November 7, 1895] 



NATURE 



13 



Silver, 3 York Gate, Regent's Park, or to Mr. J. Scott Keltic, 

 I Savile Row, Burlington Gardens. 



A KEW particulars with reference to the Pasteur Institute, from 

 the British Medical Journal, are of special interest at the present 

 time. The receipts budget of the Institute is as follows : — The 

 interest on ;;^48,ooo, which is the amount that remains of the 



ublic subscription (about two-thirds of the sum subscribed, 

 or £io,QOO, was spent on the ground bought for the Institute 

 and in building). From ;^8oo to ;[^I200 was granted by the 

 Minister of Agriculture in recognition of the service rendered 

 by the anthrax vaccine, by the treatment of swine fever, and by 

 the supply of tuberculin and mallein. A subvention is granted 

 the Minister of Public Instruction to pay the salaries of such of 

 the Institute staff as were formerly attached to Pasteur's 

 laboratory. Certain profits are made by the sale of the anthrax 

 vaccine, and others sold at a very low price to veterinary 

 surgeons, and they realise for the Institute an income of ;^8oo. 

 The fees paid by the pupils who attend the lectures of the In- 

 stitute are also paid into the Institute treasury. Dr. Roux's 

 antidiphtheric service is annexed to the Pasteur Institute, but 

 has a distinct budget. This service is organised at Garches, on 

 the estate given by the Government to M. Pasteur for the pur- 

 pose of carrying on his researches on rabies. Its revenue is fur- 

 nished by the interest on the sum realised by a public subscrip- 

 tion, and by a Government grant amounting this year to ;^3200. 

 The services at the Institute are as follows : — Practical services, 

 consisting of inoculations, «S:c. ; the lectures in this service are 

 given by Dr. Roux and Dr. Metchnikoff. The pupils are of two 

 classes, " hearers " and " workers," who are allowed to work in 

 the laboratories. The research laboratories are placed at the 

 disposal of investigators, whose communications are published in 

 the Annales de Plnstitut Pastetir. The chiefs are — M. 

 Duclaux for biological chemistry ; M. Grancher, M. Charrin, and 

 M. Chantemesse for rabies ; M. Chamberland for microbic vac- 

 cinations and practical applications. There is a morphological 

 laboratory under the direction of M. Metchnikoff, and a technical 

 one under M. Roux. M. Nocard, professor at Alfort Veterinary 

 School, directs a veterinary service annexed to the Institute. 

 M. Duclaux is professor at the Faculte des Sciences. The 

 course of lectures he previously gave at the Sorbonne are now 

 held at the Pasteur Institute, where the Sorbonne pupils follow 

 him. The Institute was founded in 1888, and retains its con- 

 stitution and characteristics notwithstanding the death of 

 Pasteur. His pupils will carry on the work. 



The late Mr. John Bell Sedgwick has bequeathed £2t'^ to 

 the Royal Institution in aid of the fund for the promotion of 

 experimental research at low temperatures ; and Sir Frederick 

 Abel has given ;^50 to the same fund. 



The Manchester Museum public lectures continue to attract 

 i^rge audiences. This year there are five courses, each con- 

 ting of three lectures ; and the first course was brought to a 



iose on Saturday afternoon by an interesting discourse upon 



' ' Social Customs and Dwellings," the general subject being 



"The Elements of Anthropology," and the lecturer Prof. 



^. J. Hickson. The succeeding lectures are upon Minera- 



-y, by Dr. Burghardt ; Botany, by Prof. Y. E. Weiss ; 



icology, by Prof. Boyd Dawkins ; and Zoology, by Mr. W. E. 

 Hoyle. There are now seven handbooks upon the various de- 

 partments of the Museum, one of which — a handy guide to the 

 whole of the cases — is sold for a penny. The aim of the Pro- 

 fessors is to render the lectures educationally valuable, as well as 



■ foresting ; and the hands of the authorities will be strengthened 



> a recent grant from the Manchester Corporation of ;^4CX), 



hich is to be annual. 



