596 



NA TURE 



[August 22, 1895 



obsen-ed agreed with a centre at 43° + 57', but others 

 were directed from ?; Persei, and others again from the 

 cluster at x Hersei. On August 10 the writer, at Bristol, 

 watched the eastern sky from i ^h. 46m. to 1 jh. 1 7m., and 

 saw 19 meteors, of which 17 were Perseids from a well- 

 detined radiant at 45'+ 55^ This is about z' S. of the 

 correct place. More meteors would have been seen but 

 for the interference of passing clouds. 



On .August II, between loh. and iih. at Bristol, 

 1 1 meteors were obsened, including 7 Perseids with 

 radiant at 44' + 58'. Clouds were again ver>' prevalent, 

 and greatly restricted the view. 



•• On the same night, Prof Herschel, at Slough, had a 

 clear sky from gh. 50m. to i2h., and mapped twenty-six 

 meteors, a great majority of them being Perseids. Many 

 of the meteors were bright, and I'rof Herschel regarded 

 the ma.ximum frequency as occurring on this date. 

 ■" Besides Perseids, a few bright meteors diverged from 

 Pegasus, Pisces, and the head of the Lynx. .A. pseudo 

 radiant (probablyj of the Perseids presented itself at 

 46' + 63!'. But the body of the Perseid radiation is 

 ver>' scattered — only the tail end of the shower being here 

 recorded very likely — and a large area enclosing y, r, 17, 

 X Persei and H, B, C, D Camelopardi, with its centre at 

 about 43° + 58", near k Persei, is the best approximation 

 that can be gathered from the tracks registered." 



.A fourth magnitude meteor, moving swiftly, was seen 

 at I oh. 7m. both at Slough and Bristol. Height at 

 beginning, 78 miles : at end, 62 miles. It passed from 

 over Brackley (Northampton) to Farringdon (Berks). 

 Real length of path, 30 miles : earth-point, 10 miles south- 

 Hcst of Portland, Dorset. The radiant was at 48° + 60', 

 the meteor being a true Perseid. 



From the various reports already received, it appears 

 certain that this year's display lias been far from pre- 

 senting a conspicuous character. This has probably 

 not proceeded from any special weakness in the shower 

 itself, but from the unsuitable circumstances which have 

 attended its return. Moonlit;ht is a most serious obstacle 

 in the way of meteoric work, and when, added to this, 

 the observer is confronted with skies more or less clouded, 

 the chances of success become very remote. But, in 

 spite of these untoward conditions, the shower has by 

 no means passed unobserved ; many of its brilliant 

 meteors have been recorded, and the radiant point has 

 been determined on several nights. .Some of the chief 

 contemporary systems have made their presence known 

 by some fine objects, and the results on the whole may 

 be regarded as very satisfactory. 



W. F. 1)1. NX INC.. 



.S7/v' ytV/.V TOMES, F.R.S. 



ANOTHER of the small band of histologists, who took 

 up the subject when the field was almost untrodden, 

 has passed away, at the age of eighty. 



Sir John Tomes, after serving an apprenticeship to a 

 medical man at Evesham, came to London in 1836, and 

 entered at King's College and at the Middlesex Hospital, 

 being at the former a class-mate with the late Sir William 

 P.owman, with whom a life-long friendship thus began. 



For two years O839-40) he resided in the Middlesex 

 Hospital as house-surgeon ; and even at this early stage 

 in his career his attention became turned towards the 

 histolo^;y of bone and leelh, and we find him feeding a 

 nest of young sparrows and a sucking-pig upon madder. 

 From a somewhat fragmentary diary which he kept, we 

 find, too, that he then bought from Powell afterwards 

 Powell and I.cland; a microscope, and that he was often 

 spending his evenings with Bowman, Quekctt, Kiernan, 

 'Ifxld, Carpenter, and Edward Forbes. 



