June i8, 1891] 



NATURE 



161 



-side was equally unsuccessful. At some old fumaroles 

 on the 1872 crater plain, I collected some crusts of boric 

 acid and alum, both rare products at this volcano. 



One of three terminations we may expect to these 

 phenomena, which are very characteristic of a lateral 

 disruption, so common at Vesuvius : — 



(i) Should the lava cool sufficiently to plug the radial 

 dyke, no further phenomena will occur, and activity will 

 be restored to the central vent. 



(2) If this plugging only partially takes place, lava may 

 dribble forth for months, but probably the escape of 

 vapour will soon be restored to the central vent. 



(3) If the rent should widen, considering how low it 

 extends, we may expect a grand eruption which might 

 rival that of 1872, which commenced near the same spot 

 and much in the same way ; the mechanism by which 

 this occurs I have explained elsewhere.^ 



My best thanks are due to Mr. L. Sambon for his 

 company and help, and to Mr. E. Treiber, Inspecting 

 Engineer of the Vesuvian Railway, for kind information. 



Naples, June 9. H. J. Johnston-Lavis. 



' H. J. J. L., "The Relationship of the Structure of Igneous Rocks to 

 the Conditions of their Formation," s'cientific Proceedings K. Dublin Soc, 

 vol. v., New Ser., pp. 112-56. 



NOTES. 



A LA.RGE and influential meeting was held at Edinburgh on 

 Monday to consider the arrangements which ought to be made 

 -for the visit of the British Association to that city next year. 

 The Lord Provost presided. On the motion of Sir William 

 Turner the following were elected Vice-Presidents :— The Lord 

 Provost, the Marquis of Lothian, the Earl of Rosebery, Lord 

 Kingsburgh, Principal Sir William Muir, and Prof. Sir Douglas 

 Maclagan. A local executive committee was chosen, and Mr. 

 A. Gillies Smith was appointed honorary local treasurer. In a 

 letter from Mr. Griffiths, secretary of the Association, it was 

 .stated that Sir Archibald Geikie, who will preside over the 

 Edinburgh meeting, was in favour of the meeting being held 

 .early in August. A considerable majority, however, voted 

 in support of a proposal that the meeting should begin on 

 Wednesday, September 28. 



On July 28 and the three following days, at Bournemouth, 

 the British Medical Association will hold its fifty-ninth annual 

 meeting under the presidency of Dr. J. Roberts Thomson. The 

 scientific business of the meeting will be conducted in nine 

 sections. An address in medicine will be given by Dr. Lauder 

 Brunton ; an address in surgery by Prof. Chiene ; and an 

 address in public medicine by Dr. Cox Seaton. 



A Physical Observatory, furnished with specially designed 

 apparatus for the prosecution of investigations in radiant energy 

 and other departments of telluric and astro-physics, has been 

 established as a department of the Smithsonian Institution. 

 The communication of new memoirs bearing in any way on 

 such researches is requested, and for them it is hoped that 

 proper return can be made in due time. 



The Standard understands that on the vote for the salary of the 

 President of the Board of Trade, either Sir Henry Roscoe or 

 Sir Lyon Playfair will call attention to the action of the 

 ■Government with regard to the proposed Institute of Preventive 

 Medicine. 



The Committee of the French Academy has decided, by five 

 votes to four, that the prize of 20,000 francs should be given 

 to M. Elisee Reclus, author of the well-known " Nouvelle 

 Geographie Universelle." It is expected that the Academy will 

 ratify the decision. 



According to a Reuter's telegram from Simla, dated June 

 a 2, Drs. Rake and Buckmaster have succeeded in cultivating 

 the leprosy bacillus in serum. They were aided in their re- 

 searches by Surgeon-Major Thomson. 

 NO. I 129, VOL. 44] 



In reply to Mr. Bryce, in the House of Commons on Monday, 

 the Lord Advocate stated that it would be the duty of the 

 Government during the ensuing year not only to weigh very 

 carefully the claims of secondary education in Scotland as one 

 of the interests competing for a share of the additional Scotch 

 grant, but also to prosecute further inquiries as to the means by 

 which any grant available for that purpose might be usefully 

 applied. Many proposals had already been submitted to and 

 considered by the Scotch Education Department, and these, as 

 well as any suggestions which might be made, would receive 

 further careful consideration. The Government would also 

 endeavour to bring all necessary statistics down to the latest 

 date, so as to afford the necessary information for the solution of 

 all branches of this difficult question. 



The funeral of Sir Richard Burton took place on Monday at 

 the church of St. Mary Magdalene, Mortlake. The tomb repre- 

 sents an Arab tent, with a crucifix over the entrance. The 

 interior is a small chapel wiih altar and some Oriental lights. 



It has been decided that a Geographical Society shall be 

 formed at Liverpool. A preliminary committee has been 

 appointed, and it has issued a circular stating the objects of the 

 new body. 



According to a telegram sent through Reuter's Agency from 

 Naples on June 16, the flow of the lava stream from Vesuvius 

 had stopped, and Signor Palmieri, the Director of the Observa- 

 tory on the mountain, had expressed his belief that the outflow 

 might be regarded as at an end. 



Slight but continuous earthquake shocks were felt at Verona 

 on June 10 ; and on the nth, at 8.30 a.m., a very violent shock 

 occurred at Tregnano and Badia Calavena. This was plainly 

 felt in Verona also. Another violent shock occurred at Tregnano 

 on the 13th, and or. the 15th shocks were reported from Castel- 

 nuovo, Peschiera, Somma CaoDpagna, and Desenzano. 



The first volume of a new meteorological Review has been 

 published, containing observations taken in the south-west of 

 Russia for the year 1890. This system was organized by Prof. 

 A. Klossovsky in 1886, and now numbers nearly 600 observers. 

 The observations refer chiefly to temperature, wind, rainfall, 

 &c., for climatological and agricultural purposes. The Review 

 also contains several articles of importance, e.g. (i) on pheno- 

 logical phenomena ; (2) on the harvests in connection with 

 meteorological observations ; (3) on the movements of clouds ; 

 (4) actinometric observations made at Kieff. These are written 

 in the Russian language only ; the positions of the stations, and 

 various data referred to in the text, are illustrated by maps and 

 diagrams. 



At a meeting of the Royal Statistical Society, on Tuesday, a 

 paper was read by Mr. Noel A. Humphreys, Secretary of the 

 Census Office, on the results of the recent census and estimates 

 of population in the largest English towns. The first part of 

 the paper was devoted to the consideration of the recently-issued 

 results of the census in April last in the twenty-eight large 

 English towns dealt with in the Registrar- General's weekly re- 

 turns. It was pointed out that, although the increase of popu- 

 lation within the present boundaries of these towns showed an 

 increase of nearly a million in the last ten years, the increase 

 was less, by considerably more than half a million (605,318), 

 than would have been the case if the rate of increase had been 

 the same as in the preceding ten years, 187 1-8 1 ; and that the 

 rate of movement of population showed striking variations in 

 the difierent towns. The rate of increase in these twenty-eight 

 towns, it was slated, has pretty constantly declined in recent 

 years, and has fallen with scarcely a break during the last five 

 intercensal periods from 24'3 per cent, in 1841 -51 to i roper 

 cent, in 1881-91. The percentage of increase within the bound- 



