.34 



NA TURE 



[May lo, 1894 



loDgueless, slaughters a thousand," and he (Mr. Hutchinson) 

 took that 10 mean that an injury was inflicted on future ages if 

 a single good deed were allowed to die without suitable com- 

 memoration, and in the life of Sir Andrew Clark they had a 

 record which would be a trcisure for generations yet to come. 



The arrangements for the sixty-second annual meeting of the 

 British .Medical .Association, to be held at Bristol on July 31, 

 August I, 2, and 3, are given in the Hrilisk Medical Journal. 

 The President-elect is Dr. E. Long-Fox. An address in Medicine 

 will be given by Prof. T. G. Stewart, one in Surgery will be 

 delivered by Dr. Greig Smith, and Sir Charles Cameron will 

 discourse on Public Medicine. The Sections and their Presidents 

 areas follows : — (A) Medicine, Dr. Frederick T. Roberts ; (B) 

 Surgery, Dr. W. Mitchell Banks ; (C) Obstetric Medicine and 

 Gynesecology, Prof. J. G. Swayne ; (D) Public Medicine, Prof. 

 W. H. Corfield ; (E) Psychology, Dr. G. F. Blandford ; (F) 

 Pathology, Dr. G. Sims Woodhead ; (G) Ophthalmologv, Dr. 

 F. R. Cross ; (H) Laryngology and Otology, Dr. P. McBride ; 

 (I) Dermatology, Dr. A.J. Harrison ; (J) Diseases of Children, 

 Dr. W. Howship Dickinson. The Annual Museum in con- 

 nection with the meeting will be arranged in the following 

 sections : Section A. — Food and Drugs, including Prepared 

 Foods, Chemical and Pharmaceutical Preparations, &c. Sec- 

 tion B. — Instruments, comprising Medical and Surgical In- 

 struments and .\ppliances. Electrical Instruments, Microscopes, 

 &c. Section C. — Books, including Diagrams, Charts, &c. 

 Section D. — Sanitary and .\mbulance .\ppliances. .Ml com- 

 munications on general matters connecte I with the Museum, 

 and all applications for space, should be addressed to Mr. John 

 Dacre, 14, Eaton-crescent, Clifton, Bristol, before June 20, and 

 a brief description of each exhibit for insertion in the Museum 

 Catalogue mu>t be in the hands of the respective .Secretaries 

 before July i. 



.At the meeting of the French Meteorological Society on 

 April 12, M. Renou, President, made some interesting remarks 

 upon thunderstorms. He said that they occurred in some parts 

 of France every day of the year, and during six or seven months 

 in 1892 as many as 328 were counted. He remarked that 

 they were more frequent in Europe than in equatorial regions ; 

 at Sumatra, for instance, storms occur during the six months 

 of the south-east monsoon, but thunder is never heard. In 

 France they generally traverse a narrow tract from south-west lo 

 north-east, but in the hot regions of the globe, on the contrary, 

 the storms are nearly stationary. They are very exceptional 

 in Peru, occurring only once or twice in a century ; there was 

 one in January 1877, but none had occurred previously since 

 1803. 



Reports of cuckoos being seen and heard long before the 

 usual date of the arrival of the bird are made every year. 

 Generally the reports cannot be relied upon, but a circumstan- 

 tial account by Dr. A. J. Fleming, in the Zoologist for April, 

 goes to lihow that he really saw a cuckoo on March 5 of this 

 year. The accuracy of his observations, however, is questioned 

 in the current number of the Journal by several naturalists, most 

 of whom assert that March cuckoo< do not exist. Mr. J. E. 

 Harting remarks:^" From numerous observations made by com. 

 pelcnt naturalists in different localities it appears that the usual 

 lime of arrival of the cuckoo in this country is between the 

 2«h and 27th April ; and the average date of its appearance 

 may be said to be on the 23rd of that month, St. George's 

 Day. In no instance, so far a? I am aw.ire, has the bird been 

 heord, or seen (by any competent observer) before the 6th of 

 April. ... It it surprising how few people are to be trusted, 

 either in the miller of eyts or eari, in regard to the cuckoo. 

