April 21, 1910J 



NATURE 



227 



Tropical Medicine, the Liverpool School of Tropical 

 Medicine, and the various colonial laboratories ; and, 

 lastly, the circular letter sent by the Colonial Secre- 

 tary to the Colonial Governors with reg^ard to the 

 renewal of contributions to the Tropical Diseases Re- 

 search Fund. Many of these reports contain matter 

 of much interest. From British Guiana come reports 

 by the Government bacteriologist, Dr. K. S. Wise, 

 and Trof. Deycke on the results of Prof. Deycke's 

 treatment of leprosy during the first six months' 

 trial. In the report of Dr. Castellani from Ceylon, 

 peculiar parasites are described from the blood of 

 man and other vertebrates in Ceylon, with illustra- 

 tions of a relatively high standard. These parasites 

 are found free in the blood-plasma and resemble the 

 free "* vermicules " of haemogregarines, but do not 

 appear to have any intracorpuscular stage. Dr. 

 Castellani considers them to be Protozoa of a genus 

 distinct from haemogregarines, and compares them 

 with bodies found in human blood in Algeria by the 

 brothers Sergent, whose name is translated into 

 Sergeant, in our opinion somewhat unnecessarily. 



From East Africa the Government bacteriologist, 

 Dr. P. H. Ross, gives an account of a number of 

 experiments on the transmission of tr}.-panosomes by 

 Glossina fusca and G. longipentiis. Amongst these 

 special interest attaches to one in which a monkey 

 was successfully infected with Trypanosoma gamhiense 

 by means of Glossina jiisca, by the method of inter- 

 rupted feeding. Two flies were used in this way on 

 October 5, being first fed on an infected monkey and 

 then transferred immediately to a healthy monkey ; 

 the experiment was repeated with three more flies 

 on October 8 ; tr}'panosomes were first found in the 

 blood of the second monkey on October 31. These 

 experiments tend to show that tsetse-flies of species 

 other than G. palpalis can transmit sleeping sickness 

 by the direct or purely mechanical method. 



The report shows the value and importance of the 

 researches on tropical diseases that are being carried 

 on in all parts of the world under the auspices of the 

 Colonial Office and the Colonial Governments. Not 

 only is the report encouraging for the future, but it is 

 mo5t interesting and instructive reading, and well 

 worth the modest sum for which it is sold. 



NOTES. 

 :< ARcmBALD Geikie, K.C.B., P.R.S., has been elected 

 a foreign member of the Royal Danish Society of Sciences, 

 Copenhagen. 



The death is announced, at eighty-four years of age, 

 of Prof. Julius Kuehn, for many years professor of agri- 

 culture in Halle University. 



The annual meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute will 

 be held on Wednesday and Thursday, May 4 and 5. On 

 May 4 the retiring president (Sir Hugh Bell, Bart.) will 

 induct into the chair the president-elect (the Duke of 

 Devonshire). The Bessemer gold medal for 1910 will be 

 presented to Mr. E. H. Saniter, and the president will 

 deliver his inaugural address. A number of important 

 papers will be read and discussed during both days of the 

 meeting. 



The Geneva correspondent of the Daily Chronicle states 

 that a monument in memory of Prof. Tyndall will be 

 erected on the summit of the Bel Alp, 6735 feet high, a 

 little above the place where for many years Tyndall re- 

 sided during the summer months. Mrs. Tyndall has 

 engaged M. F. Correvon, of Geneva, to design the monu- 

 ment, which is a large conical block of granite. It will 

 be erected by the Swiss Alpine Club in July on Bel Alp, 

 overlooking the Aletsch Glacier. 

 NO. 2 1X2, VOL. 83] 



The executive committee of the National Physical 

 Laboraton,- has appointed Mr. J. E. Sears to take charge 

 of the work of the metrology division of the laboratory 

 in the place of Mr. H. Homan Jeffcott, who has been 

 nominated recently to the professorship of engineering in 

 the Royal College of Science, Dublin. Mr. Sears, who 

 was formerly at St. John's College, Cambridge, graduated 

 with first-class honours in mathematics and engineering, 

 and is an associate member of the Institution of Civil 

 Engineers. 



Under the title of the Journal of Genetics, it is pro- 

 posed to publish a periodical for original research in 

 heredity, variation, and allied subjects. The journal will 

 also, from time to time, contain articles summarising the 

 existing state of knowledge in the various branches of 

 genetics, but reviews and abstracts of work published 

 elsewhere will, as a rule, not be included. Adequate illus- 

 trations will be provided, and, where the subject-matter 

 demands it, free use will be made of coloured plates. The 

 journal will be edited by Prof. W. Bateson, F.R.S., 

 director of the John Innes Agricultural Institution, and 

 Prof. R. C. Punnett, professor of biology in the University- 

 of Cambridge, and it will be published by the Cambridge 

 University Press. It is hoped that the first number will 

 be ready in August. 



Ox Tuesday next, April 26, Prof. F. W. Mott will 

 begin a course of three lectures at the Royal Institution 

 on "The Mechanism of the Human Voice"; on Thurs- 

 day, April 28, Mr. W. McClintock will deliver the first 

 of three lectures on " Blackfeet Indians in North 

 .America"; and on Saturday, .April 30, Dr. D. H. Scott 

 will commence a course of three lectures on " The World 

 of Plants before the -Appearance of Flowers." The Friday 

 evening discourse on April 29 will be delivered by Dr. 

 Tempest .Anderson on " Matavanu : a New \'olcano in 

 Savaii (German Samoa)"; on May 6 by Sir .Almroth 

 Wright, on " .Autoinoculation " ; and on May 13 by Prof. 

 W. H. Bragg, on " Radio-activitj- as a Kinetic Theory 

 of a Fourth State of Matter." 



-As interesting light has just been shed upon a contro- 

 versy which excited some attention in 1907 (see Njvtcre 

 of that year, September 26, p. 545, and October 17, p. 615) 

 by the publication of the official report on " The Tomb of 

 Queen Tiyi " (Constable and Co., Ltd., 19 10). Two years 

 ago archzeologists maintained that the bones found in the 

 tomb were the remains of the mummy of the queen her- 

 self, and seemed to regard as a matter of little import- 

 ance the anatomical fact that the skeleton was that of a 

 young man. Sir Gaston Maspero now states {op. cit., 

 p. i) that " when we came to examine the mosaic coffin- 

 and the sheets of gold in which the mummy was wrapped, 

 we found that their legends asserted the mummy to be 

 no other than Khuniatonu himself " (Queen Tiyi's son). 



The Seismological Society of .America at a recent meet- 

 ing passed a series of resolutions expressing its views on 

 the establishment of a National Bureau of Seismology, 

 and decided that copies of the resolutions should be trans- 

 mitted to the President, President of the Senate, the 

 Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the secre- 

 tary of the Smithsonian Institution. After enumerating 

 the chief earthquake disasters in the L'nited States, and 

 summarising what has been done in other countries for 

 the encouragement of the study of seismology, the resolu- 

 tions state that the Seismological Society of America 

 strongly favours the establishment of a National Bureau 

 of Seismology with power (a) to collect seismological data ; 

 (6) to establish observing stations ; (c) to study and: 



