552 



NATURE 



[October 4, 1900 



inhabitants has not appreciably diminished the stock. 

 The land and the animals upon it are their birthright, 

 and to interfere with it would surely cause trouble. We 

 are not bound, however, to furnish them with civilised 

 weapons, and every precaution should be taken to 

 prevent their obtaining them. 



Finally, the best of rules are useless without two things 

 — a sound public opinion among the resident whites 

 whom they chiefly affect, and a firm and knowledgable 

 man to carry them out. The first exists, and I am con- 

 vinced is on the increase. How should it be otherwise, 

 unless one presupposes the most shortsighted selfishness ? 

 As to enforcing the rules, that which is the business of 

 several officials, all of whom are engaged in office work, is 

 practically no one's business. Let there be one man on 

 the spot — that is to say one in each great game district, 

 and especially in each Reserve — whose duty it is to know 

 and to act. E. N. Buxton. 



NOTES. 



As was announced in our last issue, many of the medical 

 schools in London and elsewhere were re-opened this week, and 

 addresses were delivered by well-known medical men and men 

 of science. At the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School the 

 third Huxley Lecture was delivered by Lord Lister on Tuesday. 



A COURSE of twelve " Swiney " lectures on "Extinct and 

 Persistent Types " will be delivered in the lecture theatre of the 

 Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, by Dr. R. H. 

 Traquair, F.R.S., on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 

 October 9 to November 2. No charge is made for admission to 

 the lectures. 



At the meeting of the Royal Photographic Society to be held 

 on Tuesday next, October 9, the President will deliver his 

 annual address, and present the medals awarded at the Society's 

 Exhibition. 



The Lettsomian lectures will be delivered before the Medical 

 Society of London in March and April next, and the oration 

 will be given in May by Mr. F. Richardson Cross. 



The seventeenth annual meeting of the Association of Official 

 Agricultural Chemists is to be held at the Columbian University 

 of Washington, commencing on Friday, November 16 next. 



The fourteenth International Medical Congress will be held 

 at Madrid early in 1903, under the presidency of Prof. Julien 

 Calleja. 



The annual " Fungus Foray" of the Essex Field Club will 

 take place on Saturday next from High Beach, Epping Forest. 

 The prospective arrangements of the club include the opening 

 of the Essex Museum of Natural History by the Countess of 

 Warwick, on the i8th inst. The scientific winter evening 

 meetings will be resumed in the Physical Lecture Theatre of 

 the West Ham Technical Institute on October 27. 



Science announces that Prof. H. T. Todd, having reached 

 the age limit, has retired from the Directorship of the U.S. 

 Nautical Almanac. Prof. S. J. Brown, astronomical director 

 of the U S. Naval Observatory, has undertaken the duties of 

 the office. 



According to the Lancet, a scheme has been sanctioned by 

 the Charity Commissioners by which 644/. left to the Royal 

 College of Surgeons of England in 1884 will be devoted to 

 providing every four years a "Cartwright Medal" for an essay 

 on dental surgery. The medal will be accompanied by an 

 honorarium. 



The gold medal of the American Philosophical Society, 

 known as the Magellanic, will be awarded in December next 

 for the best discovery or most uselul invention in the physical 

 sciences brought before the Society before November i. 

 NO. 1614, VOL. 62] 



Prof. F. Klein has been awarded 800 marks by the 

 Gottingen Society of Sciences for his Mathematical Encyclo- 

 paedia, and the same society has awarded 500 marks to Prof. 

 Wiecherts for that worker's seismological recording instruments. 



In addition to the medals and prizes given for communica- 

 tions discussed at the meetings of the Institution of Civil 

 Engineers in the past session, the Institution has made a num- 

 ber of other awards in respect of other papers dealt with during 

 the same period, e.g. a George Stephenson medal and a Telford 

 premium to Mr. L. F. Vernon Harcourt, and Telford premiums 

 to seven other gentlemen. For students' papers, the James 

 Forrest medal and a Miller prize have been awarded to Mr. 

 C. B. Fox, the James Prescott Joule medal and a Miller prize 

 to Mr. J. W. Smith, and Miller prizes to four other students. 

 The council have nominated Mr. R. F. Whitehead to the Palmer 

 scholarship at the University of Cambridge in succession to Mr. 

 A. H. Kirby. 



A NEW technical school is to be erected in Belfast on a 

 portion of the grounds purchased from the Royal Academical 

 Institution, and a principal is to be appointed shortly at a salary 

 of 600/. per annum, whose experienced practical advice will, 

 it is hoped, be of much value in making the interior arrange- 

 ments of the building, and in organising the work of the 

 institution while the building operations are in progress. 



Prope rty valued at upwards of 200,000 dollars has been left 

 by Mr. Charles H. Smith for the maintenance of the botanical 

 specimens in the city park of Providence, Rhode Island. 



We have had pleasure on more than one occasion to refer to 

 the good work that is being done to the cause of scientific 

 educ ation by the Essex Technical Instruction Committee, and 

 are glad now to call attention to two new courses of lectures 

 that are about to be inaugurated by the committee. A first-year's 

 course of instruction in botany for teachers will commence at 

 Chelmsford on Saturday, October 6, and will be continued on 

 successive Saturdays until about the middle of May, 1901, and an 

 elementary course of practical instruction in dairy bacteriology 

 will commence on Thursday, October 11, and will be continued 

 on ten consecutive Thursdays. 



The Windward, according to Science, was expected to reach 

 St. John's by about the middle of September, but a short delay 

 would not be surprising as the vessel started late, owing to some 

 difficulty with the machinery, and was subsequently delayed by 

 ice along the coast of Labrador. The arrival of the steamship is 

 awaited with interest and some anxiety, as news will be brought, 

 not only of the return of Peary, but also of Captain Sverdrup and 

 Dr. Stein. The former has the Fram provisioned for five years, 

 with a crew of twelve men. He planned to round the northern 

 boundary of Greenland and to make his way down its unknown 

 east coast to Cape Bismarck. It is said that the expedition 

 under Dr. Robert Stein of the U.S. Geological Survey, who is 

 accompanied by Mr. Leopold Kann, of Cornell University and 

 Mr. Samuel Warmbath of Harvard University, was poorly 

 equipped and left in a dangerous position. Lieut. Peary himself 

 expected to establish his last depot at Cape Hecla, the most 

 northerly point of Grinnell Land just beyond the 82nd parallel, 

 whence he intended to advance with Eskimo and sleds as far 

 north as possible. 



At a meeting held on June 12 last at the University o. 

 Melbourne, it was unanimously resolved to form a society to be 

 called the Society of Chemical Industry of Victoria, the objects 

 for the establishment of the society being : {a) to afford its 

 members opportunities of meeting and discussing matters con- 

 nected with applied and industrial chemistry ; [b) generally to 

 advance the cause of chemical industry in Victoria. It was 



