December 12, 18 5] 



NATURE 



133 



which he appends translations. The inscriptions appear 

 to have been reproduced from De \'ogi.id's " Syrie 

 Centrale," pi. 4, Nos. 28 and 29, and the translations are ' 

 versions of the French rendering to be found on p. 28/ 

 of the same work. We do not blame Dr. Wright for 

 this apparently learned insertion, as no doubt many of 

 his readers would be interested in seeing what a Palmy- j 

 rene inscription looks like ; but we do think he should I 

 have given some reference or indication of the source \ 

 from which he took his information. It is the more to be I 

 regretted that he omitted to do this, as in his translation j 

 Dr. Wright has written "the daughter of Zabbai" for j 

 Bath-Zebhinah of the original, not recognising the proper 

 name, Zijvo^la, in its Semitic dress — an odd mistake to j 

 come across in a book which claims to give an account 

 of that great queen. 



In a book of travel one does not expect any remarkable 

 purity of style, but Dr. Wright has perhaps too great a 

 liking for fine language ; as, for instance, v.hen he 



while from the other some idea can be obtained of the 

 forest of columns which are still standing on the site of 

 that once famous city. 



NOTES. 

 The Council of the Pasteur Institute are about to organise a 

 committee to make an international appeal for funds to erect a 

 statue of Pasteur in Paris. 



An expedition to observe the solar eclipse next August will be 

 sent out to Yezo from Amherst College, U.S.A., under the 

 direction of Prof. David P. Todd. The expedition is expected 

 to leave San Francisco next spring. 



It is reported by Reuter that steps are being taken to invite 

 the Prince of Wales and the Secretary of State for the Colonies 

 to visit Toronto in August 1897, when the British Association 



describes a lady out riding as " bounding over the 

 desert on a splendid charger, whose neck of thunder 

 swayed hither and thither to her silken touch." But this 

 is a minor detail, and, although we cannot honestly say 

 that the man of science or antiquary will gather any particu- 

 larly new or useful information from his pages, it would be 

 ungenerous to discourage any one from describing, for 

 the benefit of other people, the places and incidents from 

 which he himself has derived pleasure. The book, in 

 fact, would form a chatty and by no means uninteresting 

 companion to any more solid work on the same subject, 

 such as Socin's " Palestine and Syria," published by 

 Baedeker, in which all historical and topographical facts 

 concerning Palmyra and Syria in general are carefully 

 arranged. We may add that the volume before us is 

 prettily bound, well printed, and has plenty of illustrations, 

 two of which are here reproduced. The one gives a view 

 of a colonnade from the Temple of the Sun at Palmyra, 



NO. 1363, VOL. 53] 



meets there, to open the new municipal buildings, which by that 

 time will have been completed at a cost of ;^500,ooo. 



An Electrical Lighting and Power Act has recently been 

 passed at the Cape of Good Hope, authorising regulations for 

 the safety of the public. Mr. A. P. Trotter has been appointed 

 Government Electrician and Inspector under this Act. 



The deaths are announced of Dr. A. J. Woitow, Professor 

 of Bacteriology at Moscow ; Dr. Ludwig Riitimeyer, Professor 

 of Zoology at Basel ; Dr. F. P. Porcher, of Charleston, South 

 Carolina, author of numerous works on pharmaceutical botany. 



The Executive Committee of the City and Guilds of London 

 Institute are inviting applications for the appointment to the 

 Salters' Company's Research Fellowship for the ensuing year. 

 The Fellowship was founded by the Salters' Company for the 

 encouragement of higher research in chemistry in its relation to 



