322 



NA TURE 



[August 3, 1893 



value of 25,000 dols. Seven lives were lost. The Arkansas 

 River for many miles was turned into a raging torrent. The 

 buildings along the river, comprising small boarded shanties, 

 tents, and houses occupied by workmen, proved an easy prey 

 to the rising waters. The storm extended over a large area, 

 and at Denver the electric street cars were prevented from run- 

 ning by the electrical disturbances. 



We are glad to see that an attempt is being made to bring 

 together members of the Royal and learned societies by the 

 formation of a club in which membership will be limited exclu- 

 sively to presidents, members of council, fellows, and members 

 of the principal Royal and learned societies of the United 

 Kingdom, India, and the colonies, academicians and associates 

 of the Royal Academies, together with the presidents, members 

 of convocation, council, and professors of the Universities and 

 various Royal institutions. The club has already been joined 

 by many distinguished men in science, art, and literature, and 

 forty societies are represented either by past presidents, vice- 

 presidents, presidents, and members of council. Premises 

 comprising the whole of the block No. 63, St. James's Street, 

 have been secured for the club house, which is expected to be 

 ready for occupation early in October. The temporary offices 

 are at 3, Waterloo Place, Pall Mall. Colonel W. P. Hodnett 

 is the hon secretary. 



The sixty-first annual meeting of the British Medical 

 Association commenced at Newcastle-on-Tyne on Tuesday. 

 The committee on hypnotism presented a report stating that 

 they had satisfied themselves of the genuineness of the hypnotic 

 state, but, after a discussion, the congress decided to receive the 

 report without adopting it. In the evening Prof. Philipson, of 

 Durham University, delivered an address, in which he described 

 the diseases prevalent among mining populations, and suggested 

 means by which to improve the machinery for guarding public 

 health. 



The Congress of the British Institute of Public Health met 

 on July 27 at Edinburgh, and the Presidential address was 

 delivered by Dr. Henry D. Littlejohn. On the following day 

 Mr. Ernest Hart read a paper on "Cholera Nurseries and 

 their Suppression." Mr. Hart claims to have established 

 on a basis of evidence collected from every part of Europe the 

 dicta — founded upon the original investigations by Snow and 

 Simon on the British epidemics of 1848 and 1854, and by him- 

 self and Radcliffe of the East London epidemic of 1866. i. 

 "That cholera is a filth disease, carried by dirty people to 

 dirty places, and diffused by specifically poisoned water." 2. 

 "That you may eat cholera and drink cholera, but you cannot 

 catch cholera." 3. "That cholera maybe considered for all 

 practical purposes as an exclusively water-carried disease, and 

 that it is carried only by water poisoned by human discharges." 

 Mecca is the nursery of cholera, holds Mr. Hart, and is the 

 place in which to stop it. He formulates the following steps 

 which ought to be taken to save the Mohammedans from the 

 danger caused by their pilgrimages, to save the world from the 

 danger caused by Mecca. I. The Indian sanitary services 

 should be re-organised. 2. A complete sanitary regulation of 

 all Indian fairs should be undertaken, the precautions so suc- 

 cessfully instituted at Hurdwar in 1891 being taken as a type. 

 3. A rigid system of medical inspection of all pilgrims should 

 be instituted at the ports from which they start, the sick being 

 detained and the healthy alone allowed to proceed. This, it 

 may be added, would be all the more effectual in regard to 

 Indian ports from the fact that a second weeding out of the 

 infected can take place at Camaran. 4. The medical inspection 

 at Camaran should be so conducted as to ensure its complete 

 efficiency. A large number of communications were read in the 

 various sections, but the majority of them were not of general 



NO. 1240, VOL. 48] 



scientific interest. The congress was brought to a close on the 

 afternoon of July 31. 



In the August number ot the Entomologist's Monthly 

 Magazine Lord Walsingham gives a description of the manner 

 in which the late Mr. Stainton's collection of Lepidoptera have 

 been disposed by the Trustees of the British Museum to whom 

 they were presented. The collection is now accessible to 

 students at the Natural History Museum. With regard to a 

 large cabinet containing a great number of European and 

 exotic Tineidae, Lord Walsingham writes : "It has been deter- 

 mined, after making an inventory, to keep the contents of this 

 cabinet for the present undisturbed, although it is hoped that 

 they may be incorporated from time to time in the future 

 together with other material : for instance, my own collection 

 (including that of the late Prof. Zeller) left by my will to the 

 Museum ; the Grote collection, still untouched as regards the 

 Tortricidae and Tineidae ; and the Frey collection, lately 

 purchased by the trustees." 



In a letter to the Times the Vicar of Selborne solicits sub- 

 scriptions in order to supply water to the village from the well- 

 head eulogised by Gilbert White. The sum required to do 

 this is only ;^300, of which about ;^30 has been collected. A 

 Selborne water supply would be an excellent memorial to 

 White, and there should be little difficulty in raising the nr.odest 

 amount which would lead to its realisation. 



The Institution of Mechanical Engineers opened its summer 

 meeting, on Tuesday, at Middlesbrough, under the presidency 

 of Dr. W. Anderson, and a discussion took place on recent de- . 

 velopments in the Cleveland iron and steel industries. 



A MEETING of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union will be 

 held at Hellifield on August 7, for the investigation of the 

 valley of the Ribble from Gisburn to Sawley Abbey. 



It must be gratifying to writers in English journals of science 

 to know that their literary labours are read and appreciated on 

 the other side of the Channel. The current number of a 

 French scientific journal of some standing contains trr.nsla- 

 tions of two articles that have appeared in these columns, 

 running altogether into nearly six pages. There are also 

 eight notes which have the same derivation. Every one knows 

 that the code of journalistic ethics is more respected in the 

 breach than the observance, yet it is rarely that one journal 

 reprints an article which has appeared in another without 

 acknowledging the original source. However, even the 

 briefest form of acknowledgment is omitted in the case of 

 the articles and notes to which we have referred. This is 

 probably unintentional, for no editor with any regard for 

 the reputation of his journal would purposely omit reference to 

 his contemporary, though he might, of course, overlook the 

 omission. 



Though the feathered tribe of St. James's Park pass an 

 existence remarkably free from danger, their lives are not 

 without vicissitudes, if one may judge from a letter by Mr. T. 

 Digby Pigott to the Times. It appears that on July 8 a dab- 

 chick's nest broke from its moorings in the dipping boughs of 

 a black poplar, and drifted into the open. For twelve days 

 the hen bird, who was sitting on tlie nest at the time of the 

 accident, was buffetted about on the waters, yet she remained 

 at her post. Her constancy received a reward which she 

 doubtless regarded as sufficient recompense for all the anxiety, 

 for she floated safely back to the place where her raft was 

 built with two newly-hatched balls of down on her back. 

 Was there ever a dabchick that had such a happy return from 

 so long and adventurous a voyage ? 



A VIOLENT sandstorm occurred at Biirwalde, Pomerania, in 

 the afternoon of April 30 last. A correspondent writing to Das 

 Wetter ior June states that after a fairly bright morning, with a 



