May 30, 1895] 



NATURE 



1 1 1 



hri-nch Imlo-China, which have resulted in further publications 

 I ,f geographical as well as political and general value ; and (3) 

 'lis journey to the Hindu Kush, the Pamirs, and the Oxus, 

 lier with a visit to the Amir of Afghanistan, in his capital 

 ,f Kabul. The Murchison Grant, to Mr. Eivind Astrup, for 

 lis remarkable journey, with Lieut. Peary, across the interior 

 glacier to the northern shores of Greenland ; and for his inde- 

 pendent journey along the shores of Melville Bay ; the Back 

 ;rant. to Captain C. A. Larsen, for the geographical and 

 Meteorological observations made by him during his Antarctic 

 .oyage in 1894, and for his discovery of an active volcano on 

 Christensen Island, of several other islands, and of part of the 

 j.ist coast of Graham Land ; the Gill Memorial for 1895, to 

 Captain J. W. Pringle, R.E. ; and the Cuthbert Peek (Jrant for 

 1895, 'o -^I''- '-'• ^- Scott-Elliot, for his explorations of Mount 

 Ruwenzori, and of the region to the west of the Victoria Xyanza. 

 We wish the American ^^etrological Society success in its 

 -fforts to extend the use of the metric system in the United 

 States, and to procure general agreement with regard to the 

 •onstants of science. Its objects are ambitious, as the foUow- 

 ng statement of them, from Science, will show: (i) To im- 

 •irove existing systems of weights, measures and moneys, and to 

 /ring them into relations of simple commensurability with each 

 ither. (2) To secure universal adoption of common units of 

 iieasure for quantities in physical observation or investigation, 

 "or which ordinary systems of metrolog)' do not provide, such as 

 livisions of barometer, thermometer, and densimeter ; amount 

 )f work done by machines ; amount of mechanical energy, 

 ictive or potential, of bodies, as dependent on their motion or 

 position : quantities of heat present in bodies of given tem- 

 leratures, or generated by combustion or otherwise; quantity 

 ind intensity of electro-dynamic currents ; aggregate and efficient 

 >ower of prime movers ; accclerative force of gravity ; pressure 

 if steam and atmosphere ; and other matters analogous to these. 

 3) To secure uniform usage as to standard /:)/«/.? of reference, or 

 ihysical conditions to which obserrations must be reduced for 

 lurposes of comparison, especially temperature and pressure, to 

 A'hich are referred specific gravities of bodies, and the zero of 

 ongitude on the earth. (4) To secure the use of the decimal 

 ■ystem for denominations of weight, measure, and money derived 

 ^rom unit-bases, not necessarily excluding for practical purposes 

 binary or other convenient divisions, but maintained along with 

 uch other methods, on account of facilities for calculation, 

 reductions, and comparison of values, afforded by a system 

 conforming to our numerical notation. 



On January 18, the great seismometrograph at the Osservatorio 

 lei CoUegio Romano al Rome registered five complete pulsations 

 if slow period characteristic of earthquakes originating at a 

 great distance. They commenced at 4h. 37ni. 30s. p.m. (Green- 

 wich mean time), and lasted im. 22s., giving an average dura- 

 lion of i6'4 seconds for each pulsation. On the same day a 

 severe earthquake was felt along the east coast of Japan, and 

 was recorded at Tokio at 3h. 48m. 24s. The distance between 

 this place and Rome being about 9500 km., the pulsations must 

 have travelled with an average velocity of 3-2 km. per second (see 

 XatI'RE, vol. I. pp. 450-51 ; vol. li. p. 462). At Nicolaiew and 

 Charkow, in the south of Russia, the horizontal pendulums were 

 iisturbed for nearly an hour, the epoch of maximum amplitude 

 occurring a few minutes earlier than at Rome. 



Mr. Marshall Hall publishes in the Alpine foiirna! (\o\. 

 xvii. p. 438) a note on the progress made in the study of 

 glaciers, for which purpose a Committee was appointed at the 

 meeting of the International Congress of Geologists at Zurich. 

