September 19, 1895] 



NA TURE 



511 



perial one is, however, highly laudable, and should be 

 encouraged with a view to the unification of British 

 medical science. It is further announced that a lonj^- 

 deferred step is about to be taken by the introduction of 

 the metric system into the body of the work. In the pre- 

 sent edition the centimetres and grammes of science 

 appear modestly in the supplementary pages dealing with 

 volumetric processes, and then only as an alterna- 

 tive to grains and "grain-measures." We understand 

 that in the new revision centimetres and grammes will be 

 made official in all the monographs of the text, side by 

 side with the still legalised grains and ounces, minims 

 and drachms. This change will bring the British hand- 

 book into line with the official dispensatories of all other 

 civilised .States, and should tend to hasten the time when 

 the international system of metric weights and measures 

 shall acquire full legal authority in this country. 



It thus appears that the Medical Council's Committee 

 have undertaken the task of revision with an adequate 

 sense of their responsibility. They have in the sugges- 

 tions of the medical authorities at home and abroad, and 

 in the useful digests of the literature of pharmacy, pre- 

 l)ared from year to year by their reporter. Prof. Attfield, 

 ample materials whereon to base their deliberations. As 

 a body of physicians representing the supreme council of 

 the profession, they are eminently qualified to judge as to 

 the requirements of practical medicine and clinical 

 therapeutics. Where their domain borders on that of the 

 specialist in chemistiy, botany, pharmacy, or physiological 

 pharmacology, they propose to ha\e recourse to the most 

 skilled representatives of these branches of science. The 

 result of their labours, thus conceived and carried out, will 

 be awaited with interest, not only by practitioners of 

 medicine and pharmacy, and by manufacturing chemists, 

 but by all who have sympathy with the application of 

 science to human needs. 



THE FIRST MERIDIAN. 



A T the recent Geographical Congress in London, the 

 -'^*- question of the first meridian was discussed with 

 particular interest. 



It was proposed that the first meridian should not 

 be established officially, but should merely be settled 

 with a view to producing an international map to the 

 scale of millionths. M. A. de Lapparent has written 

 an article in La Nature on the subject, of which the 

 following is an analysis ; it is a noteworthy occurrence 

 that a Frenchman should have taken up the subject with 

 such interest, for the French has hitherto been the only 

 nation to reject the (jreenwich meridian. In the pre- 

 liminary discussions they have brought upon themselves 

 many reproaches for hindering a scientific work the use 

 of which every one had recognised, while they thenisehes 

 had no principle to bring forward to support their ob- 

 jections. The matter has been much discussed amongst 

 them, and at the Geographical Society of Paris, by a 

 special commission, it was decided that the map should 

 be accepted. It was considered best that France should 

 not be the only country to refuse the project ; neverthe- 

 less, it was decided to insist on the metric system being 

 used, for here a principle was involved. 



On this subject M. de Lapparent writes as follows : — 

 "Thus, true to its habit of fighting for its views, France 

 has again showed itself champion of the metric system, 

 oflcring to make, for the scientific and rational interest, a 

 sacrifice of national self-love. It would be impossible for 

 it to ca])itulate on the question of the system, for here a 

 principle is concerned ; but the choice of a meridian, 

 depending on no logical consideration, could be more 

 easily granted. Evidently the proposed map, if ever 

 produced was to be arranged so as to be a help to already 

 existing aps, the latter being in great majority on the 



NO. 1 35 1, VOL. 52J 



meridian of Greenwich ; by wishing to impose the meri- 

 dian of Paris (which would not have been a success), it 

 would have caused greater trouble than the contrary case. 

 Henry I\'. estimated that Paris was worth a mass ; 

 the French delegates, however, said on their side that the 

 concession of a meridian, for a special and determined 

 «ork, was quite worth the agreement which was expected 

 to be established in view of the adoption, for the same 

 purpose, of the metric system." 



Many of our own countrymen have regretted that the 

 public spirit prevented the system being used officially in 

 Britain. 



However, the acceptance of the Greenwich meridian 

 well dcser\ed a recompense, and the vote was unani- 

 mously carried that the metric system should be used for 

 the map. 



It is worth observing^ that the subject was discussed 

 with remarkably few disagreements, considering that the 

 congress was international. This seems to show that 

 the time is fast approaching when national prejudices will 

 be done away with if they support illogical theories ; if 

 principles are involved, it is right they should be adhered 

 to, but they should not be allowed to hinder an enterprise 

 profitable, perhaps, to all humanity. 



NOTES. 

 The Times of yesterday published a telegram, dated Sep- 

 tember 17, from Sandefiord, Norway, received through Reuters 

 Agency, stating that advices received at Sandefiord from the 

 Danish trading station of Angmagsalik, on the east coast of 

 Greenland, state that towards the end of July a three-masted 

 ship, with a short foremast, was seen by Eskimos on two 

 occasions firmly embedded in drift ice. On the first occasion 

 the ship was observed off Sermiligak, 65' 45' lat. N., •;6'' 15' 

 long. W. ; and the second time off Sermelik. 65° 20' lat. N., 

 38° long. W. It is believed tha tlie vessel was Dr. Nansen's 

 From, and that she was on her return journey. In any case, 

 however, no positive news of the exploring vessel is expected to 

 arrive until next year. 



0.\ Wednesday, Sept. II, a Reuter telegram announced that 

 the steam yacht IVindward, which took out the Jackson- Harms- 

 worth Polar Expedition, had arrived at Vardii, and on Thursday 

 another telegram, through the same Company's agency, stated 

 that the expedition, after leaving Archangel, passed the winter on 

 Franz Joseph Land, from which place a start was made in the 

 middle of July. The crew appear lo have suffered severely 

 from scurvy, and all the members of it are more or less weakened 

 by the malady. Three of the men succumbed, and two others 

 were removed to the hospital at Vardij. 



The Sla>idard states that the excavations that are being 

 carried out by the Greek Arch;eological Society on the site of 

 ancient Eleusis, a few miles from Athens, have just yielded some 

 results of exceptional importance. In a very ancient and well- 

 preserved tomb, there have been found, in addition to the 

 skeleton of a woman, a number of articles, including earrings of 

 fine gold, silver, and bronze, several finger rings, sixty-eight 

 small vases of various shapes in terra-colta, two tripods, three 

 Egyptian scaraba;i, and a small statuette of the goddess Isis 

 in porcelain. These discoveries leave no doubt of the fact that 

 the celebrated mysteries of Eltusis were of Egyptian origin, 

 and were borrowed from the religious rites of the ancient 

 Egyptians. These important relics have been deposited in the 

 National Museum. 



A Reuter's telegram of September 11, from Berne, reported 

 the fall of a huge mass of ice from the Altels Glacier upon the 

 hamlel of Spitalmatte, in the Upper Gemmi Pass, causing the 

 death of at least ten persons, and the loss of, it is estimated, 

 two hundred head of cattle. A stretch of land nearly two miles 



