104 



NA TURE 



[March 24, 1910 



German geology has sustained a serious loss by the death 

 of Dr. Emil Philippi, extraordinary professor of geology at 

 Jena, who is best known as the geologist with the German 

 Antarctic Expedition under Prof, von Drygalski. He had 

 been from 1901 to 1906, except during his absence with 

 that expedition, a privat-docent in Berlin. In 1906 he was 

 railed to Jena to succeed Prof. J. Walther as assistant to 

 Prof. Lenck. Dr. Philippi will be best remembered by his 

 contributions to the geology of the Gaussberg, beside which 

 the Gauss wintered in the Antarctic ; they and his memoir 

 on the islands visited on the voyage have been reviewed in 

 Nature. His other contributions are mainly on problems 

 connected with glacial geology. He was especially 

 interested in facetted stones, which he discovered both in 

 the drifts of north Germany and in Antarctic icebergs. 

 He seemed disposed to regard facetted stones in general 

 as due to ice work. He published in 1908 a short memoir 

 on the Upper Palaeozoic glaciation of southern Africa and 

 Australia, for which he accepted a Permian date. He 

 accompanied the Geological Congress in its excursion to 

 Mexico in 1906, and subsequently wrote an account of the 

 tectonic effects of the intrusion of the syenite porphyry of 

 Cerro Muleros. His premature death in Egypt has cut 

 short a career of great promise. 



The Premier (Transvaal) Diamond Mining Company 

 recently presented to the British Museum (Natural History) 

 an interesting series of specimens from the Premier Mine, 

 near Pretoria. The examples of diamondiferous rock 

 which come from different depths, ranging from 15 to 

 160 feet below the surface, exhibit very clearly the change 

 that takes place in the colour and texture as the depth 

 increases ; the specimen, orange in colour and powdery 

 in character, which came from the shallowest depth, is in 

 marked contrast with that, bluish and hard, which was 

 taken from the lowest depth. The series of rough 

 diamonds, eighteen in number, and nearly 9 grams, or 

 29 carats, altogether in weight, gives an idea of the 

 variation possible in the form, transparency, and colour 

 of the stones found in the mine ; thus there are a clear 

 white octahedron and a black opaque boart, a tetrakis- 

 octahedron, nearly spherical in shape, and a flat, triangular 

 twin, and yellow, pink, and brown stones. Examination 

 in polarised light shows that most of the diamonds are 

 in a state of strain. A specimen of " blue ground " out 

 of which emerges a diamond is of especial interest, because 

 it so rarely happens that the rock is split just where a 

 diamond chances to be. The series includes also speci- 

 mens of the associated minerals, pyrites, calcite, and 

 " Cape-ruby " (pyrope-garnet). 



Great efforts are being made by the committee, of which 

 Lord Desborough is chairman and Mr. C. E. Fagan secre- 

 tary, to render the British big-game section at the forth- 

 coming Vienna Sports Exhibition a success. His Majesty 

 the King, who has given directions that the skeleton of his 

 famous thoroughbred Persimmon should be sent, is taking 

 great personal interest in the matter ; and the trustees of 

 the British Museum have placed the services of a portion 

 of the staff of the Natural History Branch at South 

 Kensington at the disposal of the committee. One of the 

 special objects of this section is to exhibit a representative 

 series of trophies of the big-game animals found in the 

 British Empire (inclusive of protected States). The number 

 of such species, according to a provisional list drawn up 

 for the committee by Mr. Lydekker, is about 165, but 

 many of these are represented by two or more local races. 

 A number of sportsmen and other owners of trophies of 

 this nature have been asked to lend specimens, especially 

 NO. 2108, VOL. 83] 



those approaching or representing the " record," and the 

 replies have been, on the whole, of an encouraging nature, 

 the names of those who have promised to lend specimens 

 including the King, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of 

 Westminster, Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Chas. Lucas, and a 

 number of well-known big-game sportsmen. It is also 

 intended to exhibit specimens of the game mammals, 

 birds, and fishes of the British Isles. A photograph of the 

 picturesque building intended for the reception of the 

 British trophies appears in the Field of March 19, accom- 

 panying a letter from Lord Desborough. The main 

 difficulty is the shortness of the time available, the exhibi- 

 tion opening in May. 



When the Aerial League was founded, an excellent 

 opportunity was afforded to the British public to retrieve 

 the reputation implied in the words " England's Neglect 

 of Science "; but in an article in the Standard (March 14) 

 Captain Cave Browne Cave draws a striking comparison 

 between the support which this movement has obtained 

 and the reception accorded to similar efforts abroad. He 

 says : — " In Germany up to last year the public had sub- 

 scribed 330,oooZ. towards the building of an aerial fleet. 

 The Government has made grants amounting to 250,000/. 

 The Aerial League, founded in 1908, has attained a vast 

 membership ; a practical school of aeronautics has been 

 founded at Friedrichshafen, and a chair of aeronautics at 

 Gottingen University ; the wharves, docks, aluminium 

 foundry, hydrogen factory, and large construction yards 

 which have been built at Friedrichshafen are capable of 

 turning out six complete Zeppelins annually, while the 

 output of Gross, Parseval, and other equally successful 

 types of military dirigibles is practically unlimited. In 

 France Government lands have been placed at the disposal 

 of pioneers of flight ; great public subscriptions have been 

 raised. Prominent men like Messrs. Deutsch, de la 

 Meurthe, Basil, Zaharoff, and Archdeacon have come for- 

 ward from time to time with munificent gifts, aggregating 

 over loo.oooZ., for the foundation of aerotechnical 

 institutions, for scientific research work and tuition in aero- 

 nautics, for special prizes and the encouragement of 

 inventors. A college of advanced aeronautics has been 

 inaugurated at Paris for the theoretical and practical train- 

 ing of aviators. The French Aerial League, with a 

 membership well over 10,000, has courses of study and 

 practical work at its Juvisy flying ground. In England 

 the Aerial League has been formed, but the appeal to the 

 British people has produced little result." 



We regret to record the death, on March 6, of Mr. 

 Charles Fox-Strangways. Born in 1844 at Rewe, near 

 Exeter, where his father, a grandson of the first Earl of 

 Ilchester, was rector, Mr. Fox-Strangways was educated at 

 Eton and afterwards at Gottingen, where he studied 

 mineralogy, chemistry, and physics. In 1867 he was 

 appointed an assistant geologist on the Geological Survey 

 under Murchison, and was engaged for some years in 

 mapping parts of the Yorkshire coal-field, the country 

 around Harrogate, and a large area extending across the 

 Vale of York to the Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks of the 

 east Yorkshire moorlands, and the coast near Scarborough. 

 He was author, or part author, of several memoirs, notably 

 one on the geology of Harrogate, of which a second 

 edition was published in 1908. His chief publication was 

 a general memoir on the Jurassic rocks of Yorkshire, pub- 

 lished in two volumes, 1892. In 1889 Mr. Fox-Strangways 

 was transferred to the Midland district, residing for many 

 years at Leicester while engaged in surveying the Leicester- 

 shire coal-field and bordering areas. He was author of 



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