September 8, 1892] 



NATURE 



449 



by his generous deeds in that neighbourhood, and a year or two 

 ago he offered ;^4000 to found an institution in Genoa for the 

 encouragement of the study of botany. Senator Secondi, presi- 

 dent of the University, gave expression to a sincere feeling of 

 gratitude towards Mr. Hanbury, and accepted the gift of the 

 institute in the name of the University. A large number of dis- 

 tinguished botanists, who are attending the congress now being 

 held there, were present at the ceremony. 



The meeting of the German Mathematicians' Union in 

 Niirnberg, and the Mathematical Exhibition, are postponed on 

 account of the cholera. 



The German Chemical Society have resolved to found an 

 Institute in remembrance of the late Prof, von Hofmann. Large 

 funds will naturally be required, and ail pupils and those who 

 honour Hofmann's life and work are earnestly requested, in a 

 recently-issued circular, to send contributions. Even those who 

 had no personal knowledge of the illustrious savant, but have 

 been inspired to work by his example, will no doubt be willing 

 to take part in the scheme. The proposed Institute will not 

 merely serve chemical purposes, but will be a place of general 

 scientitic research. 



The International Congress of Physiologists has held its 

 Second triennial session at Liege with Prof. Holmgren (Upsala) 

 as President, in the Physiological Institute under Prof. Leon 

 Fredericq. The Congress terminated on Thursday, September 

 I, after a banquet at which the Burgomaster of the city was 

 present. More than one hundred physiologists attended the 

 Congress. 



The thirteenth Congress of the Sanitary Institute will be 

 held at Portsmouth from September 12 to 17. Sir Charles 

 Cameron will preside. The Congress will be divided into three 

 sections — one dealing with sanitary science and preventive 

 medicine, another with engineering and architecture, and a 

 third with chemistry, meteorology, and geolDgy. Conferences 

 will be held by naval and military hygienists, by medical officers 

 of health, by municipal and county engineers and surveyors, by 

 sanitary inspectors, and by ladies on domestic hygiene. A 

 health exhibition, including sanitary apparatus and appliances, 

 in connection with the Congress, will be held in the Drill Hall 

 from September 12 to October "6. 



A PHOTOGRAPH of the late Admiral Mouchez— one of the 

 best photographs ,of him we have seen — appears in the July 

 number of the Bulletin Astronomiqtie, which journal owes its 

 existence to his indefatigable exertions. There is also a brief 

 account of his life written by M. Tisserand. 



The sixth session of the Vacation Courses, known as the 

 Edinburgh Summer Meeting, has just come to a close after a 

 very successful month's work. The importance of this meeting 

 increases year by year with the steadily increasing number of 

 students, and with the more complete organization of the plan 

 of study. This has again been arranged so as to assist in the 

 training of school teachers and University Extension lecturers 

 for the new duties which are beginning to devolve upon them in 

 connection with the requirements of County Councils for 

 technical education. Hence the principle of " Regional Study" 

 has again been kept prominently in view, Edinburgh and its 

 districts being taken as a typical area, and affording a starting 

 point and vivid concrete illustrations for the courses on 

 sociology and anthropology (Profs. Geddes and Haddon) on 

 the one hand, and on the other for those on biology (with 

 special courses of zoology and botany) and physiology by Mr. 

 J. Arthur Thomson, Prof. Haycraft, and others. The course on 

 literature by Prof. Moulton, which was very largely attended, 

 followed to a large extent the same general lines as the more 



NO. II 93, VOL. 46] 



purely scientific courses. The work in the historical seminary 

 and the studio was continued, and a series of technical education 

 lectures was given in the evenings by Principal Dyer, Profs. 

 Mavor, Geddes, and Prince, Mr. C. Williams, and others. 

 Many nationalities were represented among both students and 

 teachers. Besides many British Association and other visitors, 

 Profs, Haeckel (Jena), Delage (Paris), attended the meeting. 

 Special lectures were delivered by Profs. Devine and Rolf 

 (Philadelphia), Profs. Manouvrier and Demoulins (Paris), 

 Principal Dyer, Profs. Mavor, Prince, Lloyd Morgan, Sollas, 

 Messrs. R. Aitken, W. Renton, R. Irvine, and others. A 

 series of interpretative recitals by Prof. Moulton, and four con- 

 certs illustrating the history of music were also given. 



Fifty scholarships, named the Townshend Scholarships, from 

 funds bequeathed by the late Rev. Chauncey Hare Townshend, 

 for working-class boys or girls between 14 and 21, to be held 

 for one year, have just been established in connection with the 

 Westminster Technical Institute, 40 being free and 10 com- 

 petitive. The subjects taught in the Institute, which was 

 founded by the Baroness Burdett-Coults, are rudimentary, com- 

 mercial, and technical, and include drawing, technical, mechani- 

 cal, and artistic; geometry, practical, plane, and solid; working 

 in wood, lead, metal-plate, &c. ; cookery, dressmaking, short- 

 hand, loreign languages, &c. 



A REMARKABLE grotto, which is exciting the interest of 

 French geologists and mining engineers, was recently revealed 

 by an explosion during the progress of the ordinary work in a 

 quarry at Taverny. The Paris correspondent of the Times says 

 there is a subterranean gallery, with walls polished as if by 

 water ; and that it is some 1500 feet in length, and ends in a 

 great chamber about 40 feet in diameter and 6 feet in height. 

 Scientific men have hazarded various conjectures as to the 

 source of the watercourse by which this cavity seems to have 

 been formed. 



Mr. Hermann Krone gives, in No. 7 of Wiedemann's 

 " Annalen," an account of some further experiments connected 

 with the photography of spectra in their natural colours by 

 Lippmann's method. He finds that the correct rendering of 

 the various colours depends upon a high degree of accuracy in 

 the proportions of the finely divided silver haloid and the colour 

 sensitiser, as also upon the temperature of drying, the exposure, 

 and the development. If the essential conditions are not ful- 

 filled, it may happen that yellow appears in the place of red, or 

 that green exhibits a direct transition into violet, the blue being 

 unrepresented. The result also depends upon the amount of 

 water contained in the film, as influencing its thickness, and in 

 the case of the solar spectrum upon the altitude of the sun. 

 With a very long exposure the infra-red appears as a dark 

 purple, and the ultra-violet as a yellowish-pink lavender colour. 

 Mr. Krone has also succeeded in producing coloured photo- 

 graphs without Lippmann's mercury mirror. He simply covers 

 the film with black velvet, exposing, as Lippmann did, through 

 the glass. In this case, the reflection from the inner surfaces of 

 the glass takes the place of that from the mercury. The ex- 

 posure has to be considerably prolonged, and the colours 

 towards the red end are less pure ; but the blue, violet, and 

 ultra-violet are quite as brilliant and well defined as in the 

 mercury process. 



During the past week the weather has assumed a decidedly 

 autumnal character, the maximum temperatures being below 

 65° in many parts of the United Kingdom, and below 55° in 

 some of the northern parts. For the first few days depressions 

 from the Atlantic caused unsettled and showery weather, with 

 strong winds or gales. On Sunday, however, an area of high 

 pressure spread over England, and under its influence the sky 



