362 



NA rURE 



[August 1 1, 1892 



90"i7 inches, most of which falls between May and Sep- 

 tember. Dr. Doberck states that there is apparently a little 

 more rain when there are many spots on the sun, but the differ- 

 ence is too slight to be of any practical importance. The east 

 wind is most prevalent at all seasons, the colony being within 

 the region of the trade wind ; about 59 percent, of all winds 

 blow from this quarter, but from June till September there is also a 

 southerly maximum, caused by the monsoon. In winter the 

 temperature is highest with south, and lowest with north wind, 

 and in summer it is highest with south-west, and lowest with 

 east winds. During the year, 213 ships' log-books have been 

 examined for data relating to typhoons, and registers have been 

 regularly kept at about forty stations. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include two Macaque Monkeys {Macacus cynomolgiis, 

 tJ i ) from India, presented respectively by Lieutenant H. S. 

 Wilson and Mrs. Dunnington Jefferson ; a Ring-tailed Coati 

 {Nasua rufa) from South America, presented by Mr. C. Carring- 



ton ; an Angolan Vulture {Gypohierax angolensis, juv. ), a 



Buzzard {Buteo ) from West Africa, presented by Dr. 



Ferrier ; a Spiny-tailed Mastigure ( Uromastix acanthinurus) 

 from Algeria, presented by Lady Sebright ; a Black-headed 

 Caique {Caica melanocephala) from Demerara, two Spiny- 

 tailed Mastigures ( Uromastix acanthinurus) from Algeria, de- 

 posited ; three Short-headed Phalangers {Belidens breviceps) from 

 Australia, a Hairy Armadillo {Dasypus villosus, 6) from La 

 Plata, a White-throated Capuchin ( Celeus hypoleucus, 9 ) from 

 Central America, four Scarlet Ibises {Eudocimus ruber) from 

 Para, purchased ; a Testaceous Snake {Ptyas testacea) froms 

 California, received in exchange. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 



Natal Observatory. — The superintendent of the Nata 

 Observatory, in his report for the year 1890-91, tenders hi 

 obligations to no less than seven ladies, without whose zealou 

 assistance, he says, the greater part of the numerous astronomica 

 computations, &c., would not have been carried out. Although 

 lacking such aid as is consistent with the proper working of an 

 Observatory, a great amount of very useful work has been 

 accomplished. For instance, the entire mass of meridian obser- 

 vations of the moon made at Greenwich during the period 1851- 

 186 1 have been reduced and compared with the theoretical basis 

 of Hansen's Lunar Tables, thus completing the whole number 

 of lunar observations up to the year 1890. The work with the 

 transit, magnetic transit, and equatorial have been continued as 

 usual. For the determination of the latitude of the Observatory 

 1022 observations of thirty-five pairs of stars have been obtained. 

 Owing to the close proximity of the equatorial and transit in- 

 struments, we are informed that it is impossible to use them 

 both at the same time ; this should be at once remedied, for 

 the Observatory does not seem to be supplied with many surplus 

 instruments. 



The meteorological observations have been made regularly 

 throughort the year. We hope, now that provision has been 

 made for supplying a rain gauge and set of thermometers for 

 each of the coast magistracies, that the Observatory will still 

 continue to urge the necessity of maintaining and extending the 

 system of weather reports, in the interests of the Colony, for, as 

 is now well known, the value of such observations is only main- 

 tained when the stations are numerous and well distributed. 



