86 



NATURE 



[May 27, 1897 



more important points can be seen under competent 

 guidance. Prof. Coleman has undertaken to conduct a 

 party interested in geology to examine the Glacial Beds 

 of the Don Valley immediately east of Toronto. Here 

 are found drift deposits more than 200 feet thick, resting 

 directly on Silurian strata, and containing an abundance 

 of fossils of extinct animal and vegetable forms which 

 point to a climate in Glacial times considerably warmer 

 than that which now obtains in the temperate zone. The 

 change in the lake level brought about since the Glacial 

 Era, is shown by the old shore-line of the ancient lake 

 ("Iroquois Water") demonstrated in these deposits, 

 which is 170 feet above the surface of the present Lake 

 Ontario. At Scarboro' Heights, a few miles further 

 east, the beds reach a thickness of 350 feet. The 

 excursion to be conducted along the course of the 

 Niagara River to the Falls will be under the guidance 

 of two geologists who have made a special study of the 

 region. The vertical walls of rock, 200 feet high, provide 

 an admirable section of the Silurian strata of the region ; 

 and the marvellous history of the Falls and the great 

 lakes and rivers of the St. Lawrence chain of waters will 

 be illustrated on the spot. 



The excursion to the Niagara region will be made on 

 Saturday, August 21, and that to the Don Valley and 

 Scarboro' Heights on August 23. 



The Muskoka Lakes Association, formed of a large 

 number of public-spirited Canadians, are making special 

 arrangements for the excursion to the Muskoka Lake 

 region. Some of the loveliest bits of scenery are to be 

 found in this locality, and a stay of a couple of days 

 (August 21-23) will constitute a very pleasant feature in 

 the programme of the meeting. Many of the members 

 who will take this excursion will be received as guests 

 amongst the members of the Muskoka Lakes Association 

 who have summer residences and camping-grounds on 

 the islands. The Muskoka Lake Navigation Company 

 have arranged for special trips of their steamers on the 

 occasion. The railway fare from Toronto to Muskoka 

 and return will probably be a nominal one. 



It is generally recognised that this will be the last 

 occasion for many years on which Canada will be 

 honoured by the visit of so many scientific men, many of 

 whom are veterans in the scientific progress of the nine- 

 teenth century, and it is felt that the opportunity should 

 not be allowed to pass without attempting in some way 

 to show the appreciation which Canadians have for the 

 services rendered by them to science. It has in conse- 

 quence been arranged to give a public banquet in honour 

 of Lord Kelvin, Lord Lister, and Sir John Evans, the 

 Presjdent-elect of the Association. The University of 

 Toronto will, to judge from present indications, hold a 

 special convocation during the meeting, at which, doubt- 

 less, a number of honorary degrees will be conferred. 



The Cataract Construction Company of New York 

 have very extensive electrical plant at Niagara Falls, 

 which generates a large part of the current which sup- 

 plies Buffalo and the neighbourhood. The Company has 

 generously invited the members of the Association to 

 inspect the plant, and it will arrange specially for the 

 reception of the members who will accept the invitation. 



The Director of the Harvard Astronomical Observatory 

 has issued a special invitation to the members of the 

 Association who are interested in astronomy, and who 

 may be in Boston, to visit the Observatory. 



The loss sustained by the .American Association in the 

 death of its President, Prof E. D. Cope, is a severe one, 

 and occurs at a critical time. Prof Cope, it is under- 

 stood, is to be succeeded by Prof Theodore Gill, senior 

 Vice-President of the Association, and there will conse- 

 quently be no interruption in the arrangements for the 

 session. The Council of the Association, at its recent 

 meeting, resolved to extend to all the members of the 

 British Association who will attend the Detroit meeting 



NO. 1439, VOL. 56] 



the privilege of honorary membership. It has also been 

 proposed that, in the interval between the Toronto and 

 the Detroit meetings, the members of the American 

 Association take an excursion trip, the terminal point of 

 which would be Toronto, and its final day August 18. 



A. B. Macallum. 



NOTES. 

 Prof. E. A. Schafer, F.R.S., is unavoidably prevented 

 from attending the forthcoming meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion at Toronto, and in his absence the duties of General Secre- 

 tary will be undertaken by Prof. W. C. Roberts- Austen, C.B., 

 F.R.S., who will also deliver one of the evening discourses, on 

 "Canada's Metals." The other evening discourse will be 

 given by Prof. John Milne, F.R.S., on " Earthquakes and 

 Volcanoes." The Council of the Association have resolved to 

 nominate Mr. W. Crookes, F.R.S.,as President for the meeting 

 to be held at Bristol next year. We have already printed 

 (March 25, p. 494) the list of the presidents of the various sections 

 of the Toronto meeting. 



At the anniversary meeting of the Linnean Society, held on 

 Monday, the gold medal of the Society was awarded to Dr. 

 Jacob Georg Agardh, Emeritus Professor of Botany at the 

 University of Lund, the distinguished algologist, and author of 

 the " Species, Genera, et Ordines Algarum," which contains the 

 first embodiment of the natural system applied to marine algae 

 as a whole. Greville, Harvey, and Kutzing, no doubt, paved 

 the way and made this task possible, but it nevertheless remains 

 a monument of research and true systematic judgment. In 1872 

 he commenced a series of memoirs, "Till AlgernesSystematik," 

 which he completed in 1890; another great work, " Florideernes 

 Morphologi," having appeared meanwhile in 1879. Ten years 

 later he published his " Species Sargassorum Australize " ; and in 

 1892, in his eightieth year, commenced a remarkable series of 

 memoirs, the " Analecta Algologica," the completion of which 

 he has happily achieved. In his unavoidable absence from 

 England, the gold medal just awarded to him was received on 

 his behalf by His Excellency the Minister for Sweden and 

 Norway. 



Prof. Felix Klein, professor of mathematics in Gottingen 

 University, has been elected a Correspondant in the Section of 

 Geometric of the Paris Academy of Sciences, in succession to 

 the late Prof. Sylvester. 



The death of Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks, K.C.B., 

 F.R.S., President of the Society of Antiquaries, will be deeply 

 regretted by all archjeologists. From an obituary notice in the 

 Times we learn that Sir A. W, Franks was born in 1826, and 

 was thus in his seventy- second year. He early developed the 

 taste for mediseval archaeology, upon which he afterwards be- 

 came the leading authority. In 1849 his "Ornamental Glazing 

 Quarries" was published, and among his other archaeological 

 works may be mendoned " Medallic Illustrations of British 

 History," and an edition of Kemble's " Horae Ferales," a 

 volume which his additions converted into a standard work. 

 He entered the British Museum as an assistant in 185 1, and 

 afterwards became Keeper of the Department of British and 

 Mediaeval Antiquities, and of Ethnography. Not only his own, 

 but other sections of the Museum, bear witness to his catholic 

 taste and great liberality. Upon his retirement from the 

 Museum, he was placed on the Standing Committee, and took 

 an active part in the work up to the time of his death. For 

 some time he was Director of the Society of Antiquaries, and 

 in 1 89 1 he was elected President of the Society for a period 

 of seven years. The Society as well as the Museum was 