He was an early member of the .Microscopical .Society, 

 and over a long scries of years his contributions to the 

 histology of the hard tissues were numerous. .Amongst 



NO. 1347, VOL. 52] 



his more important papers in the Phil. Trans, were 

 those on bone (in conjunction with the late Campbell de 

 Morgan), on the dental tissues of niarsupi.als, of rodents, 

 and upon the structure of dentine, this last establishing 

 the existence in dentine of the soft fibrils, ever since 

 known as " Tomes' fibrils.'' 



Like that of his friend Bowman, almost all of his work 

 has stood the test of time, and to this day remains undis- 

 turbed. A strong bent towards mechanical in\eiition led 

 him, while still house-surgeon, to icvoknionisc the con- 

 struction of tooth forceps, which thenceforward supplanted 

 the old "key" instrument ; and at the advice of the late 

 .Sir Thomas Watson, he determined to devote himself to 

 the practice of dental surgery, in which the busiest years 

 of his life were spent. 



Dr. Morton, a dentist of Boston, Mass., having intro- 

 duced the use of ether in 1846, we find from Sir John's 

 dian- that he was early in the field as an experimenter 

 with this ana-sthetic. .After sundry experiences with 

 it for tooth extraction at the Middlesex Hospital, some 

 successful and some not, we read : " Ga\c ether to 

 .Arnott's case of lithotomy eiyht minutes, and insensibility 

 came — the operation then commenced and lasted twelve 

 minutes." (Jan. 14, 1847.) .And after notes of many ad- 

 ministrations : " Gave ether to eight patients for operations 

 with great success. Earl of Cadogan (a governor of the 

 hospital) and many others present." (Feb. 23, 1847.) 



His lectures on dental physiology and surgery were 

 perhaps the first in which the subject was treated from a 

 true scientific standpoint, and when published became 

 quite a classic. But it is curious to read in his diary a 

 resolve that he really will not deliver any more lectures 

 unless he has a class of at least six students. 



In 1883 the College of .Surgeons, exercising their right 

 to confer honorary fellowships of the College, elected 

 Sir John Tomes and the late Prof Huxley. 



In 1886 he obtained the honour of kniyhthood, in re- 

 cognition of his great services to the cause of dental 

 education, and to the establishment of a dental diploma 

 and its recognition by Parliament, his unbroken success in 

 all that he undertook being largely due to his excellent 

 business capacity, and to the respect, trust, and liking 

 which he inspired in all with whom he came in contact. 



NOTES. 



\Vk understand thnt a Civil List pension of ^200 lias licen 

 granted to Mrs. Huxley. 



TiiK following have lieen elected .A.ssociatcs .ind Correspondents 

 of the Keale .Accadcniia dei Lincei : — National .Associates, I'rdf. 

 L. Luciani and I'rof. G. Tizzoni ; Corresponilonls, Prof. E. 

 Ces.aro, Prof. A. Ricco, and I'rof. Carlo de .Slelani : Foreign 

 .Associates in .Mathematics, I'rof. C.Jordan and Dr. ('■. Salmon ; 

 in .Astronomy, I'rof. .Simon Newcomh ; in Physics, I'rof. II. J. 

 Wild ; in Morphology, I'rof A. Kiilliker. 



The following are among the recent apiioinlmtnts ahroail :— 

 Dr. R. Bchrend to be Professor of Chemistry in the Tccliiiische 

 Ihxrhschule of Hanover; Dr. X. Siefcrl to be Professor of 

 Forestry at the Tcchnischc Ilochschule of Karlsruhe ; Dr. Y. 

 Richar/, to be Professor of Physics in the University of Griefs- 

 wald ; Dr. P. St.-ickel to be Assistant Professor of Mathemalicii 

 in Konigsbcrg University ; Dr. O. Wiener to lie Professor of 

 Physics in the University of Giessen. 



Rf.i'TRr's correspondent at Wellington reports thai a severe 

 carlhejuakc shock was felt at Taupo, in the district of Tauranga, 

 and at some other places in New Zealand, on Saturday last. .An 

 earthquake wiis also fell over the greater part of Peru, lull 

 principally in the south, on Monday. 



Wk learn from Das U'ellcr that the efforts which have ln-cn 

 made during the last fifteen years for the re-cstablishment of a 



