448 



NATURE 



[March 9, 1893 



obligation to supply information to the Ordnance Survey 

 Department in order to enable current revision to be better 

 carried on, 



20. That in future the term "revision " should be confined to 

 the bringing up to date on its existing scale of a map already 

 published, and that the term "resurvey" be applied to the 

 operations necessary for the production of maps on a scale larger 

 than that on which they were originally published. 



21. That the Ordnance Survey Department be allowed to 

 control its own supply of paper and printing material. 



22. That the map on the scale of four miles to an inch be 

 revised as soon as the i in. map is out of hand, and be com- 

 pleted with hill-shading. 



23. That great freedom be allowed to private publishers 

 desirous of bringing out other classes of maps than those 

 specially published by the Survey Department, and that trans- 

 fers of the maps on the I in. and smaller scales be supplied to 

 publishers at cost price, a small sum being paid as an acknow- 

 ledgment, and that all other reproduction of Ordnance Survey 

 maps be prohibited. 



24. That certain recommendations as to indices and catalogue 

 be carried out. 



25. That a book or pamphlet of information as to the Ord- 

 nance Survey be published, general in its main features and 

 special for each county, containing the county indices or diagrams 

 (on a reduced scale) and the information formerly contained in 

 the parish area books, and also the table of parish areas now 

 printed on the index of the 6 in. map, which table should in 

 future be omitted from that map, and that copies of the small 

 indices in this pamphlet be freely distributed for public infor- 

 mation. 



NOTES. 



Owing to the large demand for tickets for the Croonian Lecture, 

 which is to be delivered by Prof. Virchow before the Royal 

 Society and their friends next Thursday, it has been decided to 

 hold the meeting in the theatre of the London University, which 

 has been lent for the occasion by the kind permission of the 

 Senate. 



The public dinner which is to be given in honour of Prof. 

 Virchow will be held on March i6, after the delivery of the 

 Croonian lecture, at the Hotel Metropole. Lord Kelvin will 

 preside, and will be supported by the Presidents of the Royal 

 Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons as vice-chairmen. 



At the Nottingham meeting of the British Association, over 

 which Prof. Burdon Sanderson will preside, Lord Salisbury 

 will be nominated president of the Association for the Oxford 

 meeting in 1894. The following gentlemen have consented to 

 act as presidents of sections at Nottingham : — Section A, Mathe- 

 matical and Physical Science, Prof. Clifton, F.R.S. ; Section 

 B, Chemistry and Mineralogy, Prof. J. Emerson Reynolds, 

 F.R.S. ; Section C, Geology, Mr. J. J, H. Teall, F.R.S. ; 

 Section D, Biology, the Rev. Canon Tristram, F.R.S. ; Section 

 E, Geography, Mr. Henry Seebohm, Sec. R.G.S. ; Section F, 

 Economic Science and Statistics, Prof. J. S. Nicholson ; Section 

 G, Mechanical Science, Mr. Jeremiah Head ; and Section H, 

 Anthropology, Dr. Robert Munro. 



At the ordinary meeting of the Royal Meteorological Society, 

 to be held at 25, Great George Street, Westminster, on 

 Wednesday, the isth instant, at 7 p.m., a lecture will be given 

 by Mr. Shelford Bid well, F.R.S., on some meteorological 

 problems, which will be illustrated by experiments. 



Dr. R. Thorne Thorne, Medical Officer of the Local 

 Government Board, and Mr. H. Farnall, of the Foreign Office, 

 have gone to Dresden, the former as British delegate to the 

 International Sanitary Conference in that city, the latter as 

 assistant delegate. 



NO. I 2 19, VOL. 47] 



The students of the Royal College of Science propose to 

 hold a conversazione in the South Kensington Museum on the 

 evening of MarCh 23 next. In the course of the evening Mr. 

 Boys, F.R.S., will deliver a lecture on soap bubbles, illus- 

 trated by his own interesting experiments. The evening will be 

 further enlivened by various public singers, and a selection of 

 music will be played by the band of the Grenadier Guards. 



In reply to a question put by Sir Henry Roscoe in the House 

 of Commons on Friday last with regard to the proposed new 

 buildings for the Royal College of Science, Mr. Shaw Lefevre 

 said: — "The accommodation at the Royal College of Science 

 is now undoubtedly inadequate, and in my opinion new build- 

 ings must be undertaken at some early opportunity. Block 

 plans were drawn up in 1 89 1 by the professors of the Royal 

 College of Science, showing a suggested appropriation of the 

 land on the south side of the Imperial Institute Road, for the 

 purposes both of the Royal College of Science and of the Science 

 Museum, and these plans were submitted to the Office of Works ; 

 but that Department pointed out that it would be premature for 

 them to consider the plans until the Science and Art Depart- 

 ment had obtained the sanction of the Treasury to an organisa- 

 tion of their teaching and exhibition establishments on the scale 

 contemplated in the plans. I understand that the Science and 

 Art Department are now in communication with the Treasury 

 in this sense." Sir H. Roscoe having asked when the report 

 from the Science and Art Department would be issued, Mr. 

 Shaw Lefevre said it was not in the nature of a report that could 

 be issued to Parliament, but he should be happy to show it to 

 the hon. member. 



Last week a meeting, convened by the Duke of Westminster 

 as president of the Royal Agricultural Society, was held at 12, 

 Hanover Square, to consider the best means of commemorating 

 the completion of the first half-century of the agricultural experi- 

 ments which have been continuously carried on by Sir John 

 Lawes at Rothamsted since the year 1843, The Prince of 

 Wales presided. On taking the chair his Royal Highness 

 stated the objects of the meeting. The Rothamsted experiments 

 had from the commencement been entirely disconnected with any 

 external organisation and had been maintained at the sole cost 

 of Sir John Lawes. For the continuance of the investigations 

 after his death Sir John had recently made the munificent 

 endowment of ;f 100,000, besides the famous laboratory and 

 certain areas of land, and had nominated some of the most dis- 

 tinguished men of science of the day to administer the trust. In 

 view of all these facts, and the great national importance of the 

 Rothamsted experiments, it was only fitting that some public 

 recognition should be made of the invaluable services rendered 

 to agriculture by Sir John Lawes and his distinguished colleague, 

 Dr. Gilbert. The Duke of Westminster said they all hoped 

 that Sir John might live for many years to continue to carry on 

 these experiments for the benefit of agriculture. He had great 

 pleasure in proposing the following resolution : — "That, having 

 regard to the great national importance of the series of experi- 

 ments which have been carried on at Rothamsted during the 

 last fifty years, it is desirable that some public recognition should 

 be made of the invaluable services thus rendered to agriculture 

 by Sir John Lawes, and also by Dr. Gilbert, who has been 

 associated with the experiments during the whole period. That, 

 with this object, subscriptions, to be limited to two guineas, be 

 invited from all interested in agriculture, whether scientific or 

 practical." Mr. Thiselton-Dyer, F.R.S., seconded the resolu- 

 tion — not as an agriculturist, but as one officially and all his life 

 deeply interested in everything that was concerned with botanical 

 science. The extraordinary merit of the work carried on at 

 Rothamsted lay in the fact that those experiments had been con- 

 tinuously carried on under uniform conditions for so long a 



