3i6 



NATURE 



[May 12, 1910 



swallow at roost in this shed, almost certainly one of those 

 that arrived on April 12, and found it was one which my 

 sister had caught and ringed as an adult bird on May 8, 

 1909, the bird having come down one of the chimneys into 

 one of the rooms. I may note that there was no mark 

 or Injury of any kind on the leg which bore the ring." 

 The system of marking birds by aluminium rings will no 

 doubt teach us much that we cannot learn by any other 

 means. Last year more than 2000 birds were " ringed " 

 l>y readers of Mr. H. F. Witherby's magazine British 

 Birds, and this year at least double that number will be 

 '■ ringed." Each ring bears a separate number as well 

 as the inscription " Witherby, High Holborn, London," 

 and careful details are kept of the date and place at which 

 each bird was marked. Should any of these ringed birds 

 fall into the hands of any readers of Nature, Mr. Witherby 

 would be glad to be informed of the date and place of the 

 capture and the number on the ring. 



Prof. Walter Nernst, director of the Physical 

 ■Chemistry Institute in the University of Berlin, has been 

 elected an honorary member of the Manchester Literary 

 and Philosophical Society. 



An International Conference will meet in Paris on 

 May 18 to consider the questions raised by the develop- 

 ment of aerial navigation, with the object of arriving at an 

 international agreement with respect to them. Most of the 

 European Powers will be represented. Delegates to repre- 

 sent the United Kingdom have been nominated by the 

 Admiralty, the Army Council, the Board! of Trade, and the 

 Secretary of State for the Home Department. 



The prize of 20I. recently offered by the Scottish Meteor- 

 ological Society for the best essay on a meteorological 

 subject has been awarded by the council of the society 

 to Mr. David MacOwan, of Edinburgh University, for an 

 essay on " Atmospheric Electricity." The competition, it 

 Tnay be recalled, was open to students of the Scottish 

 universities and to graduates of not more than live years' 

 standing. 



Dr. and Mrs. Seligmann have returned from their first 

 exploratory ethnological survey of the .'\nglo-Egyptian 

 Sudan, to which they were appointed by the Anglo-Egyptian 

 "Government. They studied the hitherto uninvestigated 

 Nubas of southern Kordofan, and the Shilluks, Dinkas, 

 and Shir of the White Nile. A short time was spent 

 between the White and Blue Niles, where a Neolithic site 

 was discovered. Observations were made on the sociology 

 and religion of various tribes, and some anthropometrical 

 data were obtained, especially of the Nubas. 



At the meeting of the American Philosophical Societ}' on 

 April 23, the following foreign members were elected : — 

 Prof. A. von Meyer, Madame Curie, Sir David Gill, 

 K.C.B., Prof. E. Meyer, and Prof. C. E. Picard. We 

 learn from Science that members of the U.S. National 

 Academy of Sciences have been elected as follows : — Prof. 

 F. R. Moulton, Prof. W. A. Noyes, Mr. T. B. Osborne, 

 Prof. C. Schuchert, Prof. D. H. Campbell, Prof. J. Lx)eb, 

 and Prof. J. Dewey. Dr. G'. E. Hale has been elected 

 foreign secretary of the academy, to succeed the late Prof. 

 Alexander Agassiz. The Draper medal has been conferred 

 on Dr. C. G. Abbot, director of the Astrophysical Observa- 

 tory of the Smithsonian Institution. 



The Royal College of Physicians announces that the 

 next award of the Weber-Parkes prize of 150 guineas and 

 a silver medal will be made in 1912, and that the adjudi- 

 cators have selected as the subject of the essay "The 

 Influence of Mixed and Secondary Infections upon Pul- 



NO. 2 1 15, VOL. 83] 



monary Tuberculosis in Man, and the Measures, Preventive 

 and Curative, for dealing with Them." The Croonian 

 lectures of the college will be delivered in June next by 

 Dr. F. W. .'\ndrewes, the Harveian oration in October 

 by Dr. H. B. Donkin, the Bradshaw lecture by Dr. G. N. 

 Pitt, the FitzPatrick lectures by Sir T. Clifford Allbutt, 

 and the Horace Dobell lecture by Dr. W. Bulloch. 



The annual autumn meeting of the Institute of Metals 

 will be held in Glasgow on September 21-22, on which 

 days papers of scientific and practical interest will be read j 

 and visits made to works of metallurgical interest. An i 

 influential local committee, of which Prof. A. Barr is j 

 chairman and Dr. Cecil H. Desch is honorary secretary, '■ 

 has already been formed to carry out the necessary arrange- 

 ments, of which further notice will be given in due course. 

 There has been established at the ofliices of the institute a 

 pathological museum for specimens of metals and alloys, 

 the first contributions to the museum having been received 

 from the president. Sir Gerard A. Muntz, Bart. This 

 museum, v.hich is the only one of its kind, ought to be 

 of great service to all interested in the metallurgy of the 

 non-ferrous metals, as it is intended that it shall contain 

 specimens showing the various ways in which such metals 

 as copper, brass, aluminium, &c., can fail either as a result 

 of faulty manufacture or of improper usage. 



A Recter message of May 5 from San Juan del Sur, 

 Nicaragua, stated that Cartago, Costa Rica, was practic- 

 ally destroyed by an earthquake at 6.30 p.m. on May 4. 

 Five Central American Republics reported earthquake 

 shocks. The Times W^ashington correspondent says that 

 though Costa Rica is supposed to be the southern limit of 

 the earthquake zone, the discussion has again commenced 

 as to whether a sea-level canal would not have been more 

 stable than the lock type for the Panama Canal now under 

 construction. According to Reuter, two hours after the 

 shock a brilliant meteor passed over the Costa Rica- 

 Nicaraguan frontier, leaving a luminous track behind it, 

 and augmenting the fears of the populace. As in many 

 other cases, this earthquake occurred as the moon was 

 approaching perigee on May 8 and conjunction on May 9, 

 so that the conditions were favourable to deformation of 1 

 the earth's crust. I 



An International Congress in Naval Architecture and I 

 Marine Engineering will be held in London on July 4-8. ( 

 From a preliminary programme issued by the Institution 

 of Naval Architects we learn that there will be a recep- 

 tion on the evening of July 4, and that the congress 

 will be opened formally on Tuesday, July 5. The 

 mornings of July 6-8 will be devoted to the reading 

 and discussion of papers in the halls of the Institution of 

 Civil Engineers and the Institution of Mechanical 

 Engineers. The programme will include, among others, 

 papers contributed by Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge, G.C.B., 

 Sir Andrew Noble, Bart., K.C.B.', Sir W. H. White, 

 K.C.B., Sir Philip Watts, K.C.B., the Hon. C. A. Parsons, 

 C.B. ; Italy, Colonel G. Russo ; Japan, Admiral Kondo, 

 I.J.N., Count Shiba, and Prof. Terano ; Germany, Dr. O. 

 Schlick and Prof. Flanim ; and France, Prof. A. Rateau. ^ 



The fifteenth annual congress of the South-eastern Unio^ 

 of Scientific Societies will be held at Guildford on June 

 8-1 1 under the presidency of Prof. E. A. Gardner, Yates 

 professor of archaeology at University College, London. 

 The presidential address will be delivered on the evening 

 of June 9. There will be a reception by the Mayor on the 

 evening of Wednesday, June 8, followed by the illumina- 

 tion of the Castle grounds, by the Mayor and Corporation, 

 at whose invitation the union will meet at Guildford. 



