November 19, 1891] 



NATURE 



6.S 



other, at Huelva, will be called the Exposition Historique Euro- 

 peenne de Madrid. The former should have considerable interest 

 for anthropologists, as it has for its object, according to the official 

 programme, " de presenter de la maniere la plus complete I'etat 

 oil se trouvaient les differentes contrees du Nouveau-Continent 

 avant I'arrivee des Europeens et au moment de la conquete, 

 jusqu'i la premiere moitie du XVIP siecle." It will comprise 

 objects, models, pictures, &c., illustrating the customs and 

 civilization of the peoples at that time inhabiting America. 



We greatly regret to have to record the death of Prof. Henry 

 N. Moseley, F.R.S. He died on November lo, at the age of 

 forty-six. We hope next week to give some account of his 

 services to science. 



Dr. Oscar Baumann is about to undertake a series of ex- 

 plorations in the interest of the German East Africa Company. 

 In the German Masai territory there are, he says, in a letter to 

 Globus, many regions about which little is known ; and about 

 these he hopes to bring back much fresh light. He proposes to 

 study the conditions which must be taken into account by pro- 

 jectors of railways, and, if possible, to open a direct caravan 

 route to Lake Victoria. 



In the course of his interesting presidential address at the 

 meeting of the Institution of Civil Engineers last week, Mr. 

 Berkley referred to the production of iron in the United States. 

 The most conspicuous difference between American and 

 English practice, he said, was the output from one blast 

 furnace. The largest production in Great Britain did not 

 seem to exceed 750 tons in the week, while in America it 

 had reached 20CO tons. It might be questioned whether this 

 large output from a single furnace was not obtained at some 

 sacrifice of economy of fuel used and of wear and tear of 

 furnace. The production of pig- iron in the United States now 

 amounted to 10,000,000 tons, or 2,000,000 tons more than that 

 of the United Kingdom. This amount was wholly used within 

 the country, showing a larger quantity of iron used per head of 

 the population (300 pounds) than in any other part of the world. 

 In Great Britain, after deducting from its production of iron 

 the quantity exported, the consumption only equalled 250 pounds 

 per head of the population. 



The lecture season at the London Institution, Finsbury 

 Circus, was opened on Monday evening with a lecture by Sir 

 M. E. Grant Duff on " Some of our Debts to the East." 



The barometric depression on November il, according to 

 Mr. G. J. Symons, has been exceeded only five times in the 34 

 years during which he has been making meteorological observa- 

 tions. In a letter to the Times Mr. Symons says that as he 

 anticipated some such depression, he started the Richard 

 brontometer at 6.30 a.m., and kept it running for 10 hours — 

 i.e. through the chief part of the depression. This, at the cost 

 of a little trouble and a roll of paper, gave him a record of the 

 motion of the barometer such as had never before been obtained 

 —somewhere about 60 feet long— and with every little pulsation 

 shown in detail, even if it lasted only two seconds. 



We have received the meteorological year-book published 

 by the Madgeburg Zeihmg for 1890, being the tenth year for 

 which the observations have been made on a uniform plan. In 

 addition to observations taken three times daily, the volume 

 contains hourly values of pressure and wind, and continuous 

 records of sunshine ; also, curves of pressure and temperature 

 for those periods of exceptional weather during which the 

 ordinary hourly values would fail to represent the details of the 

 oscillations — a plan which seems highly commendable. The 

 whole work is very complete and compact. 

 NO. 115 I, VOL. 45] 



The Deutsche Seewarte has publi.>-hed a catal(^e of its 

 valuable library, containing entries of 10,660 works and 

 excerpt papers in various subjects, about a quarter of which 

 refer to meteorology. The library has been enriched by the 

 acquisition of the books which formerly belonged to Prof. Dove 

 and other eminent men. This laborious undertaking has been 

 carried out with great care, and is classified under subjects and 

 authors. Some difficulty has been experienced in dealing with 

 a few English authors ; e.g., on p. 67, Balfour Stewart is entered 

 under the Christian name, and on p. 160, Powell is entered as 

 the Christian name of Baden-Powell. And the works issued by 

 institutions are not always sufficiently distinguished from those 

 which are due to individual writers ; e.g., on p. 5, Sir Thomas 

 Farrer is credited with a work on ** Telegraphic Weather In- 

 formation " — of which, probably, he would have no recollection, 

 it being merely a circular signed in his capacity as Secretary of 

 the Board of Trade. But these are mere trifles, and in no way 

 detract from the value of the work as a whole, for which the 

 scientific world will be grateful. 



Mr. Albert Koebele, the American entomologist, is 

 travelling in the Australasian colonies for the purpose of study- 

 ing the enemies of insect pests. In introducing him to the 

 Wellington Philosophical Society at a meeting on September 23, 

 Sir James Hector recalled the circumstances connected with a 

 memorable service which Mr. Koebele lately rendered to Cali- 

 fornia. In 1888, when on a visit to South Australia in search 

 of a small fly (Testophonus), a parasite on that dreadful pest 

 Icerya purchasi, Mr. Koebele discovered a single ladybird 

 (Vedalia) preying on the pest. He found a second specimen in 

 New South Wales, and then on his arrival in New Zealand he 

 found that the Icerya about Auckland was also being destroyed by 

 something, and this, too, turned out to be Vedalia. Heat once 

 saw that here was the thing he sought, and he was fortunate 

 enough to be able to collect several thousands of Vedalias, 

 which he afteiwards liberated in California. Up to that time 

 California had been so eaten up by Icerya that the damage was 

 estimated at twenty millions of dollars annually. Yet, in 

 twelve or fifteen months after the liberation of Vedalia in April 

 1889, the State was practically free from the dreaded pest. Sir 

 James Hector rightly characterized this work of Mr. Koebele as 

 one of the grandest things in the interest of fruit and tree- 

 growers that have been effected in modern times. 



Prof. G. L. Goodale, of Harvard University, has recently 

 paid a visit to the Museums and Botanical Gardens in the 

 tropics and in the southern hemisphere, and has contributed an 

 interesting description of them to the American Journal of 

 Science. In the number for October we find an account of the 

 Technological Museum at Sydney, which contains a very com- 

 plete collection of the economic vegetable products of Aus- 

 tralia, and which is largely visited by the working classes ; of 

 the two Botanic Gardens at Brisbane, one of them under the 

 management of the Society of Acclimatization ; the Botanic 

 Gardens at Geelon?, Dunedin, Christchurch, and Wellington ; 

 the Museums at Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, and 

 Auckland ; and the small but excellent local Museum and 

 Garden at Hobart. Prof. Goodale notices, with cimmendation, 

 the tenacity with which all the Australian Museums cling to 

 rare specimens of archaeological and ethnographical interest, 

 instead of utilizing them for exchange. 



Messrs. Macmillan and Co. have published the first num- 

 ber of the Record of Technical and Secondary Education, a 

 bi-monthly journal of the progress made by County Councils 

 and other local authorities in the administration of the Technical 

 Instruction Acts. The periodical is issued on behalf of the 

 National Association for the Promotion of Technical and 

 Secondary Education. Lord Hartington contributes an intro- 



