February 6, 1896] 



NATURE 



325 



NOTES. 



M. MoissAN has been elected President of the Chemical 

 Society of Paris. 



M. ROUCHE has been elected Acad^micien libre of the 

 I'aris Academy of Sciences, in the place of the late Baron 

 Larrey. 



Mr, Alexander Agassiz, having finished his surveys of 

 the coral -formations in the West Indies, has made arrangements 

 to explore the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, and proposes to 

 leave America for Brisbane, for that purpose, with a staff of 

 assistants, early in March next. 



The valuable conchological collection formed by the late 

 Miss Jane Saul, was bequeathed by her to the University of 

 Cambridge, and has lately been received by the Museum of 

 Zoology. The collection is principally remarkable for the mag- 

 nificent series of the genus Cypraa, in which are included 

 several species of great rarity. 



Oi'R U.S. correspondent writes : " The announcement was 

 made last August, that the New York Botanical Garden had 

 (received 250,000 dols. of the 500,000 dols. necessary to start it 

 properly. Progress is now reported in raising the remaining 

 250,000 dols., Mrs. Esther Herrman, of New York, having 

 ■contributed 5000 dols. Miss Helen Gould, sister of Countess 

 Castellane, has given Vassar College 8000 dols. to endow a 

 scholarship. Mr. Abram Abraham, of Brooklyn, recently 

 empowered the President of Cornell University to purchase the 

 ■Oriental library of Ernest Renan as a gift to the University, but 

 news has just been received that the widow of Renan's pub- 

 lisher has given the library to the Bibliotheque Nationale. It is 

 announced that the electrical exhibition to be held at New York, 

 May 4-June i, will be the most elaborate ever held in America. 

 Barnard College, one of the new colleges for women, has 

 recently raised a fund sufficient to secure it a permanent 

 home, and will erect a $500,000 building next spring, on the 

 •corner of 119th Street and Boulevard New York, near the new 

 site of Columbia College, with which Barnard is affiliated." 



The Pharmaceutical Journal states that a Committee has been 

 appointed by Prof. Alfred Dohme, Chairman of the Scientific 

 Section of the American Pharmaceutical Association, to direct 

 investigations in the pharmacognosy, chemistry, biology, 

 histology, &c., of drugs. The Committee consists of Prof. A. 

 B. Prescott, of Ann Arbor, President ; Prof. Edward Kremers, 

 University of Wisconsin ; Prof. L. E. Sayre, University of 

 Kansas ; Prof. John U. Lloyd, President of the Cincinnati 

 College of Pharmacy ; Prof. Samuel P. Sadtler, Philadelphia 

 College of Pharmacy ; and Dr. Charles Rice, Chairman of the 

 National Committee on the Revision of the United States 

 Pharmacopoeia. 



A NEW immense domain, full of interest for the naturalist and 

 the anthropologist, is now opened for scientific exploration by 

 the great Trans-Siberian railway. Last month the rails were 

 laid on this line as far as Krasnoyarsk, on the Yenisei, and next 

 summer the explorer will be able to reach by rail the banks of 

 ■the Yenisei, at a distance of 3057 miles from St. Petersburg. 

 With the cheapness of railway communication in Russia — a 

 second-class return ticket from St, Petersburg to Omsk (2673 

 miles) costs aVjout eight pounds — and the facilities opened for 

 navigation by the great rivers running northwards, Siberia is 

 sure to become soon a favourite field for scientific explorers. 



Some information concerning the Russian geological expedi- 

 tion which visited Novaya Zemlya last summer, was given by 

 NO. I 37 I, VOL. 53 J 



the geologist, M. Tchemyscheff, at the meeting of the Russian 

 Geographical Society on January 2, and at the Mineralogical 

 Society on January 8. The Matochkin Shar, which divides the 

 great island into two parts, was visited, but could not be ex- 

 plored over its full length, on account of the ice stocked in its 

 eastern portion. The expedition crossed Novaya Zemlya in the 

 latitude of Karmakuly, and returned laden with rich geological 

 collections. Undoubted proofs have been found of the secular 

 raising of, at least, the southern island of Novaya Zemlya. This 

 island is built up of Palaeozoic rocks (Devonian and the 

 "Artinsk" strata), which are covered with Post-Tertiary deposits. 

 It bears traces of a wide glaciation which was followed by sub- 

 mergence, as shown by several beach-terraces, wide deltas, and 

 lakes. At the present time it is in a period of upheaval. 



Upon application of the Middlesex County Council the Home 

 Secretary has made the following order, dated January 29 : i. 

 "The Wild Birds Protection Act, 1880," shall apply within the 

 county of Middlesex to the wryneck (cuckoo's mate or snake 

 bird), swallow, martin (2), swift, bearded tit (reedling or reed 

 pheasant), shrikes, kestrel, merlin, hobby, buzzard, honey 

 buzzard, osprey, and magpie, as if those species were included 

 in the schedule to the said Act. 2. The taking or destroying of 

 the eggs of the following wild birds is prohibited within the 

 county of Middlesex, viz. nightingale, goldfinch, lark, nightjar, 

 woodpeckers, kingfisher, cuckoo, owls, kestrel, buzzard, honey 

 buzzard, merlin, hobby, osprey, wryneck (cuckoo's mate or 

 snake bird), swallow, martins (2), swift, bearded tit (reedling or 

 reed pheasant), shrikes, magpie, wheatear, stonechat, whinchat, 

 red start, fly catchers, sedge warbler, reed warbler, blackcap, 

 garden warbler, wood warbler, willow warbler, chiff-chaff, white 

 throat, lesser white throat, long-tailed tit, nuthatch, wren, gold- 

 crested wren, wagtails (4), hawfinch, linnet, buntings (3), 

 starling, landrail or corncrake, and coot. 



Prof. Ira Remsen describes in Sciettce an interesting case of 

 the accumulation of marsh gas under ice. It appears that a 

 number of skaters were on a large artificial lake upon which 

 remarkably clear ice had formed. In various places white spots 

 were noticed in the ice, suggesting air-bubbles. Some one bored 

 a hole through one of these white places, and applied a flame to 

 the gas, which took fire. This led to further experiments, and 

 it was found that, by boring a small hole, a long thin jet of flame 

 could be obtained, and this continued for some time. The gas 

 was marsh gas, formed by the decomposition of the vegetable 

 matter at the bottom of the lake. Prof. Remsen remarks that 

 this method of demonstrating the formation of marsh gas in 

 nature is, from the sesthetic point of view, a great improvement 

 on the usual method described in text-books, which consists in 

 stirring a pool of stagnant water with a stick, and collecting the 

 gas that rises to the surface. He suggests skating ponds 

 illuminated by natural gas as among the possibilities of the 

 future. 



The occurrence of a second period of very high barometric 

 pressure in these islands during the month of January is note- 

 worthy. The Daily Weather Report of the 28th showed that an 

 anticyclonic area was spreading over the south-west of England, 

 and at 1 1 p.m. on the 29th the high reading of 30*96 was recorded 

 at Roche's Point, in the south of Ireland, and readings reached 

 or exceeded 30*9 inches all over the south-western portions of 

 England and Ireland. In London a maximum of 30-93 inches was 

 reached, which corresponded with the reading there on the 9th of 

 the same month. Such high readings have not occurred there 

 since January 18, 1882 (when the barometer rose to 30*975 

 inches), and have been extremely rare during the last century. 

 A peculiar feature of this high barometric pressure has been the 



