542 



NATURE 



April 9, 1896 



years will elapse before the undertaking can be brought 

 to a conclusion. 



On looking down the list of contributors whose 

 services have been already secured for " Das Tierreich," 

 we see, as might have been expected, that they are 

 mostly Germans. But a certain number of English and 

 French naturalists, and some from America and Italy, 

 have already given their adhesion to the plan, and have 

 undertaken to furnish certain portions. 



The language employed will be, as a rule, German, but 

 contributions in English, French, and Latin will also be 

 received. 



In order to show the general style of the proposed 

 work, Messrs. Friedlander and Son send out along with 

 the prospectus a synopsis of the small group of Heliozoa, 

 prepared by Dr. Fritz Schaudinn, of Berlin. So far as 

 we can judge from this portion of the work, the informa- 

 tion which it is proposed to give will be exactly what is 

 required for such a manual, and the whole work, if 

 carried out upon this plan, will be of the greatest value 

 to zoologists. 



One little criticism we may venture to make on the 

 proposal. The title, we think, is not a very well-chosen 

 one. Bronn's well-known and important work (" Die 

 Klassen und Ordnungen des Thierreichs ") has already 

 monopolised the selected name, although in Bronn's 

 days the new mode of writing it had not been introduced. 

 A good Latin title, such as "Synopsis" or "Index 

 Animalium" would have been better, and would have 

 given to the work a more cosmopolitan character. 

 Indeed, we believe that it would have been much better 

 to have used Latin throughout the work, as the common 

 language of science. There are many working 

 naturalists in France, Italy, America, and England who 

 do not understand German. But every one who has 

 been to school acquired sufficient knowledge of Latin to 

 understand a Latin diagnosis. And the proposed work 

 will consist mainly of diagnoses. 



NOTES. 



The first of the two annual conversaziones of the Royal 

 Society will take place on Wednesday, May 6. This is the 

 conversazione to which gentlemen only are invited. 



Mr. W. C. McDonald has just given the McGill University, 

 Montreal, further reason to be grateful for his unbounded 

 generosity. We understand that he has offered to build and 

 equip a building for chemistry and mining on the same scale as 

 the engineering and physics buildings, which the University owe 

 to his munificence, involving a cost of about ;^52,ooo. In 

 addition to this, he has decided to found a chair of Mining 

 Engineering and a chair of Architecture, and has added the 

 sum oi £2,1,000 to the endowment of the University. The com- 

 pleteness and liberality with which the physics and engineering 

 departments of the McDonald buildings are equipped may be 

 judged from an article which appeared in these columns in 1894 

 (vol. 1. p. 558). We cherish the hope that Mr. McDonald's 

 generous benefactions will create a spirit of emulation among 

 those who are able to advance scientific education and research 

 in this country by providing the necessary means. 



The well-known American naturalist, Mr. D. G. Elliot, and 

 party left London for Somaliland on the 27th ultimo. The 

 object of Mr. Elliot's expedition is to obtain a series of antelopes 

 and other larger African mammals for the Field Columbian 

 Museum of Chicago. Mr. Elliot had originally intended to go 

 to Mashonaland for this purpose, but the recent troubles in 

 South Africa induced him to change his plans. He will land at 

 Berbera, and proceed southwards over the high plateau to the 

 Shebeyli River, where he expects to find giraffes and Grevy's 

 zebras. Mr. Elliot will endeavour to return to the coast by the 

 NO. 1380, VOL. 53] 



valley of the Juba River, in order to procure examples of the 

 recently-described Hunter's antelope {Damalisctis hunteri). Mr. 

 Elliot takes with him a taxidermist from Chicago, and has- 

 secured in London the services of Mr. Dodson, who accom- 

 panied Dr. Donaldson Smith during his recent adventurous- 

 expedition in Lake Rudolph. 



The Liverpool Marine Biological Station at Port Erin is now 

 quite full. The naturalists who have gone there to work, for 

 the Easter vacation, are Prof. G. Gilson (Louvain), Mr. Arnold 

 Watson (Sheffield), Mr. E. T. Browne (University College, 

 London), Prof. Weiss, Mr. Gamble, Mr. Burtt, and Mr. Mellor 

 (from Owens College, Manchester), Mr. Kermode (Ramsey), 

 Mr. Clubb (Liverpool Museum), Mr. C. E. Jones and Prof, 

 Herdman (University College, Liverpool). Several students 

 from University College, Liverpool, are expected later. The 

 tides have been exceptionally low, the weather is good, and the 

 Committee have arranged several dredging expeditions, one of 

 which will be to the deep water between the Isle of Man and 

 Ireland. 



The death is announced of Mr. George Holt, who endowed 

 the chair of Physiology in University College, Liverpool, and 

 contributed altogether about ^25,000 to the resources of the 

 College. 



One of the New York medical colleges has already incorporated 

 instruction in the use of X-rays in surgery as a part of its regular 

 curriculum. 



Amongst the experiments on Rontgen X-rays made during 

 the past month by Italian physicists, several contributions may 

 be cited which either tend to confirm the results established by 

 other workers, or to establish new results. Signor A. Roiti 

 describes {Atti R. Acad. Liticei) a series of experiments now 

 in progress bearing on the question as to where these rays 

 emanate. The principal conclusions arrived at are : (i) 

 That fluorescence does not necessarily accompany the emis- 

 sion of X-rays ; (2) that the rays are only emitted when 

 kathodic rays impinge on certain substances, notably glass, 

 aluminium, mica, platinum, and porcelain. Signor Roiti 

 establishes some interesting results relating to the leakage of 

 electricity which takes place when X-rays fall on a charged 

 body. When the body in question is placed in a vessel from 

 which air is exhausted, this leakage effect is found to diminish 

 rapidly after the pressure falls below a certain limit, showing that 

 the leakage effect depends on the presence of molecules, by 

 which electricity is conducted from the charged body to the 

 containing vessel. 



Our American correspondent writes, under date March 27 :— 

 " Reports are received of the favourable action of the Senate 

 Committee with reference to the proposed National University, 

 preliminary appropriations being recommended for 1897 and 

 1898. This measure is one which has often heretofore been 

 broached at Washington, and has been so often deferred as to 

 seem to many a hopeless scheme. Present indications, how- 

 ever, point to some real progress, and encourage the hope that 

 something will at last be accomplished. — Progress in science 

 seems to pervade all departments of the Government. Another 

 notable move is the introduction into the Post-office at Wash- 

 ington, of cancelling stamps which indicate every day the 

 weather forecast, and of course the stamps are changed from 

 day to day. This scheme will be put in operation within a 

 few weeks. 



" The site selected for the new free public library o* 

 New York, which has recently been so amply endowed, in- 

 cluding the Astor and Lenox libraries and the Tilden bequests, 

 is that of the old reservoir on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 

 West Forty-second Street. At a public hearing before the 



