May 2 1, 1891] 



NATURE 



65 



The possible existence of such special motives as those 

 here suggested among the persons who are attempting to 

 get a grant of land for the carrying out of their so-called 

 national objects should form an additional inducement 

 to men of science to redouble their efforts. 



NOTES. 

 The general programme for the Cardiff meeting of the British 

 Association has now been arranged. The first meeting will be 

 held on Wednesday, August 19, at 8 p.m., when Sir Frederick 

 AbeJ, K.C.B., will resign the chair, and Dr. William Huggins, 

 President-elect, will assume the presidency and deliver an 

 address. On Thursday evening, August 20, at 8 p.m., there 

 will be a Wr/,?; on Friday evening, August 21, at 8.30 p.m., 

 a discourse on " Some Difficulties in the Life of Aquatic In- 

 sects," by Prof. L. C. Miall ; on Monday evening, August 24, 

 at 8.30 p.m., a discourse by Prof T. E. Thorpe, F.R.S. ; and 

 on Tuesday evening, August 25, at 8 p.m., a soirie. On 

 Wednesday, August 26, the concluding general meeting will be 

 held at 2.30 p.m. 



The arrangements for the International Congress of Hygiene 

 and Demography are nearly complete, and the programme, 

 corrected up to May i, has been issued in the form of a pamph- 

 let. It has been definitely fixed that the opening meeting, 

 at which the Prince of Wales is to preside, shall be held on 

 Monday, August 10, al 3.30. The sections (of which there are 

 ten) will meet on the four following days from xo to 2. The 

 six medical and scientific sections will meet in the rooms of the 

 Royal and other learned Societies at Burlington House. The 

 University of London will give the use of its large theatre to 

 the section for the hygiene of infancy and childhood, and two 

 examination halls to the sections for architecture and engineer- 

 ing. The division of demography will meet in the Theatre of 

 the School of Mines, Jermyn Street. Much attention is being 

 given to the necessary social preparations ; and there is already 

 a long list of proposed entertainments and excursions. 



A GENERAL meeting of the Federated Institution of Mining 

 Engineers will be held in London on Thursday, the 28th inst., 

 at 12 noon, and on Friday, the 29th, at 10 a.m., in the rooms 

 of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 25 Great George Street, 

 Westminster. Various works will be visited on the 29th inst. 



The Committee of the Cardiff Naturalists' Society have put 

 on foot a petition in favour of Mr. Pease's " Bill to Amend the 

 Wild Birds' Protection Act, 1880." They are appealing to 

 other scientific societies to join with them in order to make the 

 petition as effective as possible. 



At Mowbray, a sjiburb of Cape Town, Mr. Cecil Rhodes has 

 bought for ;,^i6,ooo land on which, it is understood, the pro- 

 posed University is to be built. 



The death of Prof. Carl Wilhelm von Nageli, the eminent 

 botanist, is announced. He died at Munich, on the loth inst., 

 in the 74th year of his age, and will be buried at Zurich, in 

 accordance with a wish expressed before his death. Prof, von 

 Nageli was a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. We hope 

 on a future occasion to give some account of his scientific 

 labours. 



The Australian papers announce the death of Dr. Richard 

 Schomburgk, brother of the late Sir Robert Schomburgk, and 

 for many years Director of the Botanic Gardens at Adelaide, 

 South Australia. Dr. Schomburgk was associated with his 

 brother in the Boundary Demarcation Commission of British 

 Guiana in 1840, and, some years later, settled with another 

 brother in South Australia as a farmer and wine-grower. On 

 the death of Mr. Francis, in 1866, he was offered, and accepted, 

 the post of Director of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, which 

 he held with much distinction until his death. He was an 

 NO. I 125, VOL. 44] 



enthusiastic horticulturist, rather than a botanist— that is to say, 

 as an author ; and his services in connection with the establish- 

 ment he directed were very highly appreciated, as the sketches 

 of his career testify. Indeed, so long ago as 1883, a large num- 

 ber of his admirers subscribed the funds to procure his portrait 

 for the Museum of Economic Botany, founded by himself. His 

 literary work commenced, we believe, with his " Reisen in 

 Britisch Guiana in den Jahren 1840-1844," the third volume of 

 which is devoted to a "Versuch einer Flora und Fauna von 

 Britisch Guiana," in which Schomburgk had the assistance of 

 several other botanists. This work has not yet been superseded, 

 though its usefulness is unfortunately much limited by the pub- 

 lication of a large number of new names without descriptions. 

 In 1876, Dr. Schomburgk supplemented this work by his 

 "Botanical Reminiscences of British Guiana," But his most 

 valuable literary work relates to the botany, to the agricultural' 

 and horticultural capabilities of his adopted country, and espe- 

 cially to the Botanic Garden, of which he was to a great extent 

 the creator. His name will long be remembered in connection 

 with this establishment, which is, it is asserted, the "most 

 complete paradise of flowers in the southern hemisphere." 



According to the Calcutta correspondent of the Times, the 

 Miranzai Expedition, under Sir W. Lockhart, has obtained 

 much valuable geographical information' about places which, 

 although within a few miles of the frontier, have been hitherta 

 unvisited by Europeans. The surveys effected by the Kuram^ 

 field force during the Afghan war have been carried on to the 

 Kurmana Valley. 



A Russian scientific expedition, under the command of 

 Captain Bartshevsky, has left Samarcand for the exploration of 

 Southern Bokhara, the Pamir district, and Kafiristan. 



On Saturday, May 30, at the Royal Institution, Prof A. H, 

 Church, Professor of Chemistry in the Royal Academy of Arts, 

 will begin a course of three lectures on the scientific study of 

 decorative colour. 



The Rev. H. N. Hutchinson has undertaken to write for 

 Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein and Co.'s "Introductory Science 

 Text-books " a manual of physical geology, A second edition 

 of Dr. Hatch's " Petrology " in the same series, reviewed in our 

 columns last week, has already appeared. 



Messrs. Whittaker & Co. have in preparation a "Library 

 of Popular Science." Among the works to be included in it 

 are " Astronomy," by G. F. Chambers ; " Light," by Sir H. 

 Trueman Wood; " Chemistry," by T. Bolas ; "Mineralogy," 

 by Dr. F. H. Hatch; "Electricity and Magnetism," by S. 

 Bottone; "Geology," by A. J. Jukes-Brown; "Botany," by 

 G. Massee, 



Mr. J. Allen Brown has expounded in the West Middlesex 

 Standard an excellent scheme — now printed separately — for a 

 technical institute and museum for the Ealing Parliamentary 

 division of Middlesex. This division comprises Ealing, Acton, 

 and Chiswick, and Mr. Brown's proposal is that a technical 

 institute and museum should be established in whatever position 

 may be most convenient for these localities. An essential part 

 of his plan is that the instruction shall be imparted by specially 

 qualified teachers and lecturers, and that their duties shall be 

 " migratory or peripatetic," so that classes may be conducted or 

 lectures given in any part of the division, and on any of the 

 subjects contemplated under the Technical Instruction Acts. 

 We commend Mr. Brown's scheme to the careful attention of 

 the Middlesex County Council, which will soon have to decide 

 as to the distribution of the funds placed at its disposal for tech- 

 nical instruction. There can be no doubt that the proposed 

 institutions would be of immense advantage to the three districts, 

 for Mr, Brown has a very enlightened conception of the true 

 nature of technical instruction. What he wishes is that the 