Geodetic Survey of South Africa. — Since the issue of 

 the last (Jan. 1891) report by H.M Astronomer, Dr. Gill, on the 

 Geodetic Survey carried on in South Africa, the work has been 

 progressing very successfully and swiftly, an average of five 

 principal stations being occupied and completed every month by 

 a single observer. On May 31, 1891, the field work as far as 

 Modder River was completed, the site for the base line being 

 reached the following day. Some difficulty v/as here encoun- 

 tered with regard to the selection of the position for the base, 

 but it was eventually fixed near Kimberley, the permanent camp 

 being fixed about eight miles from this place. The total length 

 of the measured base was 6000 feet, and it was divided into 



sections of 500 feet, since this seemed " a convenient length for 

 a forward and backward measurement in one day." The figures 

 given in this report, although uncorrected for sea-level, &c., 

 speak well for the accuracy of the undertaking, as will te seen 

 from the following table. Each length of 500 feet was measured 

 both forward and backward, and it is the differences of these 

 measurements that are here shown : — 



The probable error of the whole base was ± 0*028 inches. The 

 lengths of the two sections came out as — 



Mj = 2999-4445 feet 



Mv,- = 2999-7545 ,, 

 The differences between the measured and the computed lengths 

 of Section II. through the triangulation were : by the eastern 

 triangles M - Cj -t- 0-0035 feet ; by the western triangles 

 M - Cj - 0-0083 feet. 



During the triangulation work several observations for latitude 

 were made at Tafelberg, Hanover, De Put, and Kimberley 

 Camp, the results showing, as Dr. Gill points out, "that the 

 abnormal deviation of the plumb line found along the coast in 

 the neighbourhood of Port Elizabeth had disappeared." The 

 report concludes with the determinations of the observers' per- 

 sonal equations and two diagrams of the triangulation. 



THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF 

 EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

 ■X^HEN the first Congress on this subject met in Paris in 1889 

 under the presidency of Prof. Ribot, and with Prof. 

 Charles Richet for its secretary, it proved a vigorous and most 

 successful attempt to gather together from all parts of the world 

 the students of a difficult branch of learning in which some 

 methods of modern physics are being used in psychology, and 

 these methods, or at least their results, are invading the 

 province of what our ancestors would have preferred to 

 call metaphysics. In the opinion of many of the most 

 thoughtful students of the subject it has been considered an 

 important point to keep up the connection between the physio- 

 logical and the psychological sides of the questions under dis- 

 cussion, and the present Congress under the careful and 

 admirable presidency of Prof. Henry Sidgwick, has proved 

 very successful on this point, and has led to much pleasant 

 acquaintanceship between those whose general work lies in 

 different branches of learning. At Paris the full number at the 

 Congress was about 150, and very little notice was taken of it 

 in England ; but at this recent Congress in London there have 

 been nearly twice as many members, and it has received 70 

 or 80 visitors from all parts of Europe and from the United 

 States and Canada. The vice-presidents have been Prof. A. 

 Bain, Prof. Baldwin, Prof. Bernheim, Prof. Ebbinghaus, Prof. 

 Ferrier, Prof. Preyer, Prof. Delboeuf, Prof. Liegeois, Prof. 

 Preyer, Prof. Richet, and Prof. Schafer. Among the other 

 well-known names of the visitors there were those of Helmholz, 

 Binet, Ribot, Henschen (Upsala), Mlinsterburg (Freiburg), 

 and among the English names Herbert Spencer, Francis Galton, 

 Prof. Oliver Lodge, Prof. Victor Horsley, Dr. Lauder Brunton, 

 and Dr. Hughlings Jackson. The honorary secretaries were 

 Prof. James Sully and Mr. F. W. H. Myers. The rooms of Uni- 

 versity College were kindly lent to the Congress by Mr. Erichsen 

 for its use during the four days of the meeting (Aug. 1-4). Prof. 

 Sidgwick's address attracted a large audience. He expressed him- 

 self as feeling it his first duty to apologize for the choice of Englarid 

 as the place of meeting, inasmuch as England could not be said 

 to be the country which had done most for experimental psych- 

 ology which, in the common meaning of the terms, had been 

 most advanced in German and French laboratories, and was making 

 recent and rapid progress in America. However, in a slightly 

 different sense of the word the English school of psychologists 

 from Locke and Hume down to Bain and Herbert Spencer had 

 been for the most part experimentalists or at least empiricists. 

 They had before them at this Congress a very wide range of 

 subjects, too extensive he thought on the whole to be covered 



NO. I 189. VOL. 46] 



