420 



NA TURE 



[March 5, 1896 



to secure a permanent non-political organisation and administra- 

 tion of the various bureaus and divisions engaged in the scientific 

 work of the Government, and at the same time bring about a 

 more intelligent and more effective cooperation than has been 

 heretofore possible. The Department of Agriculture as at 

 present organised comprises a large number of scientific and 

 administrative divisions having for their object the discovery, 

 exploration, and development of the agricultural and other 

 natural resources of the country. The scientific divisions are 

 engaged in researches requiring the highest technical skill, and 

 some of them in the solutions of problems requiring long years 

 of preparation and scientific training. Our contemporary adds 

 that, should the amendment become a law, it is by no means 

 improbable that other scientific bureaus of the Government will 

 seek the protection and support provided thereby, and that in 

 the near future the United States may boast of a National 

 Department of Agriculture and Science. 



The Russian National Health Society is reported by the 

 Lancet to be making strenuous efforts for the success of the Jenner 

 centenary celebration to be held in May. Although the method 

 in which the Society proposes to commemorate Jenner's great 

 discovery has already been referred to in these columns, a state- 

 ment of the first arrangements will be of interest. There are 

 offered four prizes, the first equivalent to lOO guineas, and a 

 gold medal, for the best work upon vaccination. English is one 

 of the languages in which the work may be written, and the 

 work must be sent in before March 12 (New Style). An 

 exhibition of relics of Jenner, and of books, pamphlets, prints, 

 tabular returns, instruments, and other objects relating to 

 vaccination or to Jenner will be held. The Society is also 

 publishing a history of the development of vaccination in Russia 

 and other countries, and a full biography of Jenner, together 

 with a portrait, and copies of his drawings. The price of this 

 "centenary edition" which will be edited by Dr. Ladislas 

 Hubert, the Secretary of the Society, will be three roubles 

 (about 6.f. ). All objects intended for the exhibition, as well as 

 any other communication relating to the centenary, should be 

 addressed either to Dr. Hubert, 15 Dmitrofski Pereoulok, St. 

 Petersburg, or to Dr. F. Clemow, 69 Earl's Court Square, 

 London, S.W., who is acting for the Society in England. 



Reuter's correspondent at St. Petersburg states that the 

 subjoined telegram from Irkutsk was received there on Tues- 

 day : — The Governor of Irkutsk, in reply to inquiries, has 

 received the following from Yakutsk : " Peter Ivanovitch 

 Kuchnareff, who trades at Ust Yansk, by a letter dated Novem- 

 ber 10, communicated the following to the merchant Kuchnareff 

 at Yakutsk : — ' We learn that Dr. Nansen's expedition has 

 reached the North Pole, has discovered a hitherto unknown 

 land, and has now returned.' " In order to verify the news and 

 in case of necessity to render assistance to the expedition, the 

 Governor of Yakutsk has instructed a member of the adminis- 

 tration in the Verkhoyansk district to proceed to Ust Yansk. 



A BRIEF summary of the facts concerning the Panama Canal, 

 together with a few words as to the present status of the canal 

 construction, are given in the February number of the National 

 Geographic Magazine, by Mr. R. T. Hill. So many misstate- 

 ments are made as to the condition of the works, that Mr. Hill's 

 article, and the illustrations which accompany it, will do good 

 service in refuting them. It appears that the plant of the Com- 

 pany is not undergoing the ruinous decay that has been repre- 

 sented, both in this country and America, but, on the contrary, 

 it is kept in scrupulously good order, and will be available for 

 the completion of the work, should the Commission which has to 

 report upon the affairs of the late Company decide to carry out 

 the scheme. That the Commission does not consider the route 

 impracticable is attested by the fact that they have kept the work 

 x\0. 1375, VOL. 53] 



progressing, about two thousand labourers having been employed 

 upon the construction of the canal during last year. When, in. 

 Felmiary 1895, Mr. Hill took the photograph reproduced as an 

 illustration to his article, he counted five locomotives at work 

 carrying away the excavations from the Culebra summit. It 

 was reported recently that the money to finish the work on the 

 present plan has all been furnished, and that two thousand more 

 men from Jamaica and other West Indian islands are being 

 collected, the intention being eventually to increase the force to 

 six thousand men. It is expected that the work will be 

 completed in six years. 



With reference to excavations of the island of Philae, 

 the Cairo correspondent of the Times writes, under date 

 February 17 : — " The work of clearing the island of debris so 

 as to permit a thorough examination of the ancient monuments, 

 which was entrusted by the Egyptian Government to Captain 

 Lyons, R.E., will probably be completed next month. The 

 satisfactory discovery has been made that the foundations of the 

 main temple of Isis are laid upon the granite rock, being in 

 some places over 21 feet in depth, and the temple has nearly as 

 much masonry below ground as above. The south-eastern 

 colonnade has also its foundations upon the granite, and, so far 

 as excavated, they are curious if not unique in design. They 

 consist of parallel cross walls some metres high, but varying 

 according to the slope of the rock surface, with large stone slabs 

 placed horizontally upon their tops, and the pillars forming the 

 colonnade are erected upon the slabs. The nilometer is marked 

 in three characters— Demotic, Coptic, and another much older, 

 probably Hieratic, of which a copy has been sent to Berlin for 

 decipherment. A stela was found bearing a trilingual inscrip- 

 tion in hieroglyph. No traces have been discovered of any 

 buildings anterior to the Ptolemaic periods. M. de Morgan^ 

 Director-General of the Antiquities Department, is engaged 

 upon repairing the great hall of columns at Karnak." 



At the Royal Artillery Institution, Woolwich, on Thursday 

 last. Dr. G. H. Bryan, F.R.S., lectured on " Flight and Flying 

 Machines." The lecturer pointed out that the power of flying had 

 been developed under more favourable conditions in small than in 

 large animals, both because the risk to life and limb in the case 

 of a fall increased with the size of the animal, and also because, 

 assuming De Lucy's law, large bodies required more power to 

 sustain every pound of their weight in horizontal flight than 

 small ones. These considerations applied equally to flying- 

 machines. As Lord Kelvin had said, Maxim's experiments had 

 solved three of the five problems connected with artificial flight, 

 and the two remaining ones were now solved by the soaring 

 experiments of Lilienthal in Germany, and Pilcher in Britain. 

 All that remained was to combine the advantages of Maxim"s 

 and Lilienthal's apparatus in a single machine, and in this Dr. 

 Bryan prophesied that artificial flight would be accomplished at 

 no distant date. 



At King's College, on Tuesday next, in continuation of the 

 free lectures given to the public, in the theatre of the College, 

 Prof. Bottomley will discourse on the " Romance of Plant 

 Life." 



At a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, to be held 

 to-morrow afternoon, a plan for the geographical description of 

 the British Islands on the basis of the Ordnance Survey will be 

 submitted by Dr. H. R. Mill, and a discussion will take place 

 upon it. 



The Council of the Society of Arts attended at Marlborough 

 House on Wednesday, February 19, when H.R.H. the Prince 

 of Wales, President of the Society, presented to Sir Lowthian 

 Bell, Bart, F.R.S., the Albert Medal, "in recognition of the 

 services he has rendered to arts, manufactures, and commerce 



