392 



NA TURE 



[August 25, il 



Societies' Club hope to have the pleasure of seeing you at their 

 house in St. James -street. 



Monday the Museum of the College of Surgeons will be thrown 

 open, and will be found well worth a visit. Mr. Rothschild 

 has also kindly invited us to see his rich museum at Tring. 



Tuesday the Duke of Bedford will show his collection of 

 Cervidse at Woburn, and there will be excursions under the 

 auspices of the Director of the Marine Biological Laboratory at 

 Plymouth, and of Prof. Herdman at Port Erin. 



I trust, therefore, that you will have a delightful and in- 

 teresting week, and that our foreign friends will carry back 

 with them pleasant recollections of their visit here, which may 

 induce them to return again in some future year. 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 

 ^'^HE preparations for the meeting in Bristol are well 

 »■ in hand, and by September 7 everything will be 

 in order for the reception of visitors. It is, of course, 

 impossible to say at present whether the meeting will be 

 a big one, but it is expected to be, and the Executive 

 Committee are prepared for any emergency which may 

 arise on this score. It is not improbable, taking all things 

 into consideration, that many will avail themselves of 

 coming to Bristol. Owing to the distance that the meeting 

 was held from London last year, some certainly could not 

 spare the time for a visit to Canada, and so will take 

 special pains to be present this year. There happen, too, 

 to be several unusual attractions. The opening of the 

 Cabot Tower, though not strictly speaking connected with 

 the Association, has been fixed for Tuesday, September 6, 

 and will no doubt influence many Canadians and other 

 American visitors to come to Bristol. The Marquess of 

 Dufiferin will perform the ceremony, and be present at the 

 dinner in the evening. The International Conference on 

 Terrestrial Magnetism will also meet during the Associa- 

 tion week, and there will also be a Biological Exhibition 

 in the Clifton Zoological Gardens, which cannot fail to be 

 of interest. Lastly, and by no means leastly, the high 

 reputation Bristol and the neighbourhood has for objects 

 of interest— geological, botanical, and archaeological — 

 together with the well-known beauty of the place and the 

 hospitality of its citizens, will induce many to attend the 

 1898 meeting, combined with the additional attraction of 

 a visit from part of the Channel Fleet. 



The reception room will be at the Victoria Rooms in 

 the large hall, and will contain the usual counters for 

 obtaining tickets, &c., post office, and conveniences for 

 writing ; this latter being in the gallery, access to which 

 is obtained by a wide staircase. The small hall will be 

 devoted to the gentlemen's smoking room, where tea and 

 coffee can be obtained. The room known as Alderman 

 • Daniel's, with two others, will be given over to the ladies, 

 the rooms being suitably furnished. The local hon. 

 treasurer and secretaries will also have their office in the 

 Victoria Rooms. 



The Directors of the Victoria Rooms Company have, in 

 reply to a request, redecorated a large part of the building, 

 so that the appearances are all that could be desired. 

 Cloak room for gentlemen, typewriting rooms, telephone, 

 and a newspaper stall are all provided. 



Luncheons can be obtained at the Grammar School, 

 hard by the Victoria Rooms, and at the premises of the 

 late Salisbury Club, which latter building will also 

 accommodate the press and General Committee at their 

 meetings. Lunch can also be obtained at several 

 restaurants near. 



In the Drill Hall will be an exhibition of pictures, 

 ancient armour, and Bristol china and other objects of 

 interest; while the band of the Royal Horse Artillery 

 will play there each afternoon from 4 to 6. In the event of 

 wet weather this place will be very convenient ; but wet or 

 fine, it will form a comfortable lounge for those who do 

 not wish to go to garden parties. 



NO. 1504, .VOL.1^58] 



The section rooms are well situated, and are mostly 

 near the reception rooms, the furthest not being any con- 

 siderable distance. 



Section A will meet in the Lecture Theatre of the 

 Museum, kindly lent by the Corporation ; Section B in 

 the British University College ; Section C in the Hannah 

 More Hall, Park Street ; Section D in the Victoria 

 Chapel Schoolroom ; Section E in the Concert Room of 

 the Blind Asylum ; Sections F and (i in the Merchant 

 Venturers' Technical College ; Section H in the Roman 

 Cathohc Schoolroom ; Section K in the Fine Arts 

 Academy. 



All the Bristol and Clifton Clubs have thrown their 

 doors open to visitors, and at the Clifton College and 

 Corporation Baths members can have an early swim it 

 they desire it. 



The presidential address and evening lectures will be 

 delivered in the Colston Hall ; the working men's lecture 

 in the hall of the Young Men's Christian Association, St. 

 James Square. 



Two conversaziones will be given : one by the Chairman 

 of the Council (the Lord Bishop of Hereford), the head 

 master of Clifton College, and Mrs. Glazebrook, at Clifton 

 College, on September 8 ; the other by the local com- 

 mittee, in the Colston Hall on the 13th. 



As well as the Cabot dinner two others will be given : 

 the Chamber of Commerce on the loth, the Master and 

 Society of Merchant Venturers on the 13th ; and a smok- 

 ing concert will be given in honour of the President at 

 the Merchant Venturers' Technical College on the 9th. 



During the week, eight garden parties will be given to 

 the members of the Association, several of the houses 

 where they are to be held having most beautiful views of 

 the Avon and Severn. As regards the usual literature 

 that will be distributed, the handbook will not be of the 

 bulky though excellent type of the 1875 one ; it will be a 

 more compact work, printed on thin but strong paper, and 

 the articles, which are written by local authorities on the 

 various subjects, as complete and full as space will 

 permit. This work was completed more than a month ago. 



The excursions guides are being framed on the lines 

 laid down by the Manchester Committee a few years 

 ago. Each of the eighteen excursions is printed as a 

 separate booklet, but all are enclosed in a stout cloth 

 cover and held by a band. The map, for only one will 

 be given, is a new one, just published by Philip, of 

 Liverpool, and will be coloured to show the geology of 

 the district. 



GLYPTIC AND GRAPHIC ART APPLIED TO 



PALEONTOLOGY} 

 'T^HE Trustees of the American Museum of Natural 

 -•■ History have undertaken a most useful work, in 

 providing casts of a number of vertebrate fossils, ob- 

 tained during recent years, from the Tertiary and Secon- 

 dary deposits of North America, many of which can 

 only be represented by this means in foreign museums. 



But they have done even more than this ; for, pos- 

 sessing on their staff men of artistic talent, as well as 

 anatomical knowledge, they have set to work and pro- 

 duced a series of models of some of the extinct monsters 

 of the Permian, Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks of 

 North America, restored by Mr. Charles Knight with 

 suggestions and criticisms by the late Prof E. D. Cope, 

 and by Prof Osborn and Dr. Wortman. These models 

 (which are on a scale suitable for a small museum or 

 lecture-table), have been executed in plaster by Mr. 

 Jacob Gommel. Only five are at present ready for dis- 



1 " Casts, Models, Photographs, and Restorations of Fossil Vertebrates," 

 Department of Vertebrate Pala;ontology, American Museum of Natural 

 History ; Central Park, New York, U.S.A. Henry F. Osborn, Curator ; 

 J. L. Wortman and W. D. Matthew, Assistant Curators. 8vo. Pp. 24 

 7 illustrations). 



