388 



NA TURE 



[August 20, 



contains, as well as for its lucid expression, deserves to 

 be better known. 



Dr. Martin Duncan was undoubtedly one of the work- 

 ing bees in the great hive of science ; and in his own 

 quiet, unostentatious way has stored up a considerable 

 amount of material the value of which will be more and 

 more appreciated as those for whose benefit it was accu- 

 mulated come to examine and understand it. 



In his ardent devotion to science, and patient industry 

 in spite of trials and troubles which would have deterred 

 many less earnest workers, he set a bright example, 

 which those of a younger generation of naturalists would 

 do well to follow. 



NOTES. 



It seems that those members of the Government, whichever 

 they may be, who are responsible for buildings for science and 

 art, have determined to erect new galleries for the Art Museum 

 at South Kensington ; practically to coverall the ground which is 

 supposed to be applicable for art purposes there. These build- 

 ings are to cost some ;^400,ooo, and, when this money is spent, 

 we suppose the South Kensington Art Museum will be finished. 

 We suppose, also, that the building of a Science Museum will, 

 by this action, be delayed for another twenty years. This will 

 be a great victory for art, and will afford another interesting 

 example of the results of the way in which matters scientific are 

 managed in this country. 



Mr. Edgar Thurston, Curator of the Government Museum 

 at Madras, has been appointed to officiate for two years for Dr. 

 Watt, at Calcutta, in reporting on economic products and or- 

 ganizing collections of products and manufactures for the Calcutta 

 and other Indian Museums ; his duties at Madras being in the 

 meantime discharged by Dr. Warth, of the Geological Depart- 

 ment. 



Prof. Goebel, of Marburg, has been appointed to the Chair 

 of Botany at Munich in succession to the late Prof. Naegeli. 



We regret to announce the death of Dr. Weiss, the Professor 

 of Botany and Director of the Plant- Physiological Institute of 

 the University of Prague. 



The late Cardinal Haynald's important herbarium and 

 botanical library has been placed in the National Museum at 

 Budapest. 



We learn from Madras that the observations made under the 

 direction of the late Mr. Pogson are in a forward state of 

 reduction, and that the real activity of the Observatory is not to 

 be measured by the fact that the last published volume of 

 observations contains the record of those made in 1870. The 

 funds at the disposal of the Madras Observatory have not per- 

 mitted the regular and early publication of the masses of 

 observations which the industry of Mr. Pogson and his assistants 

 has accumulated, and the scheme which the Director proposed 

 to himself did not permit him to give, from time to time, an 

 abstract of his work through the ordinary and recognized 

 channels open for the dissemination of astronomical results. 

 Mr. Michie Smith writes that the " Variable Star Atlas " alone 

 contains the observations of about 60,000 stars, made and 

 reduced by Mr. Pogson. We may express an earnest wish that 

 no long time may be suffered to elapse before astronomers have 

 an opportunity of judging the value of this mass of material in 

 an interesting branch of astronomical inquiry. 



Under the McKinley regime it seems to be a very generous 

 thing for an American savant to communicate a paper to a 

 British society. One of them writes as follows to the Nation :— 

 "A learned society of Scotland, in pursuance of its Hberal 

 policy, mailed to me fifty author's copies of a paper which had 

 been honoured by admission to its Transactions. The bundle 

 NO, II 38, VOL. 44] 



came to the local post-ofiice this week opened, and accompanied 

 by a slip giving the package a ' commercial value ' of twelve 

 dollars, and assessing a duty of 25 per cent. The local collector 

 of customs thinks that I am resisting the just claims of a hard- 

 working Government in delaying payment ; but curiosity as to 

 how they discover the commercial value of a paper whose real 

 audience might, I think, be numbered on the fingers of the two 

 hands, has led me to appeal the case." 



Science sta.tes that the executors of the estate of the lateWilliam 

 B. Ogden, the first Mayor of Chicago, have selected the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago as one of the beneficiaries, giving it a scien- 

 tific school. The gift, which will amount to from three hundred 

 thousandjto half a million dollars, will endow a separate depart- 

 ment of the University, to be called the Ogden Scientific 

 School, its purpose being to furnish graduate students with the 

 best facilities possible for scientific investigation by courses of 

 lectures and laboratory practice. The income of the money 

 appropriated is to be devoted to and used for the payment of 

 salaries and fellowships, and the maintenance of laboratories in 

 physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy, with the 

 subdivisions of these departments. A large share of the time of 

 the professors in the school is to be given to original investiga- 

 tion, and encouragement of various kinds is to be furnished 

 them to publish the results of their investigations, a portion of 

 ^^he funds being set apart for the purpose of such publication. 



It seems as if in time the publishers of sea-side guides may 

 realize that some people who require a holiday are intelligent, 

 possess eyes, and perchance even some acquaintance with natural 

 history. We have just received a copy of Johnson's illustrated 

 "Visitors' Companion" to Eastbourne and its vicinity, which 

 contains, besides the matter usually supplied, an account of the 

 flora, consisting of 291 varieties of wild flowers, 9 orchids, 18 

 ferns, 12 mosses and their allies, 34 varieties of sea-weeds (with 

 directions for collecting and preserving them) ; particulars are 

 also given of 56 varieties of butterflies (with time of appearance), 

 45 varieties of moths (with time of appearance, and how to catch 

 them by the electric light), 29 varieties of wild bees, pebbles, 

 fossils, land and freshwater mollusca, a brief geological survey 

 of the district, and an extensive list of wild birds which fre- 

 quent the neighbourhood, together with a guide to fresh and 

 salt water fishing. Have we to thank Prof Huxley's local 

 influence for this ? 



An exhibition of the successes in acclimatization achieved in 

 Russia will be opened at Moscow, in connection with the Inter- 

 national Congresses of Zoology and Prehistoric Archaeology and 

 Anthropology which will be held in the Russian capital in 

 August 1892. The results of the numerous experiments in 

 acclimatization of a great variety of plants which have been 

 made during the last twenty-five years, especially in the Asiatic 

 dominions of the Empire, will be exhibited. 



In a Vice-Presidential Report to the U.S. National Geo- 

 graphic Society, on the "Geography of the Air," Lieut. A. 

 W. Greely reviews the progress of meteorological science during 

 the past year, chiefly with reference to the work of American 

 meteorologists. Referring to the recent controversy on the 

 causes of cyclones and anticyclones, he says : — " The status of the 

 meteorological discussion which has been going on for some time 

 seems to be this. A number of men, applying themselves to in- 

 vestigation in separate branches or stages of the same science, 

 are attempting to reconcile their views, which, based as they 

 are upon entirely different processes of investigation, are not 

 entirely accordant. Some at least of these writers are still 

 apparently groping in the preliminary, the 'natural history' stage 

 of the science of meteorology, while one alone stands as the ex- 

 ponent of the ' natural philosophy' of meteorology." This view 

 seems somewhat inappreciative, and the account given of Dr. 