 Miny do not know a cuckoo on the wing from a male sparrow- 1 

 hawk, .ind others convince themselves that they have heard this . 

 NO. I 2 So, VOL 50] 



bird's notes when they have been listening to a clever imitation 

 by some village bird-nesting boy, or to the still more deceptive 

 notes of a cuckoo-clock in a neighbouring cottage." 



LlEVT. -Colonel Sawver re.id a paper to the Royal' 

 Geographical Society, at its last meeting, on the Bakhiiari 

 Mountains and Upper Elam, a part of Persia which his 

 surveys in 1S90 have made it possible to map correctly. 

 In the practical work of the survey he was assisted by the 

 Indian surveyor Imam Sharif, who subsequently accompanied 

 Mr. Bent's expedition to Hadramaut. The country is prac- 

 tically the continuation of the classical /agros mountains, 

 and the portion surveyed is a tract 30 miles wide between the 

 bordering mountain ridges, and 300 miles in length from 

 north-west to south-east. In the centre the mountains culniin.ite 

 in the mass of Kuhi-rang, 12,800 feet above the sea, whence 

 flow the chief rivers of Persia, the Zainderud, the Ab.i- 

 diz and the Karun, the upper courses of which have been 

 mapped correctly for the first time. This central mass not only 

 separates two distinct drainage areas, it divides two entirely 

 diflTerent ethnographical regions — the country of the Bakhtiari 

 lies to the east, and Upper Elam to the west. Upper Elam 

 is peculiarly rich in am-ient remains, few of which have yet 

 been examined, and many of them reach back to a very high 

 antiquity. The expedition, though primarily for the purpose of 

 surveying, did not fail to take account of more specially scientilic 

 matters, and although little was said about the geology of the 

 mountains, their flora seems to have been pretty fully studied, 

 as 350 sptc es of plants were collected, of which seventeen at 

 least were new to science. The people, who have been 

 described from observations on this expedition by Mrs. Bishop, 

 struck Colonel Sawyer as proud and warlike, and although 

 warped in character by their isolated habitat, they yet remain 

 possessed of many line characteristics, physical and mental. 



The May number of the Sci<ltish Geographical Migazine 

 contains several interesting papers. One] on the geographical 

 unity of the British Empire should strictly be entitled the 

 economic unity, as the bond cannot without much straining 

 be called a geographical one. Ilerv Victor Dingclstedt gives 

 an account of the isolated valley of the Vicze, at the foot of 

 the Dent du Midi, showing how isolation and the physical 

 conditions of configuration, climate, and vegetation have com. 

 bined to keep the people in a remarkably backward and 

 primitive state. Mr. Stuarl-Glennie gives in very brief abstract 

 an outline of his travels on the border-land between Turkey 

 and Greece in an article on " Dodona, Olympos, and 

 Samothrace," which would have been more valuable if the 

 date of his visit had been indicated. He promises to complete 

 the account of the ethnography of the region in a forthcoming 

 work, under the title of " .\ncient Hellas." 



Till'; Journal of the Tyneside Geographical Society i-* 

 rapidly approaching the form of a well-to-do geographical 

 monthly ; and although still relying lo a considerable extent 

 on articles reprinted from other publications, the May number 

 includes two original lectures, one by Mr. Clements R. Mark- ^ 

 ham, F. R.S., on Peru, and the other by Lord Roberts, OD | 

 Delhi and its siege in 1857. 



The first part for 1894 of the Kicords of the Geologic 

 Survey of India contains a report on the Bhaganwala Coal-lii 

 of the Salt Range, by T. D. la Touchc. This cual-lield » 

 first made known in 1853 ; reports on it have appeared by l>i 

 Oldham (18O4) and Mr. Wynne (1878). Estimates of ii' 

 value have recently been published, which Dr. King, tin 

 Director of the Survey, believes to be greatly exaggerated 

 hence the present report. The coal is of Nummulilic age ; lli' 

 seam varies much in thickness, and is irregular in its mode oi 



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