 (Jood work appears to have been done, in exploring and map- 

 liing, among the glaciers of New Zealand, in the course of which 

 Krani-Joseph Glacier, on the west coast, was found to end at a 

 NO. 1335, VOL. 52] 



height of 692 feet above the sea, arid a distance of four miles 

 from it. The rate of movement is, of course, variable ; an 

 average of the observations (with certain omissions) gives I54"2 

 inches per diem. Valleys containing large glaciers give in- 

 dications that the ice has been higher than it is at the present 

 day, and has paused at four different levels. Work also has been 

 done among the glaciers of the eastern side cf New Zealand, 

 and a few facts are recorded; among them, that in advancing the 

 ice appears not to plough up the earth. In conclusion, Mr. 

 Marshall Hall calls upon mountain climbers to help in the work 

 of the Committee. 



A PAPER on " The Brain of the Microcephalic Idiot," by 

 Prof. D. J. Cunningham, F.R.S., and Dr. Telford-Smith, read 

 before the Royal Dublin Society nearly a year ago, and noticed 

 at the time in these columns (N.ature, vol. 1. p. 287), has just 

 been published in the Society's Transactions. The authors give 

 the results of a thorough examination of the brains and skulls of 

 two typical microeephales. Their study leads them to accept the 

 view arrived at by Sir George Humphry, from an examination of 

 microcephalic and macrocephalic skulls, viz. : " There is nothing 

 in the specimens to suggest that the deficiency in the development 

 of the skull was the leading feature in the deformity, and that the 

 smallness of the bony cerebral envelope exerted a compressing or 

 dwarfing influence on the brain, or anything to give encourage- 

 ment to the practice lately adopted in some instances of removal 

 of a part of the bony case, with the idea of affording more space 

 and freedom for the growth of the brain. In these, as in other 

 instances of man and the lower animals, the brain-growth is the 

 determining factor, and the skull grows upon and accommodates 

 itself to the brain, wheiher the latter be large or small." 



Dr. W. M. Haffkine has brought together his Indian ex- 

 periences in anti-choleraic inoculations, and has published them 

 in the Indian Medical Gazette. In spite of the very numerous 

 difficulties which he had to encounter in carrying out his investi- 

 gations, Dr. Haffkine has succeeded, with the assistance of 

 others, in inoculating no less than 32,166 individuals with his 

 cholera vaccine. Every pains was taken to obtain trustworthy 

 records of the results derived firom these inoculations, and, as far 

 as can be judged from the data to hand, the balance appears to 

 be decidedly in favour of the process. This is perhaps especially 

 brought out by Dr. Haffkine's work in Calcutta, where the per- 

 centage of attacks and deaths amongst the inoculated was l'l8 

 per cent., whilst amongst the non-inoculated the percentage of 

 cases amounted to 15 '63 per cent., and of deaths 11 '63 per cent. 

 One fact has indisputably been established by these investiga- 

 tions, and that is the harmlessness of the operation ; in view of 

 this it is to be hoped that the inoculations may be more widely 

 spread, and further facilities thus offered for the collection of 

 observations on this very important subject. 



-A. year's actinometric observations, made at the Konstan- 

 tinow Observator)-, Pawlowsk, are recorded by J. Schukewitch 

 in the Repertoriiim fiir Meteorologie. They have led to some 

 unexpected results regarding the intensity of the sun's radiation 

 at different seasons of the year. This intensity, as measured on 

 the surface of the earth, depends upon the altitude of the sun 

 and upon the transmitting power or opacity of the atmosphere. 

 The intensities were measured by a thermometer with blackened 

 bulb, which was exposed to the sun side by side with a precisely 

 similar one which was kejn in the shade. To test whether the 

 two thermometers were identical in their behaviour, two succes- 

 sive readings were taken, in which first the one and then the 

 other was sh.aded. It was found necessary to take the mean 

 of these two readings in each case. The tables embodying the 

 results contain, besides the intensity, the state of the sky, the 

 altitude of the sun, and other meteorological data. From these 

 tables the yearly course of intensity of the unclouded sun at noon 



