322 



NATURE 



[August 5, 1897 



It is announced in Die Natur that Prof. Rudolf Leuckart, 

 the Nestor of German zoologists, has been made a knight of 

 the Order pour le merite in science and art by the German 

 Emperor. The same distinction has been conferred upon Prof. 

 Karl Neumann, professor of mathematics at Leipzig, 



Mr. S. p. Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 was present at the meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences on 

 Monday. In the course of a few remarks upon his experiments 

 in mechanical flight, which he made at the invitation of the Pre- 

 sident, Mr. Langley said he had greatly enlarged the distance 

 which his aeroplanes would run, without much altering his 

 -apparatus. He will shortly publish a detailed account of all he 

 'has done upon the subject. 



What is believed to be the largest Land Tortoise now living in 

 the world has been lately deposited in the Zoological Society's 

 Gardens by Mr. Walter Rothschild. It is about 4 feet 7 inches 

 dn total length, and 2 feet 10 inches in breadth, and weighs 

 about 5 cwt. As regards weight, however, the animal is in 

 .poor condition and will probably " put on flesh " when carefully 

 fed. This tortoise belongs to the species called Testiido daudini 

 by Dumeril and Bibron, which is figured on the fifth plate in Dr. 

 Glinther's well-known nrjemoir on Gigantic Land Tortoises. It 

 was originally brought from the Aldabra Islands in the Indian 

 Ocean, though it is said to have been kept elsewhere in captivity 

 for the last 1 50 years. 



The King of Siam, who arrived in this country on Friday 

 .last, paid a visit to the Kew Gardens on Sunday morning, his 

 ■son, Lord Harris, and several members of the Royal suite 

 accompanying him. The party was received by Mr. Thiselton- 

 Dyer, and afterwards spent some time in the inspection of the 

 'various houses and conservatories. His Majesty throughout 

 displayed the keenest interest in the ferns, orchids, and rich 

 variety of Oriental and tropical plants. Many of these he recog- 

 nised and admired, and noted from time to time that rare speci- 

 -mens of other places were in his own country grown in the open 

 air. He compared the vast and varied collection of Kew with 

 the famous gardens at Buitenzorg, in Java, with which he is 

 iamiliar, and told Mr. Thiselton-Dyer that his visit was only a 

 preliminary one, and that he should look forward to another 

 -occasion when he might inspect the treasures of Kew at greater 

 leisure. After expressing his thanks to the director the King 

 4eft the gardens. The King and his son and some members of 

 'the suite also paid a visit to Greenwich Observatory on Sunday. 



The annual meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute was 

 opened at Cardiff on Tuesday. 



At a recent meeting of the Council of the Australasian 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, letters were read 

 which had been received from the Royal Society of Tasmania, 

 the Royal Geographical Society (Melbourne branch), and the 

 Medical Society of Queensland, suggesting certain means for 

 permanently recording the services to science of the late Baron 

 von MUller, and, in view of the importance of the subject, it was 

 resolved to defer its consideration till the next meeting. The 

 acceptance of the secretaryship of the Section of Economic 

 Science and Agriculture, by Mr. R. R. Garran, was communi- 

 cated ; also that of Mr. H. C. Kent, of the Section of Engineer- 

 ing and Architecture ; and that of Dr. F. Tidswell, of the Sec- 

 tion of Sanitary Science and Hygiene. Drs. J. W. Springthorpe 

 •(Melbourne), D. Hardie (Queensland), and J. Ashburton 

 Thompson forwarded their acceptances of the office of vice- 

 president of this last Section. On the motion of Mr. G. H. 

 Knibbs, it was resolved that Profs. Liversidge, Threlfall, Has- 

 well, Mr. H. C. Russell, and Mr. Deane be deputed to form a 

 [preliminary committee to consider the question of appointing 

 NO 1449. VOL. 56] 



a reception committee to arrange for evening lectures, con- 

 versazione, a concert, excursions for scientific and other pur- 

 poses, visits to works, garden parties, conferences, &c. , and for 

 the entertainment of members during the week of session. A 

 list of papers promised was laid on the table, and the Secre- 

 tary reported that the promises of scientific contributions to the 

 various Sections were coming in most satisfactorily. 



For some little time past there has been a local agitation in 

 favour of opening Kew Gardens to the public in the mornings 

 of week-days. Two deputations waited upon Mr. Akers- 

 Douglas, First Commissioner of Works and Buildings, on 

 Friday last, to urge the desirability of the earlier opening of the 

 gardens. Mr. Akers-Douglas, however, while promising to 

 give the views of the deputations careful consideration, held 

 out no hope of their request being complied with. He said the 

 raison d'etre of the existence of Kew Gardens was the valuable 

 scientific work it did, and he could not be expected to do any- 

 thing in the way of extending the hours during which the 

 gardens were open to the general public if it would interfere 

 with that work. The financial question did not weigh with 

 him at all, for if he were convinced that the interests of science 

 would not suffer by the earlier opening he should endeavour to 

 persuade the Treasury to grant any extra money required. The 

 sole question for consideration was whether the interests of 

 science could be combined with the desire of the people for the 

 earlier opening, and he regretted to say that the scientific men 

 whose opinions he had obtained were entirely opposed to the 

 proposal. From a scientific point of view the experiment had 

 not been a success in Edinburgh, and they had no reason to 

 anticipate any better result at Kew. 



The current number of the Annates de rinstitut Pasteur 

 contains two very important communications on the etiology of 

 yellow fever, the one by Dr. Sanarelli of Montevideo, and the 

 other by Dr. Havelburg of Rio de Janeiro. Some months ago 

 Dr. Sanarelli gave a lecture in which he reviewed his researches 

 on this subject, a description of which appeared in our issue of 

 July 15 ; his present communication is a detailed account, 

 occupying eighty pages and elaborately illustrated, of his 

 investigations, and he purposes to continue their recital in a 

 second memoir at a later stage of his inquiries. Dr. Havelburg 

 has worked quite independently of Sanarelli, and has also 

 succeeded in isolating a micro-organism which he holds 

 responsible for yellow fever. He, moreover, places this 

 microbe in the group of coli and typhoid bacilli, and regards 

 it as a form intermediate between these microbes and those 

 associated with haemorrhagic septicaemia, to which it also bears 

 some resemblance. Cultures of both Sanarelli's and Havel- 

 burg's yellow fever microbes have been forwarded by their 

 respective discoverers to the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and are 

 being there submitted to a careful examination to establish their 

 identity or difference. Havelburg mentions that he was able 

 to immunise a dog against yellow fever infection so that its 

 serum protected guinea-pigs from this disease. He hopes to 

 extend his researches in this direction. 



Prof. T, R. Eraser, F.R.S., whose experiments on im- 

 munisation against serpents' venom, and the treatment of snake- 

 bite with antivenene, have been fully described in these columns 

 (vol. liii. p. 569, 1896), has made another contribution to this 

 subject. His experiments showed, among other things, that, 

 when introduced into the stomach of an animal, serpents' 

 venom produces no obvious injury, even when the quantity is so 

 large as to be sufficient to kill 1000 animals of the same species 

 and weight if the venom were injected under the skin. An 

 investigation of this remarkable fact has now proved that the 

 cause is to be found in the bile, which has such a decided 

 influence upon serpents' venom that it is sufficient in itself to 



