April 14, 1892] 



NA TURE 



567 



course of his travels. At the unveiling of the monument in- 

 teresting speeches were delivered by Freiherr von Richthofen, 

 Dr. Bastian, and others. 



The sixth summer meeting connected with the University 

 extension scheme at Edinburgh will take place in August, and 

 promises to be of great interest. The arrangements include 

 " a geographical and technical survey of Edinburgh and district." 

 There will also be a course on the teaching of physiology 

 and hygiene, with a series of evening lectures by prominent 

 specialists on the problems of technical education. A course 

 on sociology will be given by Prof. Geddes ; on anthropology, by 

 Prof. Haddon ; on general biology and zoology, by Mr. A. 

 Thomson ; on physiology, by Prof. Haycraft ; and on botany, 

 by Messrs. TurnbuU and Herbertson. Occasional lectures will 

 be given by a number of gentlemen, among whom will be 

 several representatives of foreign Universities. 



The Geologists' Association are to devote the Easter holidays 

 to an excursion to Devizes, Swindon, and Faringdon. 



The Geographical Section of the London Geological Field 

 Class will take their first excursion, under the personal direction 

 of Prof. H. G. Seeley, F.R.S., on the afternoon of Saturday, 

 April 23, when they will visit Reigate. Full particulars can be 

 obtained from the general secretary, R. H. Bentley, 31 

 Adolphus Road, Brownswood Park, N. 



Botanists have long been accustomed to publish sets of 

 " Exsiccati," especially of micro-fungi, which have been widely 

 distributed among specialists in the groups dealt with. Sets of 

 Coccida' prepared by Mr. T. D. A. Cockerell, the Curator of the 

 Museum at Kingston, Jamaica, are to be issued by the Institute 

 of Jamaica on much the same plan, and it is hoped that they 

 will be of service not only to students, but also to horticulturists 

 and those interested in agriculture in tropical countries, who 

 often have to contend with scale insects, which they rarely have 

 the means of identifying. The first set, including ten species, 

 all from Kingston, has already been issued. 



At the twenty-third annual meeting of the Norfolk and 

 Norwich Naturalists' Society, held on March 29, Mr. H. B. 

 Woodward, F.G.S., was elected President for the coming 

 session. Dr. F. D. Wheeler, the President, read the annual 

 address, in the course of which he stated that during the past 

 year the Society had lost by death six members, to one of whom 

 —the Rev. H. P. Marsham— it was indebted not only for the 

 register of the " Indications of Spring," begun by his great- 

 grandfather, R. Marsham, F.R.S., of Stratton Strawless, in 

 1736, and continued with only one break to the present time, 

 but also for the letters of Gilbert White to that gentleman, 

 printed in the Transactions for 1874-75. Dealing with the 

 subject of the gradual extinction of many of the species of Lepi- 

 doptera that once inhabited the fens. Dr. Wheeler said he 

 thought the direct action of man might in most cases be wholly 

 disregarded. Indirectly, by draining the fens, man was no doubt 

 responsible for the extinction of many of their peculiar denizens, 

 but even this cannot account for all, since some insects disap- 

 peared or became very rare without any striking change in the 

 locality they inhabited. He considered that such cases were 

 generally due to climatic causes, the insects being possibly on 

 the extreme limit of their geographical area. In some cases the 

 gradual drying of the fen might, by affecting the food-plant, 

 prove fatal in the end to the larvae feeding on it. 



At the meeting of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 

 on February 24, Mr. J. H. Maiden read a paper on Panax 

 gum. Resinous exudations have been mentioned for many 

 years as occurring in non-Australian Araliaceas, but no details of 

 composition, much less of analyses, are, it is believed, in existence. 

 NO. II 72, VOL. 45] 



A true gum has been recorded as occurring in a New Zealand 

 Panax. The author now describes true gums from P. sambuci- 

 folius van angusta, P. Murrayi, and P. elegans. They closely 

 resemble certain Acacia gums, but may be distinguished in 

 practice by slight odours of a peculiar character. 



The Meteorological Council have recently issued, in the 

 form of a preface to the Daily Weather Reports for July to 

 December 1891, a series of tables giving the monthly means for 

 pressure, temperature, and rainfall at twenty-eight stations. The 

 values are for twenty years, 1871-1890, and in the case of rain- 

 fall, for twenty-five years, 1866-90, and they will be very useful 

 for reference in various climatological questions. The tables 

 show that the mean pressure is uniformly higher over the 

 southern portion of the British Islands than over the northern, 

 but the difference is less in summer than in winter ; in April the 

 means are more uniform than in any other month. The tem- 

 perature tables give the means of the dry-bulb and wet-bulb, and 

 the mean maximum and minimum values, together with the 

 means of the latter. Taking the mean of the minimum and 

 maximum values for January and July, as representing the 

 coldest and hottest periods of the year, we find that Cambridge 

 is the coldest place, while both Loughborough and York are 

 colder than some of the Scotch stations. The hottest station is 

 London, 72"-4, and Loughborough is 7i''-5. The wettest station 

 is Valentia Island, the total fall for the year being 56-6 inches ; 

 the next wettest place is Roche's Point, where the annual fall is 

 47'8 inches. The driest station is Spurn Head, where the total 

 yearly fall is only 20*9 inches. The average yearly fall in 

 London for a quarter of a century is 2499 inches. 



Spaniards are making a good many preparations for the 

 celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of 

 the New World. In the autumn of the present year there will 

 be several E.\hibitions, in one of which will be shown objects 

 relating to the continent of America before the advent of 

 Europeans, while another will illustrate the state of civilization 

 in the colonizing countries of the Old World at the time when 

 the new continent was discovered. In October the Congress of 

 Americanists will meet at Huelva, and will discuss a variety of 

 subjects relating to the continent of America and its inhabitants 

 400 years ago. In the same month, at Madrid, a Spanish- 

 Portuguese- American Geographical Congress will meet for the 

 discussion of such questions as relate more particularly to the 

 " Iberian-American" races, their aptitude for colonization, and 

 the future of the Spanish language. 



It is expected that the diamond industry of South Africa will 

 be well represented at the Chicago Exhibition. The collection 

 from Cape Colony will include 10,000 carats of uncut stones, a 

 large quantity of very fine cut and polished ones, together with 

 all that is necessary to show the process of mining and washing. 

 For this it will be necessary to transport to Chicago 100 tons of 

 pulverized blue earth, 50 tons of unpulverized earth, and a com- 

 plete washing machine, which will be "operated "by natives. 



The first number of the Irish Naturalist has been issued, 

 and will doubtless receive a cordial welcome in Ireland, where 

 no other journal of the kind exists. It is a monthly periodical, 

 and for the present each issue will consist of only sixteen pages. 

 The paper starts with the support of all the Irish Natural 

 History Societies. 



The burial mounds of sand in Florida are rapidly disappear- 

 ing in consequence of the way in which they are disturbed by 

 treasure-seeking natives and relic-hunting tourists. Mr. C. B. 

 Moore has therefore done good service by giving in the February 

 number of the American Naturalist an account of a somewhat 

 remarkable burial mound previously unopened. It stands on 

 Tick Island, Volusia County, Florida, and is conical in shape, 

 except towards the east, where from the summit a gradual slope 



