Se^ember S, 1898 



NATURE 



461 



among them of strange men who descended from the clouds on 

 the shores of Hudson Bay. It is hoped that the report has 

 reference to Herr Andree's safety. 



Two sets of Rontgen ray apparatus are reported to have 

 been provided for the Sudan Expeditionary Force. One of 

 these, which has been taken up the Nile by Major Battersby, 

 will be established at Abadieh. Considerable difficulty and the 

 greatest care had to be exercised to get the apparatus to the 

 hospital in good order. Major Battersby has the assistance of 

 Sergeant-Major Bruce, Royal Army Medical Corps, who is 

 skilled in the manipulation of the necessary apparatus. This 

 will be the main depot for Rontgen ray work, but Lieut. 

 Iluddlestone, R.A.M.C., has taken a small outfit with 6-inch 

 coil to the front. 



The second International Sea Fisheries Congress, organised 

 by the French Society for the Promotion of Technical In- 

 struction in Matters relating to Sea Fisheries, opened at Dieppe 

 on September 2, and it appears, from a report in the Times, to 

 have dealt with questions which will help forward the movement 

 for international discussion of the numerous important problems 

 and difficulties which beset the fishing industry. The first con- 

 gress promoted by the Society was held two years ago at Sables- 

 d'Olonne, on the west coast of France. At this second meeting 

 one of the most important achievements of the congress will be 

 the nomination of an international, instead of a purely French, 

 committee for the organisation of future congresses. The total 

 muster of members attending the present congress at Dieppe 

 exceeds 300, and this number includes representatives, actually 

 present, from the following countries : — France, Sweden, 

 Norway, Great Britain, Belgium, Austria, Italy, the United 

 States, Japan, and Venezuela. The congress opened on Friday, 

 under the presidency of M. E. Perrier, professor of zoology at 

 the Paris Museum of Natural History, and member of the Con- 

 sultative Committee on Fisheries. After the president's address 

 the congress di^^ided into four sections for the discussion of 

 special topics, viz. : (i) scientific researches, under the presi- 

 dency of M. Mathias Duval, director of the fishery school at 

 Boulogne ; (2) fishery apparatus, preparation and transport, 

 under the presidency of M. Delamare-Debouteville ; (3) 

 technical education, under the presidency of M. Jacques Le 

 Seigneur, Commissioner of Marine at Granville ; and (4) fishery 

 regulations, under the presidency of M. Roche, Inspector- 

 General of Fisheries. More than forty communications dealing 

 with these subjects were submitted to the congress. 



The scientific work of Lord Rayleigh is the subject of an 

 interesting article contributed by Prof. Oliver Lodge to the 

 National Reviexv. Every active worker in the realm of science 

 is familiar with most of Lord Rayleigh's researches, but Prof. 

 Lodge's popular account of the various directions in which these 

 investigations have advanced natural knowledge will nevertheless 

 be read with interest by scientific as well as general readers. 

 *' Every subject and branch of a subject that he has taken up," 

 writes Prof. Lodge, " has been left by him in an improved and 

 clarified state, with every kind of avoidable fog or excuse for 

 such fog cleared away from it. Add to this philosophic insight, 

 consummate mathematical power, great versatility of thought, 

 and extraordinary experimental skill, and we have summed 

 up briefly the scientific equipment of Lord Rayleigh." The 

 discovery of argon brought Lord Rayleigh's name prominently 

 before the reading public two or three years ago, but the accu- 

 rate and laborious investigations which indicated the existence 

 of this gas in atmospheric air had commanded the attention and 

 esteem of men of science long before the gas was actually 

 isolated. This research was only one of a long series dis- 

 tinguished alike by extreme accuracy, clear insight, precision of 

 thought, and ingenious design. Prof. Lodge mentions that Lord 

 NO. 1506, VOL. 58] 



Rayleigh's work refers to chemical physics, capillarity and 

 viscosity, theory of gases, flow of liquids, photography, optics,, 

 colour vision, wave theory, electric and magnetic problems,, 

 electrical measurements, general energy theorems, and other 

 mathematical papers on elasticity and the like, hydrodynamics, 

 and sound. A few of the results which have gained for Lord 

 Rayleigh the admiration and gratitude of physicists are described ; 

 and though the notes are necessarily brief, they will serve to give 

 readers not in the stream of scientific thought an idea of the 

 depth and value of his work. 



A NOTEWORTHY feature in Dr. Le Neve Foster's general 

 report and statistics for the year 1897 (Part ii.), relating to 

 mines and quarries in the United Kingdom, is a number of 

 instructive diagrams showing graphically the facts tabulated and 

 described in the report. The part of the volume just published 

 as a Parliamentary Blue-book, deals more particularly with the 

 subject of accidents in mines and quarries. During 1897 there 

 were 1015 separate fatal accidents in and about all the mines 

 and quarries, more than 20 feet deep, in the United Kingdom, 

 involving the loss of 1102 lives, showing, on comparison with 

 the previous year, an increase of 1 1 in the number of accidents 

 and a decrease of 86 in the number of lives lost. It is 

 satisfactory to notice the statement that the decrease in the 

 death-rates mentioned in the two previous reports continues, 

 and that the death-rates for last year are the lowest hitherto 

 recorded. So far as explosions of fire damp or coal dust are 

 concerned the year 1897 is described as an *' annus mirabilis," 

 for the deaths by accidents from explosions formed a smaller 

 proportion of the total number of fatalities than in any pre- 

 viously recorded year, the exact proportion being only i 9 per 

 cent. An examination of the causes of these accidents brings 

 into view two striking facts — first, that most of them were due to 

 open flame, either of naked lights, of matches, or of safety 

 lamps illegally opened ; and, second, that not a single fatal 

 ignition of gas or coal dust can with certainty be ascribed to the 

 flame of an explosive in shot-firing. Falls of ground, on the 

 other hand, were responsible for 490, or one-half of the deaths. 



It will be remembered that about a year ago Prof. F. R. 

 Fraser, F.R.S., published the results of some researches which 

 showed that the bile of several animals possesses antidotal 

 properties against serpents' venom and against the toxins of such 

 diseases as diphtheria and tetanus, and that the bile of venomous, 

 or more correctly of nocuous, serpents is specially powerful 

 as an antidote against the venom of serpents. The experi- 

 ments have been extended, and the new results are stated by 

 Prof. Fraser in the British Medical Journal. The most im- 

 portant conclusions are that the bile of nocuous or venomous 

 serpents is the most powerful antidote to venom, and is 

 closely followed in efficiency by the bile of innocuous serpents, 

 while the bile of animals having no venom-producing glands 

 — as man and the ox, pig, and rabbit — while definitely anti- 

 dotal, is less so than the bile of innocuous serpents, and 

 much less so than the bile of nocuous or venomous serpents. It 

 is remarkable that the bile of one species of venomous serpent 

 may actually be a more powerful antidote against the venom of 

 another species than is the bile produced by this species, and 

 that there is no direct correspondence between the toxic activity 

 of the venom produced by a serpent and the antidotal power of 

 the bile of that serpent. Extending these experiments to the 

 toxins of disease. Prof. Fraser found that the bile of the 

 venomous serpents examined had more antidotal power against 

 the toxins of disease than the bile of the majority of non- 

 venomous animals. It is noteworthy that among the non- 

 venomous animals, the rabbit produced a bile definitely superior 

 to the others in antidotal quality against not only toxins but also 



