June 21, 1900] 



NA TURE 



79 



health of "The President" was proposed by Dr. Schwalbe 

 and acknowledged by Lord Lister. We have not yet received 

 from the Royal Society the proch verbal of the meetings of the 

 delegates, but it is understood that the support promised will 

 warrant a commencement of the Catalogue at the time fixed. 



The third biennial Huxley lecture at the Charing Cross 

 Hospital Medical School will be delivered by Lord Lister on 

 Tuesday, October 2. The two former lecturers, in 1896 and 

 1898, were Sir Michael Foster and Prof. Virchow. 



The Society of Arts has awarded its Albert medal for the 

 present year to Mr. Henry Wilde, F.R.S., "for the discovery 

 and practical demonstration of the indefinite increase of the 

 magnetic and electric forces from quantities indefinitely small.'' 

 This principle is the one on which the invention of the dynamo 

 machine is based, and is utilised in the construction of all 

 modern dynamos. 



At the annual general meeting of the Royal Statistical 

 Society, held on Tuesday, Lord Avebury was elected president 

 for the ensuing session. It was announced that the subject of 

 the essays for the Howard medal, which will be awarded in 

 1 901, with 20/. as heretofore, is " The History and Statistics of 

 Tropical Diseases, with especial reference to the Bubonic Plague. " 

 The essays should be sent in on or before June 19, 1901. 



The annual meeting of the Marine Biological Association will 

 be held at the Royal Society on Wednesday next, June 27. 



We learn with regret that Mr. W. Percy Sladen, for years an 

 honorary secretary of the Linnean Society, died at Florence on 

 June II. 



The death is announced of M. Boutan, one of the founders of 

 the French Physical Society, and the author of an excellent 

 ' ' Traite de Physique " as well as other works. 



Prof. Edmund Perkier has been appointed to succeed the 

 late Prof. Milne-Edwards as director of the Paris Natural 

 History Museum. 



The autumn meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute will 

 be held at Paris under the auspices of the Societe d'Encourage- 

 ment pour I'lndustrie Nalionale, on Tuesday and Wednesday, 

 September 18 and iq. 



The summer meeting of the Institution of Mechanical 

 Engineers will be held in London on June 27 and 28. The pro- 

 gramme includes an adjourned discussion on road locomotion 

 (a short supplementary paper dealing with the recent trials 

 will be submitted by Prof. H. S. Hele-Shaw, F.R.S.) ; recent 

 locomotive practice in France, by M. Edouard Sauvage ; poly- 

 phase electric traction, by Prof. C. A. Carus-Wilson ; obser- 

 vations on an improved glass revealer, for studying condensa- | 

 tion in steam-engine cylinders and rendering the efifects visible, 

 by Mr. Bryan Donkin. 



An interesting exhibition of objects illustrating the population, 

 monuments, customs, and native industries of the Chawi and 

 Kabyle tribes of Algeria will be on view in the rooms of the 

 Anthropological Institute, 3 Hanover Square, W., until June 23, 

 from II a.m. to 5 p.m. The objects were collected in the 

 course of a recent journey in Algeria by Mr. D. Maclver, 

 student of Egyptology at Worcester College, Oxford, and Mr. 

 Anthony Wilkin, of King's College, Cambridge. 



The Advisory Committee appointed by the Board of Trade in 

 connection with the business of the Intelligence Branch of the 

 Commercial, Labour, and Statistical Departments of that office 

 met on Thursday last. Sir Courtenay Boyle being in the chair. 

 There were present, among others, Lord Avebury, Sir Frederick 

 Abel, F.R.S., Prof. Wyndham R. Dunstan, P\R.S., and Mr. 

 C. A. Harris C.M.G. 



NO. 1599, VOL. 62] 



The grant of 1000/. in aid of the work of the Marine Bio- 

 logical Association ; the site of the National Physical Laboratory 

 at Kew ; and the grant to the British School at Athens, were 

 brought before the House of Commons on Friday last, upon the 

 vote to complete the sum of 50,724/. for scientific investigation^ 

 It was urged by Mr. Gibson Bowles that the grant to the 

 Marine Biological Association should be largely increased ; and 

 by Lord Balcarres that the vote of 7000/. for building and 

 equipping the National Physical Laboratory should not bind 

 the Treasury to adhere to the site which has been proposed. 

 Mr. Hanbury said it should be borne in mind that the grant of 

 1000/. to the Marine Biological Association was not the only 

 grant made in connection with the fisheries of the United 

 Kingdom. A grant was given to the Fishery Board of Scotland 

 for the purpose of scientific investigation, and similar assistance 

 was given to the Irish fisheries. Under present conditions 

 there did not seem to be any urgent necessity to increase the 

 grant. The Treasury had very little voice in the matter of the 

 Physical Laboratory ; it had acted on the recommendation of a 

 committee of the Royal Society. It was absolutely necessary 

 to find a site near Kew Observatory, and after looking at every 

 possible site the committee strongly reported that no other site 

 would answer the purpose so well as that which adjoined Kew 

 Gardens. He agreed that nothing ought to be done which 

 would interfere with the amenities of Kew Gardens, and this 

 point had been considered in the selection of the site. The 

 two buildings, one for the machinery and the other for carrying 

 on the more delicate scientific operations, were to be placed in 

 positions which would not mar the views from the gardens or 

 injure their amenities. The voting of the 7000/. would in no 

 way prejudice the consideration of the case against the proposed 

 site. 



Referring more particularly to the British School at Athens, 

 Mr. Balfour said that the only ground for the alarm expressed 

 was that the original grant was for five years, and that this term 

 was drawing to a close. The question of Governmental sub- 

 vention of scientific investigation was a very important subject, 

 and there was no doubt that this country had, from a traditional 

 policy, lagged greatly behind other nations in this respect. It 

 never occurred to us to do what the Germans, the French, or 

 the Americans did in making certain grants for investigations ; 

 and whether we were right or wrong he did not undertake to 

 say. His own personal inclination was rather in the direction 

 of Governmental aid in cases where they could not expect 

 private aid to come forward ; but at the same time he confessed 

 that he often thought how strange it was in a very rich country 

 like ours there were not found some people who, in a difficulty 

 to find other and more profitable investments, did not attempt 

 to earn glory for themselves by carrying on those investigations 

 with the money that was required. He could only say that 

 certainly the grant would not be discontinued without a generous 

 consideration of the facts and interests involved. 



A MEETING of the Rontgen Society was held on Thursday, 

 June 7, at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, by the invitation of Dr. 

 Lewis Jones. A large American Holtz machine has recently 

 been presented to the hospital, and it was chiefly to allow the 

 members to have an opportunity of seeing this machine at work 

 in connection with X-ray tubes that Dr. Jones invited the 

 Society to meet at the hospital. Large Holtz machines, 

 though used considerably in America, are rarely seen in this 

 country, where the Wimshurst pattern is more commonly em- 

 ployed. A dark room has been fitted up in the electrical 

 department specially for X-ray work. The wires for bringing 

 the current to the tubes are passed through a partition to the 

 machine, which is on the other side. The observer and the 

 patient are thus in no way disturbed by the movements of the 



