July 21, 1898] 



NATURE 



271 



We thus seem to be warranted in the fourth proposition. 



(4) In five-year groups having each a sunspot minimum 

 year third {or central), there are generally more cool summers 

 than hot. 



From the present point of view, then, it would appear that in 

 our climate sunspot maxima tend to be associated with a pre- 

 ponderance of mild winters and hot summers ; and minima 

 with a preponderance of severe winters and cool summers. 



The latter condition of things we should now be near ; if we 

 suppose a minimum in 1901, then we might expect at least 

 hree of the winters, 1899-1903, to be severe, and three of the 

 -ummers cool, in the sense indicated. 



A further feature may here be noticed. If we arrange the 

 summers and winters in vertical series, according as they are in 

 maximum (or minimum years) one year after maximum, two 

 years after, &c. , to the extent of five on either side, there are in 

 these vertical series, I find, only two cases of uniformity through- 

 out, viz. these : (l) All summers of minimum years have been 

 >ol ; (2) all summers in the fifth year after minima (and there- 

 I' >re near maxima) have been hot. This agrees with the fore- 

 going. A. B. M. 



Rotifers in Lake Bassenthwaite. 



If the occurrence oi Asplanchna as a conspicuous member of 

 lie pelagic fauna of lakes has not hitherto been recorded in 

 iiritain, it can only be attributed to the lack of attention in 

 liis country to the systematic investigation of our fresh-water 

 luna. On the continent of Europe and in North America, 

 Asplanchna priodonta with its variety helvetica and other 

 members of the genus are constantly recorded as among the 

 commonest constituents of the lake plankton. I have on 

 several occasions found A. priodonta in lochs near Dundee in 

 swarms similar to that described by Prof. Hickson, and I have 

 no reason to suppose that there is anything exceptional in the 

 phenomenon. Mr. John Hood, of this city, a veteran student 

 of the Rotifera, tells me that its occurrence under these con- 

 ditions has long been familiar to him. He states that the 

 domestic water supply of Dundee, which always contains a 

 variety of pelagic organisms, was on one occasion rendered 

 quite turbid by swarmS of the same species. 



It must be remembered that Hudson and Gosse's monograph 

 was written at a time when the tow-net had hardly begun to be 

 •mployed in fresh-water investigation, and that many of the 

 )mmon pelagic species were either unknown, or, like Notholca 

 'iigispina for example, very little known to the authors. 

 Prof. Hickson does not state whether any males were present 

 in the gatherings obtained by him. It is probable, as Wesenberg- 

 Lund has recently pointed out (Zool. Anz., March 7, that 

 the appearance of any one species in large numbers is an indica- 

 tion of the approach of the "sexual period," which is always 

 preceded by a period of very rapid parthenogenetic repro- 

 liiction. W. T. Calman. 



University College, Dundee, July 5. 



T//Ji STORY OF THE SMITHSONIAN 

 INSTITUTION.^ 

 T N this sumptuous volume, produced with all that 

 -*- excellence of type, paper, and illustration, in which 

 so many of the American official publications excel, the 

 story is told of how the Smithsonian Institution was 

 founded, and of the work which it has done in its first 

 half-century. 



The Smithsonian Institution, like our own Royal 

 Society, has something of a semi-official connection with 

 the Government. Without being a Government depart- 

 ment, or deriving its funds from Government, it is in 

 close correspondence with the ruling powers in re- 

 spect to scientific matters, advises them upon scientific 

 questions, administers funds voted by Congress for 

 specific scientific purposes, and in general keeps an eye 

 upon the scientific side of many national undertakings. 



It is presumably in recognition of this semi-official 

 character of the Institution, that the President of the 

 United States has written a brief but interesting preface 



1 " The Smithsonian Institution, 1846-1806. The History of its First 

 Half-Century." Edited by George Brown Goode. (City of Washington, 



•2397.) 



NO. 1499, VOL. 58] 



to the present volume. In this preface Mr. McKinley 

 recalls how, in 1796, George Washington, in his farewell 

 address to his fellow-countrymen, said " Promote, then, 

 as an object of primary importance, institutions for the 

 general diffiision of knowledge, for in proportion as the 

 structure of a government gives force to public opinion, 

 It is essential that public opinion should be enlightened" ; 

 and how, thirty years later, "an Englishman, James 

 Smithson, as though influenced by these words, be- 

 queathed the whole of his property to the United States 

 of America in trust 'to found at Washington an es- 

 tablishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge 

 among men.'" 



James Smithson, the benefactor who is thus com- 

 memorated, was born in 1765, and was known in his 

 youth as James Lewis Macie, he being in fact an 

 illegitimate son of Hugh Smithson, afterwards Duke of 

 Northumberland, by Elizabeth Macie, a cousin of the 

 Percys, who, at the time of his birth, was a widow. 



This fact of his parentage is important, not only as 

 explaitiing why James Macie subsequently took the name 

 of Smithson, and so gave its name to the Smithsonian 

 Institution, but as explaining also one strong motive 

 which influenced him in founding that mstitution ; for, 

 all his life, it seems, he smarted under a sense of in- 

 justice, and was determined that in some way he would 

 attain to fame, though excluded from hereditary rank. 

 " The best blood of England," he once wrote, " flows in 

 my veins ; on my father's side I am a Northumberland, 

 on my mother's side I am related to kings, but this 

 avails me not. My name shall live in the memory of 

 man when the titles of the Northumberlands and the 

 Percys are extinct and forgotten." 



Smithson was a student of science, and did some 

 sound scientific work. He was a Fellow of the Royal 

 Society, and contributed twenty-seven papers to the 

 Philosophical Transactions, the Annals of Philosophy, 

 and the Philosophical Magazine— papers which, in the 

 opinion of Dr. S. P. Langley, whose biographical sketch 

 of Smithson fronts this history, "give the idea of an 

 assiduous and faithful experimenter." Nevertheless he 

 did not by this path attain any such eminence as would 

 justify him in hoping for the immortality which he 

 coveted, and there can be little doubt that it was at least 

 in part his consciousness of this fact which led him to 

 follow the remaining path to fame, that of a munificent 

 benefactor to the branch of learning which he loved. 



In his later years he was a great sufferer. He lived 

 chiefly in Paris, where he cultivated the friendship of 

 Arago. From Arago's " Eulogy on Ampere " Dr. 

 Langley gives a very interesting extract, which is worth 

 quoting in full, as giving us a vivid glimpse of Smith- 

 son's declining years, and a rather touching picture of 

 Arago's friendship with him. 



" Some years since in Paris I made the acquaintance 

 of a distinguished foreigner of great wealth, but in 

 wretched health, whose life, save a few hours given to 

 repose, was regularly divided between the most interest- 

 ing scientific researches and gaming. It was a source 

 of great regret to me that this learned experimentalist 

 should devote the half of so valuable a life to a course 

 so little in harmony with an intellect whose wonderful 

 powers called forth the admiration of the world around 

 him. Unfortunately there occurred fluctuations of loss 

 and gain, momentarily balancing each other, which led 

 him to conclude that the advantages enjoyed by the 

 bank were neither so assured nor considerable as to 

 preclude his winning largely through a run of lurk. The 

 analytical formulas of probabilities offering a radical 

 means, the only one perhaps, of dissipating this illusion, 

 I proposed, the number of the games and the stakes 

 bemg given, to determine in advance, in my study, the 

 amount not merely of the loss of a day, nor that of a 

 week, but of each quarter. The calculation was found 



