6o 



NA TURE 



[May 20, 1897 



H. V. Carter, for many years professor of anatomy and phy- 

 siology in the Grant Medical College at Bombay ; Mr. Walter 

 Rivington, author of a large number of papers on anatomical 

 and surgical subjects, and Fellow of the University of London ; 

 Dr. Traill Green, formerly professor of chemistry at Lafayette 

 College ; Dr. E. Russow, formerly professor of botany at 

 Dorpat ; Dr. Ch. Scholz, professor of geodesy in the Polytech- 

 nikum at Delft ; and Dr. Traill Green, one of the few surviving 

 founders of the American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, first president of the American Academy of Medicine, 

 and author of the "Floral and Zoological Distribution of the 

 United States." 



At the Royal Institution, on Tuesday, May 25, Dr. Ernest 

 H. Starling will begin a course of three lectures on "The 

 Heart and its Work." The evening discourse on Friday, 

 May 21, will be delivered by Lord Kelvin, his subject being 

 " Contact Electricity of Metals." The Friday evening dis- 

 course next week (May 28), will be delivered by Prof. H. 

 Moissan (Directeur, Laboratoire de Chimie Minerale a I'Ecole 

 Superieure de Pharmacie, Membre de I'Academie des Sciences, 

 Paris), who will lecture in French on "The Isolation of 

 Fluorine " (with experiments). On Friday, June 4, Mr. W. 

 H. Preece, C.B., F.R.S., will lecture on " Signalling through 

 Space without Wires"; and on June 11, Mr^ William Crookes, 

 F.R.S., will deliver the last of the Friday evening discourses 

 for the year : his subject will be " Diamonds." 



The Board of Agriculture have issued an order which pro- 

 hibits the importation of dogs into Great Britain from any other 

 country (except Ireland and the Isle of Man) otherwise than in 

 accordance with certain provisions set forth. The order takes 

 effect on September 15, 1897. After that date no dog may be 

 landed in Great Britain from any othercountry without a licence 

 from the Board of Agriculture, application for which is to be 

 made to the Secretary of the Board. We agree with the British 

 Medical Journal that this action of the President of the Board 

 of Agriculture must be regarded as a step in the right direction. 

 Any scheme for the extermination of rabies and its dependent 

 hydrophobia which does not deal with importation of dogs must 

 be incomplete. It is pointed out, however, that if simultaneous 

 action as to the enforcement of muzzling and importation 

 regulations be not taken in Ireland, it is to be feared that the 

 present attempt to exterminate rabies from Great Britain may 

 fail. A general muzzling order and the present importation 

 order should now be made applicable to Great Britain and 

 Ireland ; for, without further assurance of freedom from rabies 

 than can now be given, it cannot be regarded as absolutely safe 

 to introduce without restriction dogs from one part of the 

 United Kingdom to another. 



The provisions of the new Dingley Tariff Bill, taxing books, 

 apparatus, and antiquities imported into the United States, 

 raised such a storm of protests from scientific men and institu- 

 tions of learning, that they appear to have been abandoned ; for 

 we learn from Science that the Tariff Bill, as amended by the 

 Senate. Finance Committee, includes the following additions, 

 among others, to the list of objects which may be imported free 

 of duty : books, maps, music, engravings, photographs, etchings 

 and charts, printed more than twenty years before the date of 

 importation ; all hydrographic charts and scientific books 

 devoted to original scientific research, and publications issued 

 for their subscribers by scientific and literary associations, or 

 publications of individuals for gratuitous private circulation, and 

 public documents issued by foreign Governments ; books, maps, 

 &c., especially imported, not more than two copies in any one 

 invoice, for the use of any society or institution established solely 

 for religious, philosophical, educational, scientific or literary 

 purposes, or for the encouragement of the fine arts, or for the 

 NO. 1438, VOL. 56] 



use of any college, school or public library, and not for sale ; 

 paraffin, philosophical and scientific apparatus for schools, 

 libraries and societies ; professional books, implements and 

 instruments, and tools of trade or occupation in the actual 

 possession at the time of persons arriving in the United States. 



At the Leathersellers' Hall on Wednesday, May 12, a large 

 company assembled at a conversazione ; the Master, Dr. W. H. 

 Perkin, F.R.S. , and Wardens receiving the guests. The 

 numerous and varied nature of the exhibits added great interest 

 to the occasion ; and not only were scientific discoveries, mostly 

 of recent date, shown, but the industry associated with the name 

 of the Conipany was well illustrated. Several very interesting 

 objects were also sent from the different branches of the City 

 and Guilds Institute, a creation of the City Companies of which 

 they may well be proud. The following is a brief summary of 

 the exhibits : — Specimens illustrative of the manufacture of 

 coal-tar colouring matters, and their application. Dr. W. II. 

 Perkin. Among Prof. Ayrton's exhibits may be mentioned an 

 ingenious water model illustrating the retardation of signals in a 

 submarine telegraph cable, a mechanical model illustrating the 

 principle of duplex telegraphy, and some instruments employing 

 the magnifying spring devised by Profs. Ayrton and Perry. Prof. 

 Roberts-Austen exhibited an electric furnace in operation, throw- 

 ing an image of the interior on a screen. A most interesting 

 collection of specimens of artistic bookbindings was exhibited by 

 Mr. H. B. Wheatley. Photography in colours, and various 

 processes of photographic reproduction were largely represented. 

 Sir H. T. Wood exhibited illustrations of the Dansac-Chassagne 

 process of colour photography. The Autotype Company showed 

 various pictures reproduced by their process, and Mr. Ives gave 

 lantern demonstrations of the Kromskop. Other exhibits in- 

 cluded specimens from the Leathersellers' tanning and dyeing 

 school ; maps, diagrams, &c., made by the boys in Colfe's school, 

 which is under the management of the Company ; specimens in 

 illustration of research work now in progress in the chemical 

 department of the Central Technical College, and several others 

 too numerous to mention in this brief summary. 



Two young oak-trees were planted on May 11, at Cowthorpe, 

 near Wetherby, to commemorate the celebrated tree which 

 stands there still, but is greatly decayed, and may not endure 

 much longer. The old tree, as every one knows, girths more 

 than fifty feet, and is in that respect probably the largest oak 

 in the world. The young oaks have been raised from acorns 

 taken from the old tree by Mr. John Clayton, of Bradford, in 

 1893. The late Mr. Montagu, of Ingmanthorpe, approved of 

 this method of perpetuating the memory of the wonderful tree. 



Prof. John Milne, F.R.S. , has sent us a list of ninety- 

 three earthquakes observed by him at Shide, Isle of Wight, 

 from June 14, 1896, to March 1897. The Greenwich mean 

 time of each disturbance is given, and the character and in- 

 tensity of each record is stated. 



In the Annales de la Societi Beige de Microscopie, M. A. 

 Lemeere records the results of an experiment in establishing a 

 "peripatetic laboratory" for the zoological and botanical 

 students of the University of Brussels during the summer 

 vacation. 



We learn from the American Naturalist that President 

 Cleveland had, by proclamation, set apart thirteen new forest 

 reserves in the United States, representing an area of more than 

 21 million acres. This increases the total reserve forest land 

 in the West to 39 million acres. The new reserves include all 

 the central portion of the Black Hills of South Dakota, the Big 

 Horn Mountain Range in Wyoming, the Jackson Lake country 

 south of the National Park in Wyoming, all the Rocky Mountains 

 of Northern Montana, a valuable forest region in Northern 