That certain Hymenoptera and Homoptera secrete wax is 



ell known, and a note by Dr. H. G. Knaggs, in the Entomolo- 

 NO. 1358, VOL. 53] 



gisfs Monthly Magazine for November, indicates that this func- 

 tion can also be performed by Lepidoptera. An investigation 

 of some cells of Retinia resinana proved them to contain a very 

 appreciable amount of wax, which formed the lining of the cells. 

 The nature of the lining was demonstrated by dissolving off the 

 resin by immersion in cold rectified spirit, a fluid which appears 

 to have little or no effect upon the wax, so that the latter was 

 thereby exposed to view. " From this it seems to me," concludes 

 Dr. Knaggs, " to be pretty clear that the larva is furnished with 

 the power of secreting wax for the purpose of protecting itself 

 from contact with the tenacious semi-liquid resin exuding from 

 the wound in the fir bud ; otherwise, it would inevitably become 

 involved in the sticky medium. Previously to this, however, I 

 was aware that the imagines of certain Lepidoptera contained 

 wax, though I had then formed no idea as to the part played by 

 it in the economy of the insect's life. " 



Gold-mining is showing signs of revival in Victoria, as in 

 many other countries. Forty years ago the colony was the 

 foremost gold-producer in the world, throwing even California 

 into the shade. Although, however, its output has shrunk 

 from over 3,000,000 ozs. in 1856 to 673,000 ozs. last year, it has 

 now, according to the Annual Report of the Secretary for Mines , 

 again become a progressive quantity, and the product in 1894 

 was greater than that in any previous year since 1885. This was 

 due to exceptional causes, the granting to the unemployed of 

 free passes by railway from Melbourne to the various gold-fields 

 having added 15,000 labourers to the number of prospectors 

 and " fossickers." Quartz-mining was less actively pursued in 

 1894 than in 1893, ^i^^ the whole gain came from alluvial 

 deposits. Of these, as usual, the most important were the 

 "deep leads" or gravels contained in the beds of Pliocene 

 streams now buried beneath lava flows. In Victoria these 

 gravels are almost exclusively reached by shafts, the deepest of 

 which, at Bendigo, is now down 3122 feet. The Government 

 geologist reports that some extensive systems of deep leads 

 have been discovered and traced out by borings, one system in 

 particular, on the northern side of the Great Dividing Range 

 and to the westward of the meridian of Melbourne, having an 

 aggregate length of forty miles of leads. To work this an 

 enormous capital would be required, and it is proposed to make 

 it a national undertaking, subsidised by the Government. 



A VALUABLE paper on the new rubber industry in Lagos 

 appears in the Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information (No. 

 106, October), from which source the following facts were 

 obtained. It is well known that in West Africa there are 

 numerous plants yielding commercial rubber. The chief of 

 these are species of the Apocynaceous genus Landolphia, con- 

 sisting of climbing shrubs, with stems four to six inches in 

 diameter dividing above into numerous branches, and support- 

 ing themselves on neighbouring trees. From these, and similar 

 plants, a very important rubber industry was started at the Gold 

 Coast by Sir Alfred Moloney, K.C.M.G., in 1882 ; and although 

 previous to that year no rubber whatever was exported from 

 that colony, it had attained in 1893 to the annual value of 

 ;^200,ooo. This is a remarkable and striking instance of the 

 creation of a new industry by official action, and it deserves to 

 be recorded. In 1882, Sir Alfred Moloney pointed out the 

 possibilities of a similar rubber industry in Lagos, and suggested 

 " the adoption of measures having for their object the addition 

 of one more to the industries of the colony." The result of this 

 was not immediately apparent. But in 1894 the present 

 Governor of Lagos, Sir Gilbert T. Carter, K.C.M.G., induced 

 a party of natives from the Gold Coast, experienced in rubber 

 collecting, to go to Lagos to develop this valuable and importan 

 industry. A new rubber-yielding tree, the native name of 

 which is "Ire" or " Irai," was shortly afterwards discovered . 



