572 



NA TURE 



[October 13, 1892 



NOTES. 



By the death of Lord Tennyson not only does England lose 

 one of her noblest sons, but the world loses the Poet who, above 

 all others who have ever lived, combined the love and knowledge 

 of Nature with the unceasing study of the causes of things 

 and of Nature's laws. When from this point of view we 

 compare him with his forerunners, Dante is the only one it 

 is needful to name ; but although Dante's knowledge was well 

 abreast of his time, he lacked the fulness of Tennyson, for the 

 reason that in his day science was restricted within narrow 

 limits. It is right and fitting that the highest poetry should be 

 associated with the highest knowledge, and in the study of 

 science, as Tennyson has shown us, we have one of the necessary 

 bases of the fullest poetry — a poetry which appeals at the same 

 time to the deepest emotions and the highest and broadest in- 

 tellects of mankind. Tennyson, in short, has shown that science 

 and poetry, so far from being antagonistic, must for ever advance 

 side by side. We are glad to know that the Royal Society, of 

 which Lord Tennyson has been for many years a Fellow, was 

 fittingly represented at his funeral by its President and officers. 



We regret to announce the sudden death of Mr. Robert 

 Bullen, the curator of the Glasgow Botanic Gardens. He was 

 well known as a horticulturist, being especially successful in the 

 cultivation of orchids. The post vacated by his death is one of 

 the best of the kind in the country, and we understand that the 

 appointment will rest with the Corporation of Glasgow, who 

 took over the management of the Botanic Gardens in 1891. 



The death of Dr. Leon Poincare, professor in the Faculty of 

 Medicine at Nancy, is announced. He died on September 15 

 at the age of sixty-four. 



At the meeting of the Linnaean Society of New South Wales 

 on August 31, Mr. H. Deane, Vice-President, who occupied 

 the chair, referred to the loss the Society had sustained by the 

 death of Mr. R. D. Fitzgerald, well known for his knowledge, 

 and for his artistic delineations, of Australian orchids. 



Russia, which already possesses some of the best equipped 

 chemical laboratories in Europe, is to have another which is to 

 eclipse all others. On September 13/25 the foundation stone of 

 the new chemical laboratory of the University of St. Petersburg 

 was laid with befitting ceremony. The new laboratory, which 

 is designed by Prof. Mentschatkin in collaboration with the 

 architect Krassowsky, is based upon the best existing models in 

 Germany and Austria. 



In the Times of the lOth inst. there is an announcement that 

 Surgeon-Major Laurie has proved that the fall of blood-pressure 

 in animals rendered insensible by chloroform is due to the action 

 of the anaesthetic on the brain, and not on the heart. When 

 blood containing chloroform is allowed to reach the brain only 

 all the ordinary phenomena of anaesthesia are observed, but 

 when such blood is conveyed to every other part of the body 

 except the brain, which, by a peculiar arrangement of the ex- 

 periment, is supplied with pure blood, the anaesthetic effects of 

 chloroform and also its depressing effects on the circulation are 

 not observed. We are glad to see that Dr. Laurie is still con- 

 tinuing his experiojents on a subject of such vital interest, and 

 we trust that his energy and the generosity of the Nizam, to 

 which we owe the elaborate work of the Hyderabad Chloroform 

 Commission, will meet an ample reward. 



The British Ornithologists' Union, founded in 1858, consists 

 of upwards of 250 votaries of this branch of natural history, 

 who maintain as their organ the well-known ornithological jour- 

 nal, 77ie Ibis, now in its thirty-fourth volume. The more active 

 members of the union have just formed themselves into a club, 

 and will meet together once a month to read and discuss papers 

 and to exhibit specimens. The first meeting of the " British 

 NO. II 98, VOL. 46] 



Ornithologists' Club" will be held on October ig. Mr. 

 Howard Saunders, F.Z.S., is the treasurer and secretary. 



The university of Padua is about to hold a festival in honour 

 of Galileo. The seventh of December, 1892, will be the ter- 

 centenary of the day upon which Galileo ascended the chair of 

 mathematics at that university. In the words of the letter of 

 invitation which the rector. Prof. Carolus Ferraris, has just 

 issued to some of the learned societies of Europe, "Illo enim 

 die Ann. mdxcii. summus acerrimusque investigator legum, 

 quibus caelestium terrestriumque rerum natura continetur, hie 

 cathedram ascendit eamque voce sua immortalitati commen- 

 davit." It is to the honour of Padua that it welcomed Galileo 

 to this high position the very next year after he had been publicly 

 hissed and obliged to resign his professorship at Pisa. The 

 festival will extend from the 6th to the 8th of next December. 



The Linnaean Society of New South Wales has just issued 

 a second circular with respect to the Macleay Memorial 

 Volume by which it appears that only ;^l7o has been contributed 

 out of ;^400 which is required for the publication of the 

 Memorial Volume. The circular calls to mind Sir William 

 Macleay's contributions to science, in purchasing and fitting out 

 at his sole expense the ship Chevert and exploring the island of 

 New Guinea, and in presenting to the University of Sydney his 

 entire collection valued at ;,^23,ooo, together with ^^6000 to 

 provide salary for a curator. Sir William Macleay was also 

 the founder of the Linnaean Society of New South Wales, for 

 which he erected a suitable building, and which he endowed 

 with the sum of ;^20,ooo. He further founded a chair of bac- 

 teriology and four scientific fellowships at the University of 

 Sydney, at a cost altogether of ^47,000. The sum of £\ 70 

 seems hardly adequate as a recognition of these munificent gifts 

 to science, to say nothing of the original researches which Mac- 

 leay himself conducted. 



Mr. Thomas Hodgkins, of Long Island, New York, has 

 sent to the Royal Institution no less than ;^20,ooo for the pro- 

 motion of scientific research. Not very long ago, as we noted 

 at the time, Mr. Hodgkins presented ^^40,000 to the Smith- 

 sonian Institution at Washington. 



The Severn Valley Field Club has completed the work of the 

 current year. It has paid some attention to the glacial deposits 

 at Gloppa, near Oswestry, which have recently yielded to Mr. 

 A. C. Nicolson a large series of fossils. The members have 

 also visited the Triassic rocks of the area round Warwick. 

 Their work concluded with an investigation of the Uriconian 

 and Longmyndian formations of Western Shropshire under the 

 guidance of the President, Dr. C. Calloway. 



Dr. J. M. Macfarlane has been appointed to the chair of 

 Biology in the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. He 

 formerly held the post of senior assistant in the Botanical De- 

 partment of the University of Edinburgh. 



An influential association has been formed for the promotion 

 of the study of the Hausa language and people, in commemora- 

 tion of the services of the Rev. J. A. Robinson, who died last 

 year at his work as a missionary in the Niger Territories. Hausa 

 is the lingua franca of the Central Sudan, extending from the 

 Sahara to the tribes near the Gulf of Guinea, and from the 

 Egyptian Sudan to the French colony of Senegal. Mr. Robin- 

 son convinced himself that no satisfactory work of any kind 

 could be carried on among the races of the Central Sudan with- 

 out a knowledge of Hausa. The Executive Committee of the 

 new Association have decided to endeavour, with the least 

 practicable delay, to appoint two "Robinson Students," con- 

 versant with Arabic or Hebrew, whose preliminary labours 

 would be carried on in the comparatively temperate climate of 

 Tripoli, with a view to their proceeding at a later date to the 

 Central Sudan, where they would make the language and cus» 



