May 24, 1894] 



NA TURE 



8j 



In 1796 he and BerthoIIet and a few artists were 

 ordered to Italy, to collect the numerous objects of art 

 handed over to France by various Italian towns. It was 

 at this time he became great friends with Buonaparte and 

 I^eithollet. Afterwards he took part in the Egyptian 

 i;\pedition. He went with BerthoIIet, and Berlhier in 

 his report says of them : " ils s' occupent de tout et sont 

 partout." 



On his return to France, Monge again devoted himself 



10 the Polytechnic School, his affection for the pupils 



. and influence with them being unchanged and quite 



remarkable. After having worked steadily for forty-live 



years, he was obliged, on account of bad health, to retire. 



The political disturbances, in which he was much 

 engrossed, all tended to aiTect his health, but the dis- 

 banding of the school in i8i6 was the tinal blow. He 

 was never the same again, and died July 18, 1S18. 



.M. Mercadier's address ended with a touching 

 appeal to his auditors to imitate the patriotism and emu- 

 late the science of the great man whose useful life and 

 work they had met to celebrate. 



We may have to say something of the final fete next 

 week. 



XOTES. 



We learn with profound regret that Dr. Romanes died at 

 Oxford at twelve o'tlock yesterday. 



TiiK first meeting of the International Me'.eorological 

 Committee, as reconstituted at the Munich Conference of 1891. 

 will be held at Upsala, and will commence on August 20. The 

 programme, as will be seen, consists mainly of the various 

 questions referred to the committee by the Conference. (l) 

 Reports of the President and Secretary ; (2) the question of the 

 es:ablishment of an International Meteorological liureau ; (3) 

 Agricultural Meteorology ; (4I the establishment of stations 

 for the observation of the direction and velocity of movements 

 of clouds; (5) the construction of a Cloud Adas (reports from 

 Dr. Ilann, Dr. Hildebrandsson, Mr. Rotch, and M. L. 

 Tcisserenc de Borl) ; (6) the possible acceleration of weather 

 telegrams; (7) the observation of the scintillation of stars (a 

 proposal by M. Charles Dufouil ; (S; the organisation of the 

 next Conference. 



Pkot-'. RoBERTS-AusTEN is to be congratulated on having 

 completed his responsibility for no less than one hundred 

 millions sterling of gold coin. The twenty-fourth annual report 

 of the Royal Mint, which has just been issued, shows that of 

 the long series of holders of his office none could have claimed 

 anything like such a record, as the largest am junt of gold coin 

 for which any individual King's Assay Master had previously 

 been responsible was the fifty-nine millions coined during the 

 tenure of office of Mr. Robert Bingley, King's Assay Master 

 from 1798 to lSj5 As showing the remarkable accuracy of the 

 standard fineness of coins, the Mint Report states that of the 

 hundred millions sterling of gold coin, seventy-one millions were 

 sovereigns, and that their average fineness as indicated by sue- j 

 cessive trials of the Pyx proved to be 916 668. The exact legal 

 standard is 9i6'666, and it must be remembered that the gold 

 coins would be within the " remedy " allowed by law if the 

 amount of precious metal they contained varied between 9146 

 and9lS'6 parts in one thousand. 



The preliminary programme of the fourteenth Congress of the 

 Sanitary Institute, to be held in Liverpool in September, has 

 now been issuerl. The meetings of the Congress will consist 

 of three general addresses and lectures. The three sectional 

 meetings, dealing with (1) Sanitary Science and Preventive 

 Medicine, (J) Engineering and Architecture, (3) Chemistry, 

 Meteorology, and Geology, will be presided over by Dr. E. 

 Klein, F. R. S., Mr. G. F. Deacon, and Dr. Thomas Stevenson. , 



NO. 1282, VOL. 50J 



Five special conferences will take place : the Sanitation of the 

 Passenger and Mercantile Marine Service, presided over by Sir 

 W. Bower Forwood ; Medical Officers of Health, presided over 

 by Mr. Charles E. Paget ; Municipal and County Engineers, 

 presided over by Mr. A. M. Fowler ; Sanitary Inspectors, pre- 

 sided over by Mr. Francis Vacher ; Domestic Hygiene, presided 

 over by the L^dy Mayoress of Liverpool. An exhibi- 

 tion of sanitary apparatus and appliances and articles 

 of domestic use and economy will be held, and excursions 

 to places of interest from the point of view of sanitation 

 will be arranged for those attending the Congress. The 

 local arrangements are in the hands of an influential local com- 

 mittee, presided over by the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, with 

 the City Engineer (Mr. H. Percy Boulnois) and the Medical 

 Officer of Health (Dr. E. W. Hope) as honorary secretaries. 

 It appears from the programme that over 100 sanitary autho- 

 rities, including several County Councils, have already a ipointed 

 delegates to the Congress, and as there are 1500 members 

 and associates in the Institute, a large attendance may be 

 expected. 



A COMMITTEE has been formed at Boulogne for the purpose 

 of making arrangements for an international exhibition of 

 hygiene and hydropathy, which it is proposed to hold therefrom 

 July 15 to September 15. 



A KNIGHTHOOD has been offered to Dr. J. C. Bucknill, 

 F.R.S., not for his scientific work, but in recognition of his 

 services to the volunteer movement, of which he was the 

 originator. Dr. Bucknill was elected into the Royal Society in 

 1866, and is now in his seventy -eighth year. 



The thirty-nin'.h annual exhibition of the Photographic 

 Society of Great Britain will be inaugurated by a conversazione 

 on September 22, and will remain open from Monday, 

 September 24, to November 14. MedaU will be awarded for 

 the artistic, scientific, and technical excellence of photogriphs, 

 lantern slides, and transparencies, and also for apparatus. 

 Foreign exhibitors are invited to contribute. The -Society will 

 pay the carriage of photographson the return journey, and provide 

 frames or portfolios during the exhibition for approved photo- 

 graphs. There will be no charge for space. Communications 

 on all matters connected with the exhibition should be sent to 

 the Secrel.-iry of the Society, 50 Great Russell Street, Blooms- 

 bur)-, \VX. 



All students of science know that a knowledge of 

 German is essential in their work, and no better way of obtain- 

 ing it can be found than by joining German students in study. 

 Facilities for obtaining this desirable end are now offered in 

 the shape of holiday courses at Jena, from August I to 2j. The 

 courses have been arranged by a committee representing some of 

 our University Colleges and High Schools, Mr. J. J. Findlay 

 (Rugby) being the secretary. There will be an elementary 

 course for those who have little or no acquaintance with the 

 spoken language. The subjects dealt with in this course 

 include physiological psychology, the hygiene of schools, and 

 pedagogy. Each will be conducted by an experienced teacher, 

 who will speak very slowly and clearly, but will only employ 

 the German language as the medium of instruction. A more 

 advanced course, for tho;e who can follow lectures delivered in 

 German, will beheld from .August I to 16. During this period Dr. 

 Straubel will lecture every day on the microscope. Prof. Detmer 

 on the fertilisation of plants and microscopic botany, Prof. 

 Sch.ifferon experimental physics, and Prof .\uerbich on modern 

 physical demonstrations. I>r. Knopf will discourse on time and 

 its determination, illustrating his lecture with practical work at 

 the Observatory ; Pr. Straubel will give demonstrations on 

 electrical and magnetic measurements ; Prof. WollT will lecture 

 on theoretical and practical chemistry ; Prof. Ziehen on phy 



