August 2, 1900] 



NATURE 



321 



the Electrical Congress, held to celebrate the Volta 

 centenary. 



This was a no mere regal opening occupying a fraction 

 of an hour, for a solid afternoon's work was done in 

 receiving various addresses and listening to a long 

 lecture on Volta and his pile, in which Volta's work was 

 described at length, and even discussed from the modern 

 standpoint of the ionic theory of voltaic action. Finally, 

 the king had several foreigners presented to him, and he 

 chatted with us about the things in which we were 

 interested. 



But even this was not enough for one day's work, since, 

 before leaving, the Royal party went to the cathedral to 

 listen to the new oratorio, 1 he Nativity, which was ex- 

 citing so much interest in Como at that time. 



Such a keen personal interest in science and art made 

 the king much loved by a people who venerate even the 

 tomb of a worker like Volta. And those of us who saw 

 King Umberto only at Como last year feel that it is not 

 merely a king, but a friend who has now been killed. 



W. E. Ayrton. 



NOTES. 



On Monday next, August 6, the International Congress of 

 Physics will be opened at Paris with an address by the presi- 

 dent. Prof. Cornu. The Congress will then be divided into the 

 seven following sections, which will meet in the rooms of the 

 Societe fran^aise de Physique: (l) general questions, instruc- 

 tion, measurements ; (2) mechanical and molecular physics ; 

 (3) optics ; (4) electricity and magnetism ; {5) magneto-optics, 

 radio-activity, discharges in gases ; (6) cosmical physics ; (7) 

 biological physics. As many of our readers are aware, much 

 attention has been given to the organisation of the Congress. 

 The secretaries of the committee, Prof. Poincare and Dr. 

 Guillaume, have been entrusted with the production of three 

 volumes, already in the press, containing more than seventy 

 reports on physical questions of current interest and importance, 

 contributed by physicists of various nationalities. Among the 

 subjects dealt with by British physicists are : the movements 

 produced in an indefinite solid by the displacement of a material 

 body, by Lord Kelvin ; the constant of gravitation, by Mr. 

 C. V. Boys ; the propagation of electricity, by Prof. Poynting ; 

 electric discharges in gases, by Prof. J. J- Thomson ; properties 

 of alloys, by Sir W. C. Roberts-Austen ; and the unit of heat, 

 by Mr. E. H. Griffiths. In addition there are contributions by 

 Profs. Lorentz, van 't Hoff, Warburg, Voigt, van der Waals, 

 H. Poincare, Cornu, Lippmann, Potier, Becquerel, Arrhenius, 

 Exner, Spring and others. The sectional meetings will partly 

 be held simultaneously and partly at different hours, in order to 

 give members an opportunity of hearing papers of interest to all 

 physicists. In addition to the serious work of the Congress, 

 provision has been made for lighter entertainment. The 

 Municipal Council of Paris will hold a reception on Tuesday, 

 August 7, and the French President will give a reception to the 

 members on August 9. Prince Roland Bonaparte will give a 

 soiree on August li, and in his splendid library an exhibition of 

 new apparatus and experiments will be held. There is thus 

 every promise that the meeting will be both interesting and 

 pleasant to all who are able to take part in it. 



It is announced that permission has been granted for the 

 Institution of Electrical Engineers to hold a reception in the 

 British Royal Pavilion in the Paris Exhibhion from 5 to 7 p.m., 

 on Wednesday, August 22, and that arrangements for the 

 reception are being made accordingly. 



We learn from Science that the New York Board of Estimate 

 and Apportionment has authorised the expenditure of 200,000 

 dollars for the Botanical (iarden, and 150,000 dollars for an 

 addition to the American Museum of Natural History. 

 NO. 1605, VOL. 62] 



Mr. Leonard S. Loat, who is investigating the fishes of 

 Egypt for the British Museum and the Egyptian Government, 

 was last heard of at Korti, where he reports (on May 18) a hot 

 wind and a temperature of 115" in the shade. He had sent 

 home upwards of 2200 specimens of Nile-fishes to the Natural 

 History Museum, and as soon as the river had risen sufficiently 

 would proceed to Senaar and Khartoum. 



Mr. J. S. BuDGETT, who is engaged in collecting fishes on 

 the River Gambia, dates his last letters (June 22) from McCarthy's 

 Island in the interior. There had been a disturbance in the 

 colony, and one of the Commissioners and a party of police were 

 believed to have lost their lives ; but this had not affected Mr. 

 Budgett's operations, and he had a large number of Polypteri 

 and Protopteri in fl )ating cages in the river. He was in good 

 health, and expected to be home again in September. 



The Rocky Mountain Goat {Haploceros montanus) in the 

 Zoological Society's Gardens has now put on its full white 

 summer dress, and is well worthy of inspection. This animal, 

 until lately, was supposed to be the only representative of the 

 Mountain or Goat-like Antelopes in the New World, but a 

 second species of the same genus has recently been discovered 

 in Alaska, and named by.Mr. D. G. Elliott, of Chicago, Orea>iinus 

 kennedyi. The form is no doubt closely allied to NemorhaeJus 

 of the mountain ranges of Asia, and probably found its way to 

 the New World in company with the Rocky Mountain Sheep 

 and Wapiti Deer. 



The Electrician, states that the German Electro-Chemical 

 Society is arranging to hold its seventh annual meeting at Ziirich 

 on August 5-7. In addition to the reading of a number of 

 papers, visits are to be paid to the Polytechnic and to the wjrks 

 of the Oerlikon Co. 



The Moxon gold medal of the Royal College of Physicians, 

 founded in 1886 in memory of the late Dr. Walter Moxon, and 

 awarded every third year for distinction in clinical medicine, has 

 been awarded to Sir William T. Gairdner, K.C.B., F.R.S., 

 Emeritus professor of medicine in the University of Glasgow. 

 Prof. Clifford AUbutt will deliver the Harveian Oration on 

 October 18 (St. Luke's Day) ; and Dr. A. E. Garrod, the 

 Bradshaw Lecture in November. Dr. Henry Head has been 

 appointed the Goulstonian, Dr. J. Frank Payne the Lumleian, 

 and Dr. Halliburton the Croonian Lecturer for 1901, and Dr. 

 J. W. Washbourn the Croonian Lecturer for 1902. 



We are indebted to Mr. C. Repington, of Bridge End, Ockham, 

 Surrey, for some eggs of the Wood Leopard Moth {Zeuzera 

 ^sculi). They resemble strings of small oval beads, of a yellow- 

 ish testaceous colour. The moth, although reputed scarce, is 

 commoner round London than is generally supposed, and would 

 be very destructive, if its numbers were not kept down by birds, 

 notably by sparrows and woodpeckers. The eggs might be 

 reared by placing them in chinks of the bark of almost any 

 deciduous tree (apple, elm, (tc). The larvre feed, Hke those of 

 the Goat Moth {Cosstis ligniperda), in the wood of growing 

 trees, but are much less common. 



Questions referring to the Marine Biological Association were 

 asked in the House of Commons on Thursday last, and were 

 replied to by Mr. Ritchie as follows : — " In 1885, the Treasury, 

 when agreeing to a grant to the Plymouth laboratory of the 

 Marine Biological Association, made it a condition ' That the 

 council undertakes to place space in the Plymouth laboratory at 

 the disposal of any competent investigator deputed by a 

 recognised authority to carry out any investigation into fish 

 questions for which the laboratory can give facilities.' The 

 Board of Trade have never employed any naturalist to make 

 investigations on fishes at the laboratory, and they have no staff 

 or funds to devote to such a purpose. I have no information as 



