492 



NATURE 



[March 26, 1896 



The third International Congress of Dermatology will be 

 opened in London on August 4, and will terminate on August 8. 

 The President will be Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson, F.R.S. 



We regret to record that Prof. Sappey, the distinguished 

 anatomist, died at Paris on March 14. His elaborate " Treatise 

 on Descriptive Anatomy " is one of the best contributions to 

 anatomical literature published in any language. He was a 

 member of the Section d'Anatomie et Zoologie of the Paris 

 Academy of Sciences. 



The Scientific African states that Mr. M. A. Schlechter, of 

 the Botanical Museum, Grlinewald Strasse, Berlin, is about to 

 start on a collecting tour in South Africa. He will visit the 

 Coud-Bokeveld, Namaqualand, Transvaal, and the Limpopo 

 and Zambesi rivers. 



Russian astronomers are completing their arrangements for 

 viewing the forthcoming eclipse of the sun. The Pulkova 

 Observatory will send an expedition to the Lower Amur ; the 

 Academy of Sciences has chosen Novaya Zemlya for the seat of 

 its operations ; so has the Kazan Society of Naturalists ; while 

 the Geographical Society will send the Director of the Irkutsk 

 Meteorological Observatory, A. V. Voznesensky, to Olekminsk, 

 on the Lena, for meteorological observations. Prof. Glasenapp 

 and L. G. Vuchikhovsky propose to go to Finland on their own 

 account. The young Russian Astronomical Society (it was 

 founded only in 1891) directs its chief attention to physical 

 observations, and it will have three parties of observers, provided 

 with photographic appliances. The chief station will be on the 

 Lena, where the duration of the eclipse is the longest, and it is 

 proposed to photograph there the corona by Schaeberle's 

 method, with an objective of long focal length, and also to 

 photograph, by means of two spectrographs, the spectrum of 

 the corona, as well as the limb of the sun, by means of a camera 

 provided with a Rutherford prism. At the second station, on 

 the bay of the Ob, the corona will be photographed by means of 

 several ordinary cameras ; while at the third station, in the 

 eastern parts of the Uleaborg province, to the north of 

 Enontekis, the corona will be photographed by means of 

 several cameras following the movement of the sun ; and it is 

 intended to establish a comparison between the spectrum of 

 the corona and that of helium. The usual determinations of 

 the duration of the eclipse will be made at the first and third 

 stations. 



Mr. R. H. Scott has sent us a cutting from the Diario 

 Ojiciel, which records that on March 2 a well-marked earth- 

 movement passed over the capital of Mexico at oh. 24m. a.m., 

 Mexico time, the direction being from north-east to south-west, 

 and the duration about twelve seconds. The shock was recorded 

 at other places as follows :— 



Duration. Direction. 



30 



W.N.W. toE.S.E. 

 S.S.E. toN.N.W. 



The question as to the desirability of retaining the Museum 

 of the Geological Society has formed the subject of long 

 deliberations by the Council of the Society. It was announced 

 at the recent annual meeting that, in accordance with the 

 report of a special Committee, the Trustees of the British 

 Museum had been asked whether they would undertake to 

 house and care for the collections, keeping type-specimens 

 and specimens illustrative of papers read before the Society 

 distinct, and defraying also the expenses of transference. To 

 these conditions the Trustees have assented, and the matter will 

 before long be submitted to the Fellows for their decision at a 

 special general meeting. 



NO. 1378, VOL. 53] 



Prok. Stroud informs us that in obtaining photographs with 

 Rbntgen rays, the time of exposure can be reduced by placing a 

 card covered with barium platino-cyanide immediately in front 

 of, and in contact with, the sensitive plate. A very good shadow- 

 picture of the bones of the fingers was thus obtained by Prof. 

 Stroud with a two minutes' exposure, whereas without the 

 fluorescent card an exposure of from twelve to fifteen minutes 

 was required to give a similar result. It is suggested that the 

 introduction of some suitable fluorescent substance (rendered 

 active by X-rays) into the sensitive film of photographic plates 

 would greatly shorten the time of exposure requisite. 



The gigantic extinct birds of the order " Stereornithes," 

 which are peculiar to the Eocene beds of Patagonia, have been 

 until lately quite unrepresented in the museums of Europe. 

 Sir William Flower has just acquired for our National Collection 

 the series of the remains of these birds belonging to Seiior 

 Florentino Ameghino, of Buenos Ayres. This includes a com- 

 plete skull of Phororachos injlatiis, which is of most extra- 

 ordinary size and appearance, and the lower jaw of an allied 

 species (P. longissimus), about two feet in length. 



Under the name Cams holiibi, Dr. L. V. Lorenz has lately 

 described a new wild dog from Western Matabeleland. The 

 specimens of this new species, received by the K.K. natur- 

 historische Museum of Vienna from Dr. E. Holub, had been 

 previously assigned to C. adustus, Sund., but Dr. L. v. Lorenz 

 (Verh. Zool.-Bot. Ges. in Wien, 1895) ^lo^ points out the 

 differences between these two nearly allied species. In a sub- 

 sequent paper {Ann. d. K.K. natiirh. Hofiniiseiims, xi. h. i). 

 Dr. Lorenz gives further particulars, and figures the skull of 

 C. holiiht. 



Upwards of sixty ornithologists assembled on Wednesday, 

 the 1 8th inst., at the monthly meeting of the British Ornitho- 

 logists' Club, held at Frascati's Restaurant in Oxford Street. 

 The proceedings were of special interest on account of the 

 splendid series of more than 900 eggs of the Cuckoo, which were 

 on view on this occasion, having been assembled together from 

 the cabinets of various collectors by the energy of Mr. Edward 

 Bidwell. Most of the Cuckoos' eggs were accompanied by 

 clutches of the eggs of the foster-parents, in the nests of which 

 the mother-cuckoo had placed them. There are about no 

 foster-parents at present known of Cuciilus canortis, and ex- 

 amples of the eggs of 76 of these foster-parents, accompanied 

 by one or more Cuckoos' eggs, were exhibited to the meeting. 

 The conclusions arrived at by Dr. Eugene Rey, as stated in a 

 recent number of this journal (see Nature, December 26, 1895, 

 vol. liii. p. 176), were well illustrated by this excellent series, 

 which was believed to be the largest ever got together on one 

 occasion. 



In a recent number of Nature, February 27 (vol. liii. p. 393), 

 under the heading ' ' The Destruction of Trees by Lightning," 

 we gave an account of the investigations which had been carried 

 out by Jonescu and others to determine, if possible, the reasons 

 underlying the observed facts that some kinds of trees are more 

 liable to be struck by lightning than others. It was there stated 

 that the whole question seemed to turn on the nature of the 

 tree — that is, whether it was a tree rich in resin, or one rich in 

 starch ; further, the degree of conductivity seemed to increase 

 the less oil and the more starch the tree contained. Some 

 interesting statistics are given in the current number of 

 Prometheus (No. 336, p. 383), concerning the white poplar. In 

 the neighbourhood of Moscow, out of 597 trees struck by light- 

 ning, no less than half of them — more accurately 302 — turned 

 out to be the white poplar. This fact is sufficient to show that 

 the degree of conductivity of this tree must be very high, and 

 it has been suggested that country people should plant these 



