436 



NATURE 



[September 3, 1891 



described by the Indian press as not only a severe one to 

 India, but for the whole scientific world. His special study 

 was cryptogamic botany. He made important researches in 

 diseases of Indian plants, and ha 1 gained a continental repu- 

 tation. Several of his papers were published in the Linnean 

 Society's Transactions. His great ambition was to solve 

 Indian wheat disease, and he was to have studied coffee disease 

 in Southern India next winter. 



Tartly owing to Dr. Barclay's death, the Indian Leprosy 

 Report will be delayed a short time. The practical work is 

 virtually completed, and the Draft Report for the Government 

 of India is in type. The chief work now consists in correcting 

 the proofs and the preparation of the plates, maps, and sta- 

 tistics. On the two main questions with which they were to 

 deal, viz. the contagiousness and hereditary transmission of the 

 disease, the Commission have come to a unanimous decision, 

 but their conclusions will not be known till the Report is pub- 

 lished by the National Leprosy Fund. 



The statutory ninth meeting of the International Congress of 

 Orientalists began in the hall of the Inner Temple on Tuesday, 

 when an address was delivered by the Master of St. John's 

 College, Cambridge. 



An election to the Coutts Trotter Studentship, at Trinity 

 College, Cambridge, will take place next month. Applications 

 from candidates must be sent in to the College office, addressed 

 to the Secretary of the Coutts Trotter Studentship Committee, 

 on or before October 15. The studentship is tenable for two 

 years, and is for original research in physiology or in physics. 



We are glad to learn that a number of the friends of the late 

 Mr. N. R. Pogson are thinking of raising a memorial to him 

 in Madras. 



With reference to a recent note, we learn from New South 

 Wales that the Minister for Mines and Agriculture (the Hon. 

 Sydney Smith) has appointed Mr. Niel Harper, formerly a dairy 

 farmer of excellent repute in the South Coast District, to take 

 charge of the travelling dairy, which is to be sent to the different 

 districts of the colony under the control of the Department of 

 Agriculture. It will be necessary for the Agricultural Society, 

 or a local Committee, to provide the requirements of the dairy 

 such as a building suitable for its operations, and giving accom- 

 modation sufficient for ten pupils, who will be thoroughly in- 

 structed in all dairying operations. Also, for the carriage of 

 the plant to and from the nearest railway station or wharf to 

 the scene of operations, together with the necessary labour to 

 assist in the rough work of cleaning up, &c. The Society, or 

 Committee, will need to provide also a sufficient supply of milk, 

 say about fifty gallons daily, for the operations of the dairy, and 

 plenty of clean water for washing butter and cleaning up. Each 

 Society, or Committee, undertaking to furnish these require- 

 ments will be entitled to nominate at least ten pupils (either 

 male or female) for the full course of instruction in dairy opera- 

 tions, who will afterwards be examined with a view to receiving 

 a dairy certificate in the event of their showing a satisfactory 

 knowledge of the course of instruction. Of course the general 

 public will be admitted to see all the operations of the dairy, 

 which will work for ten days at each place where set up. All 

 district Societies and Committees desiring to have the benefit of 

 this course of instruction for their localities should make early 

 application to the Director of Agriculture, from whom regula- 

 tions and instructions can be obtained. Is our Minister of 

 Agriculture doing anything similar? 



At the request of the Russian Ambassador in London, the 

 Secretary of State for India has asked the Government of India 

 to afford facilities to Prof. Tichomiroff, who is about to visit 

 NO. II 40, VOL. 44] 



certain parts of India, Ceylon, and China, with the view of 

 studying the administration of botanical gardens and cinchona 

 plantations, and to M. Gondatti, who is about to study tea and 

 silkworm cuUivation in India, Ceylon, and China. 



Captain Wahab, R.E., will have charge of a party which 

 is to make a survey of the country round Aden during the 

 coming winter. 



Mr. Griesbach, of the Geological Survey of India, has pro- 

 ceeded with a survey party to Upper Burmah, where he will 

 remain about two years to examine thoroughly the geological 

 condition of the country. 



An important resolution of the Government of India on the 

 reorganization of the superior staff of the Indian Forest Depart- 

 ment has been issued. At an extra yearly cost of three lakhs of 

 rupees, the Imperial and Provincial Services are to be separated. 

 The Imperial is to be recruited solely under covenant with the 

 Secretary of State, and the average pay raised 6 per cent. The 

 Provincial Service gives 126 appointments, up to 600 rupees a 

 month, to natives of India. The Forest Department is the first 

 to introduce a complete scheme under the Public Service Com- 

 mission. 



Nine members of the Kite Arctic Expedition arrived st 

 Halifax, N.S., on August 30. The Expedition reached 77" 43' 

 N., and 70° 2d' W. They have brought with them immense 

 collections of flowers, herbs, and butterflies, some of which were 

 previously unknown. It is stated that " they found all the 

 published charts of Greenland to be incorrect," 



Experiments for the production of artificial rain are now 

 being made in Texas. They are conducted by members of the 

 Signal Corps, acting under the direction of the Minister of 

 Agriculture, and have been undertaken in accordance with a 

 vote of the United States Congress. Adequate reports on the 

 subject have not yet reached this country, but it is claimed that 

 the experiments have been attended by remarkable success. 



Mr. George Forbes, writing to the Times on August 31, 

 gave the following account of a meteor which he had seen at 

 Maidenhead on the previous evening at 8h. 22rn. : — "It was 

 brighter than Jupiter when I first saw it ; it lasted three 

 seconds from the time I first saw it, steadily increasing in 

 size and brightness, becoming pear-shaped, and blue showing in 

 its rear part when at its brightest — i.e. just before extinction. 

 There was no train, the luminosity not extending more than 1° 

 behind it. At the end it became intensely bright, and then dis- 

 appeared suddenly. It passed a little south of o Cassiopeiae, and 

 also a little south of 7 Andromedse. I first saw it at ih. 45m. 

 R.A. and 50° N. Deck, and it ended at 2h. om. R.A. and 39° 

 N. Decl." 



In the Meteorologische Zeitschrift for July, Prof. H. Mohn 

 discusses the present methods of reduction of meteorological 

 observations ; after the completion" of twenty-five years of obser- 

 vations at the Norwegian stations, he has decided upon making 

 certain more or less important alterations, commencing from 

 January i last, (i) As regards pressure, to introduce the cor- 

 rection for standard gravity at sea-level, in latitude 45°, which 

 amounts to o'i6 inch between the equator and the Poles, and 

 to as much as 0-03 inch between two extreme stations of the 

 Norwegian system. And to apply a correction due to diurnal 

 range (to be determined from hourly observations) to the 

 monthly means obtained and published from two or three ob- 

 servations daily. (2) Similarly, for temperature and humidity, 

 to apply corrections to the published monthly values obtained 

 from two or three daily observations. He fully explains the 

 methods he has adopted for obtaining the corrections to be 

 applied, an I we thin'c the ma'ter is worthy of the attention of 



