October 22, 1891} 



NATURE 



599 



two, at Ealing, on October 7, He was a man of great 

 ability both in literary and scientific pursuits. lie was a 

 good botanist, and proved himself a most able editor of Nature 

 Notes, the journal of the Selborne Society. The work with 

 which his name will be identified is the " Pronouncing 

 Dictionary of Botanical Names," appended to Nicholson's 

 "Dictionary of Gardening"; it is now recognized as a 

 standard work by botanists. Unfortunately his professional 

 duties did not enable him to leave a margin ; so that it is pro- 

 posed to raise a " Myles Memorial Fund" on behalf of his 

 widow ; and any contributions will be thankfully received and 

 at once acknowledged by the Rev. Prof G. Ilenslow, Drayton 

 House, Ealing, London, W. 



The Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers has 

 issued a list of subjects on which it invites communica- 

 tions. The list is to be taken merely as suggestive, not in 

 any sense as exhaustive. For approved papers, the Council 

 has the power to award premiums, arising out of special funds 

 bequeathed for the purpose. A detailed list is given of the 

 awards made for original communications submitted during the 

 past session. 



More than ten earthquake shocks were felt in the island of 

 Pantellaria, between Sicily and the Tunisian coast, between 

 5.30 p.m. and 4 a.m. on October 14-15. Some of the shocks 

 were rather vio'ent, and nearly all the inhabitants left their 

 houses and pa sed ihe night in the streets or in the open country. 

 According to intelligence received at the Central Meteorological 

 Bureau, Rome, from Pantellaria on October 18, shocks of earth- 

 quake continued to be felt in the island. A rejiarkable pheno- 

 menon is announced in connection with these seisnic distur- 

 bances. A new volcano has risen from the bed of the sea, not 

 far from the coast of the island, and has been throwing up 

 masses of stones and rubbish to a considerable height. A 

 "slight eruption " from it was referred to in a telegram sent 

 from Rome on October 20. 



Last winter there were some reports that sunset phenomena 

 had greatly increased in brilliancy, as if something similar to 

 the optical disturbance following the Krakata~o eruption had 

 occurred. Herr Busch has remarked {Met. Zeit.) how difficult 

 it is to recognize gradual variations in such phenomena, or to 

 say where they pass beyond the normal. Even the brown-red 

 Bishop's ring may be legarded as quite normal in winter. A 

 much more sure method of finding an optical diUurbance of the 

 atmosphere is measurement of the polarization of light. Herr 

 Busch has carried this on systematically for some years with a 

 Savart polariscope, and a simple instrument for measuring angles, 

 determining the height of the two neutral points (Babinel's and 

 Arago's) at sunset. Now, the values for this height, in February 

 and May last, considerably exceed those obtained in the three 

 previous years, and come neir those in 1886, when the last 

 traces of the great atmosj heric disturbance were still everywhere 

 perceptible. It would seem, then, that some optical disturbance 

 has been really present, the beginning, extent, and cause of 

 which, however, are in obscurity. The desirability of systematic 

 observations in different places is pointed out. 



In ourissueof Octobers (p. 549)wedrewattention tothreeatlases 

 issued by the Chief Signal Officer of the U.S. Army. We have 

 now to record the publication, dated June 15 last, of an atlas 

 containing seventy-two charts showing the no-mal temperature 

 conditions in the United States and Canada by decades, three 

 decades to each month, for 8h. a.m. andSh. p.m., Washington 

 time. Although the Signal Service has been in existence up- 

 wards of twenty years, it had not before been able to accumulate 

 sufficient actual o'oservations at any one hour, or set of hours, 

 from which normal values could be derived. The values and 

 isotherms contained in the present atlas are bas^d upon nine 



NO, II 47, VOL. 44] 



yaars' observations, 1881-89. The charts have been carefully 

 prepared, for the work of the Forecast Division, and will also be 

 very useful in furnishing general information upon the average 

 temperature of North America. The work has been prepared 

 under the supervision of General Greely, although issued by the 

 new Weather Bureau. 



The Ealing Middlesex County Times (October 17) prints the 

 following account of an incident which occurred at "The 

 Grange, ' the residence of Mr. Yates Neill, Ealing, on Wednes- 

 day, October 14 : — "It appears that during Tuesday night a large 

 branch of one of the magnificent chestnut trees standing in the 

 ground was broken off by the force of the wind, and fell on two 

 stripling chestnut trees near the wall. On Wednesday morning, 

 the gardener, a man named Parker, was engaged in sawing the 

 detached bough, Mr. Delancey Neill and Mr. Vertie Neill 

 watching the op3ration. Just before noon, the first-named 

 gemlemxn saw what appeared to him to be a ball of fire fall, 

 and striking the tree in an oblique direction, alight on the 

 ground within two or three yards of where the three were 

 standing, whence it rebounded and exploded with a sound like 

 dynamite. Although neither of them was struck, the shock 

 was so great that for a time all three were dazed, Mr. Vertie 

 Neill, indeed, being thrown down, and rolling over two or 

 three times. His brother was the first to recover from the 

 shock, and promptly went to his help, and he was removed to 

 the house, where the feeling of dizziness sp?edily wore off; and 

 beyond somewhat severe headaches, whic'i lasted for some 

 hours, neither of the gentlemen nor the i^ardener appeared to 

 have suffered any ill effects. The trunk of the tree struck by 

 the meteor presents the appearance of having bean burned in a 

 zigzag direction for a distance of some 20 or 30 feet." 



Most people who visit Greece devote their attention mainly 

 to the remains of ancient art. Dr. I'hilippson, of Berlin, is of 

 opinion that they might also with advantage spend so ne time in 

 climbing the mountains of Greece. In the Zei'schrift des 

 Deutschen und Oesterreichischen Afpjnvireins he deals with 

 the subject in a capital paper, which ha> been issued separately. 

 He gives an attractive account of his own experiences in climb- 

 ing Mount Chelmos, in the Peloponnese, describing admirably 

 the impression produced upon him by the Styx. Dr. Philippson 

 shows that in the Highlands of Greece there is still much good 

 work to be done in topography, geology, an 1 meteorology ; and 

 he sees no reason why some of it should not be accomplished 

 by tourists. 



Messrs. W. II. Allen and Co. have published a second 

 edition of the late Mr. R. A. Proctor's " Other Suns than Oars." 



The new number of the Internati<ma'es Archiv fiir Ethnt' 

 graphic opens with a most interesting paper (in German) by Dr. 

 I. Zemmrich on " The Islands of the Dead, and related Geo- 

 graphical Myths." The author shows how widely diffused is the 

 belief that there are far-off happy islands, where all sorts of 

 enjoyments are in store for the dead ; and he suggests that 

 Atlantis, abjut which so much has been written, was originally 

 one of these mythical realms. Dr. J. Jacobs concludes his 

 critical examination (in Dutch) of Dr. Ploss's view of the 

 significance of circumcision. 



Mr. G. J. Symons, F, R.S., contributes to the current number 

 of the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society a 

 learned paper on the history of rain-gauges. It was read before 

 the Society on March 18, in connection with the annual 

 exhibition, and is one of the reries in which hygrometers, 

 anemometers, instruments for travellers, thermometers, sunshine 

 recorders, barometers, marine instrument-:, apparatus for 

 studying atmospheric electricity, solar radiation instruments, 

 and the application of photography to meteorology, have been 



