

 completeness, or next to that of the British Museum." The 

 latter collection, however, must now contain at least 10,000 

 skins, irrespective of the Gouldian series of mounted specimens. 

 Another important addition to the American Museum is that of 

 the large ornithological collection of Mr. G. N. Lawrence, which 

 contains some 300 types. This has been purchased, and is one 

 of the chief of the private collections in America. 



The special groups, illustrating the nesting habits of British 

 birds, which have proved so attractive in the Natural History 

 Museum at South Kensington, have now been introduced into 

 the galleries of the American Museum of Natural History, and 

 twelve cases of American birds have already been mounted. 

 The cost of there effective, but expensive, groups will be de- 

 frayed by Mrs. Robert E. Stuart, and the Museum has secured 

 the services of Mrs. Mogridge, who executed the artificial flower- 

 work for the British Museum. Mrs. Mogridge is without a rival 

 in this branch of decorative art. 



The expedition made by Mr. John Whitehead to the great 

 mountain of Kina Balu, in Northern Borneo, has turned out 

 more successful than could have been foretold. In addition to 



