302 



NATURE 



[July 30, 189: 



can construct a reservoir in its own territory by building an open 

 dam at the head of the Assouan Cataract. If, however, Egypt 

 were allowed to occupy the Nile Valley as far as Dongola, the 

 reach of the river above theWady Haifa Cataract would provide 

 the necessary reservoir, and the Philae immersion difficulty would 

 be at an end. So far the summer supply needed for Egypt 

 proper. If the Soudan itself is to be developed, it will only be 

 necessary to construct solid dams at the heads of the Ripon Falls 

 and Fola Rapids, and thus secure the Victoria and Albert 

 Nyanza Lakes as magnificent reservoirs. These reservoirs would 

 not only secure Egypt and the Soudan from drought, but would 

 also, if provided with open dams, secure Egypt from excessive 

 floods. The White Nile as it leaves the two lakes is a clear 

 stream, so thai the silting up of the reservoirs would be out of the 

 question, leaving alone their great size." 



We very cordially congratulate Sir G. B. Airy (the ex- 

 Astronomer- Royal), on the completion of his ninetieth 

 year. A distinguished company assembled at the White 

 House, Greenwich Park, on Saturday last, in honour of the 

 occasion. 



Prof. Adalbert Krueger, Director of the Observatory of 

 Kiel, has been appointed Prof. Schonfeld's successor at Bonn. 



Dr. Felix has been appointed professor in the University of 

 Leipzig. 



The Council of the Yorkshire College, Leeds, have ap- 

 pointed Mr. v. Perronet Sells, New College, Oxford, to be 

 Extension Lecturer in Science. 



A PROJECT is in the air for the erection of an Observatory on 

 Mont Blanc. M. Janssen made an appeal last year for support 

 in this undertaking, and on Monday at the Academy of Sciences 

 he announced that his appeal had been heard. He has obtained 

 the support of M. Bischoffsheim, Prince Roland Bonaparte, 

 Baron Alfred de Rothschild, member of the Academy of Fine 

 Arts, and M. Eiffel. 



The annual meeting of the Institution of Mechanical En- 

 gineers was opened on Tuesday at Liverpool. 



Sanitary science has, during the last month, lost one of its 

 pioneers, in the person of Dr. John Sutherland, whose record of 

 work in the domain of sanitation since 1848 has been of a 

 marvellous character. In 1848 he entered the public service 

 under the first Board of Health, and continued to be employed 

 under the Home and Foreign Offices till the year 1855. During 

 this time he conducted several special inquiries — notably one 

 into the cholera epidemic -of 1848-49, which is even now 

 frequently referred to. Ha was the head of a commission sent 

 to various foreign countries to inquire into the law and practice 

 of burial. He represented the Foreign Office at the Inter- 

 national Conference, held at Paris in 1851-52, for regulating 

 quarantine law. In 1855 he was engaged at the Home Office 

 in bringing into operation the Act for abolishing intramural 

 interments, a task which he had undertaken at the request of 

 Mr. Walpole. He was also doing duty in the reorganized 

 General Board of Health, under the presidency of Sir Benjamin 

 Hall, when, at the request of Lord Palmerston and Lord 

 Panmure, he became the head of the commission sent out to 

 inquire into the sanitary condition of our troops engaged in the 

 Crimean War. He found in Miss Florence Nightingale a 

 devoted coadjutor in regard to the hospitals. Dr. Sutherland 

 took an active part in the preparation of the report of the Royal 

 Commission (of which he was a member) on the sanitary state 

 of the Army, dated 1858, and also of the report of the Royal 

 Commission on the sanitary state of the Army in India, dated 

 May 19, 1863. Both of these were of vast importance to the 

 welfare of our soldiers, and most of the recommendations con- 

 NO. II 35, VOL. 44] 



tained therein have been carried out. One of these was the 

 appointment of the Barrack and Hospital Improvement Cora- 

 mission, with Mr. Sidney Herbert, M.P., as President, and 

 Captain (now Sir Douglas) Galton, Dr. Burrell, of the Army 

 Medical Department, and Dr. Sutherland as members. By this 

 committee every barrack and hospital in the United Kingdom 

 was visited, and its sanitary condition reported upon. Defects 

 were brought to light and remedied, and the health of the troops 

 consequently much improved. Subsequently Dr. Sutherland 

 and Captain Galton visited and made similar reports on the 

 Mediterranean Stations, which at that time included the Ionian 

 Islands. All these reports were presented to Parliament, and a 

 reference to them will show thevastness of the work undertaken. 

 In 1862 the Barrack and Hospital Improvement Commission 

 was reconstituted, and all sanitary reports were submitted to the 

 committee and reviewed by them, and suggestions for improving 

 Indian stations prepared. This continued up to the time of Dr. 

 Sutherland's retirement, on June 30, 1888. In 1865 he again 

 visited Gibraltar and Malta, and made an independent and 

 special report on the outbreak of epidemic cholera at those 

 places. In 1866, Dr. Sutherland, in conjunction with Mr. R. S. 

 Ellis, of the Indian Civil Service, Dr. Joshua Paynter, of the 

 Army Medical Department, and Major (now Lieutenant-General, 

 C.B.) Ewart, R.E., visited Algeria, and reported on the causes 

 of reduced mortality in the French army serving in that country, 

 with a view to seeing what of the conditions in force there would 

 be applicable to Her Majesty's troops serving in India and other 

 warm climates. The value of the recommendations made by 

 him and his colleagues will be better understood by a com- 

 parison between the vital statistics of the army prior to the 

 time of the Crimean War and those of the present date than in 

 any other way. 



Mr. Willoughby Smith, who had played an important 

 part in connection with submarine telegraphy, died on July 17. 

 He was born in 1828, and in 1848 entered the service of the 

 Gutta-Percha Company, and superintended the manufacture and 

 laying of the first submarine cable. The Times gives the 

 following account of his subsequent career. In 1864 the Gutta- 

 Percha Company became merged in the Telegraph Construction 

 and Maintenance Company, and Mr. Smith remained with the 

 company as chief electrician and manager of the gutta-percha 

 works until his retirement through failing health in 1887. In 

 1866 he was electrician-in-charge, being on board the Grea 

 Eastern during the laying of the first successful Atlantic cable, 

 and the recovery and completion of the cable that had been lost 

 the year before. Mr. Smith was President of the Institution of 

 Electrical Engineers in 1883, before which Society, as well as 

 before the Royal Institution, he read many interesting and 

 valuable papers. Amongst these was one on his discovery of the 

 effect of light on the electrical quality of selenium, and anothe^ 

 on his researches in volta and magneto-electric induction. 



Mr. Daniel Mackintosh, F.G.S., died at Birkenhead las 

 week at an advanced age. He was the author of a work on 

 "The Scenery and Geology of England and Wales," and his 

 researches on certain traces of the glacial epoch were well 

 known to geologists. In recognition of his services to geological 

 science, the Geological Society presented him in 1886 with a 

 grant from the Lyell Fund. 



Mr. EDVirARD Stanford has published a pamphlet on "The 

 Spread of Influenza: its Supposed Relations to Atmospheric 

 Conditions," by the Hon. R. Russell. The following are some 

 of the author's conclusions as to the conditions which give rise to 

 influenza, and permit it to be spread. Influenza is a disease 

 caused by exceedingly minute microbes, arising from extensive 

 areas of marsh or sodden land in Central Asia, China, or Siberian. 

 The minuteness of the microbes or their spores is shown by their 



