-,6o 



NA TURE 



[August 9, 1894 



unveiled there. The monament is bu.It very p>c uresquely on , 

 the slope of the mounuios, facing Lake Issyk-kul. 



IT is reported that Prof. Brug.ch, the eminent Egyptologist , 



is seriously ill. , ,r ■ . „ i 



MR CH..RLES E. CAS3AL. Public Analyst or Kensington 

 and'; George's. Hanover Square, has been elected honorary ; 

 president of Section VII. (Food) of the forthcoming Inter- 

 national Congress of Hygiene and Demography at Budapest. 



News of the Wellman Arctic expedition has been received 

 which fortunately confirms the hope, which we expressed when 

 the report of the disaster was received, that the explormc party 

 of the expedition had escaped the initial danger. 'X'^^ Malygcn. 

 a Norwegian fishing vessel.arrived at Troms.> from bp.tzbergen, 

 on August 2. with the captain and three of the crew o the 

 Ra^nx^U Jar! on board. They report that Mr. Wellman 

 landed on May 24. at Walden Island (So= 37' N). i" 'he north 

 of Spitzbergen. with 13 men, all in good health, 40 dogs 1 

 and provisions for i.o days. Four days later the KaguvalJ 

 yar.'was crushed in the ice and sank, only part of the stores j 

 and equipment being saved. A me»saKe was despatched to Mr | 

 Wellman, who was overtaken at Marten's Island, and 

 immediately returned with several members of his party, and 

 afterhelping to build a house on Walden Island for the ship- 

 wrecked crew, set out finally on May 3. for his northern journey. 

 He was heard from on June 17, when Mr. Winsh.p left the 

 advanced party, who were wai-ing six miles east of Platen Island 

 for open water to form, as the ice was impassable. AH were 

 well at that time. This news shows that Mr. Wellman found 

 the conditions of ice-travel harder than he had expected, and | 

 since he had spent so much of the best time of the year in 

 travelling so shorta distance, there seems little hope that he could 

 have made a great journey northward before the general south- 

 ward movement of the ice set in, and compelled his retreat to 

 Danes Island. Baron Nordenskjo'.d telegraphs to the Royal 

 Geographical Society, strongly urging ihe importance of sending 

 out a supply of provisions, and arranging for the return of the 

 expedition to Europe, should it succeed in regaining Spitzbergen. 

 Thf. great Conslantine medal of the Russian Geographical 

 Society has been awarded this year to Prof. A. N. Veselovsky. 

 for his thirty-five years' work in the domain of both Russian 

 and We-t European ancient literature and folU-lore ; and the 

 Count LUlke medal to W. E. Fu's, for his many years' 

 investigations of chronometers. It is known that since the 

 splendid researches of Struve into the influence of temperature 

 upon the errors of chronometers, these errors can easily be 

 eliminated ; but that changes of moisture still continued to 

 remain a considerable cause of errors, the more so as its action 

 was found to be different on different instruments. In the course , 

 of his researches. Fuss made the important discovery that the [ 

 rale of some chronometers is not modified at all by that c.iusc, and 1 

 he was able to determine a means of rendering the instruments 1 

 quite insensible to the influence of moisture. Consequently, all ] 

 devices which are in use in ihe navies of Western Europe for 1 

 iiolating the chronometers from the surrounding moisture on 

 board shi p, have been abandoned in Russia ; and the chronometer 

 delermin.v.onsare nevertheless quite free from this source of 

 error, as may be seen from the many researches of luss, 

 printed in the '■ llydrographical Memoirs," published at St. 

 I'etemhurg. The great gold medals of the different sections of | 

 the Geographical Society have been awarded, by the section of 

 E'hnograpby to M. Karskiy, for researches among the Dyelo- 

 lujws; in Statistics, lo acollcctive work of twenty two explorers. 

 on the economic conditions of the peasants in the governments of 

 Irkutsk and Yeniseisk ; and lo I'rof. Fortuna'.olT, for various 

 works, of which his inquiry into the productivity of rye crops 

 in European Kiusia is the most remarkable. The great silver 

 NO. 1293, VOL. 50] 



medal bearing Prjevalsky's name has been awarded to K. N. 

 RossikolV. for his explorations of the glaciers and physic*! 

 geography of Caucasus. Small gold medals have been 

 awarded to B. I. Sreznewski, for meteorological work ; D. 

 Trofimenko, for cartographic work in Mezen;andto P. S.Popoi . 

 for translations of Chinese manuscripts relative to Mongolia. 

 Several silver and bronze medals have been distributed for 

 various works of less importance. 



We have received from the Imperial Russian Geographical 

 Society a pamphlet by Admiral S. MakarolT, setting forth the 

 desirability of an international agreement with regard to the 

 publication of the materials contained in the meteorological log- 

 books of ships in all parts of the world. Admiral Makaroft 

 has paid some attention to this subject, and as the author of a 

 volume containing the results of observations made during a 

 voyage of exploration round the world, in the Russian frig.te 

 ntitiz in 1S86-S9, his opinion carries considerable weight. He 

 proposes that original observations should be published by each 

 country in a tabular form, or at least for a period of two years, 

 viz. from January i, 18S2, to January I, 1SS4, thus embracing 

 the time during which observations were made by the inter- 

 national Polar expeditions. In the report of a committee 

 appointed lo consider certain questions relating to the Meteoro- 

 logical Department of the Board of Trade, and presented to 

 Parliament in 1866, of which Mr. Francis Gallon was • 

 member, it was recommended that the results of marin. 

 observations should be published on one uniform plan, in th« 

 form of tables, for months and seasons. The main d.nrerenc( 

 between these two proposals is that Admiral MakarolT asks foi 

 original observations, pointing out that mean data give : 

 exact idea of the daily changes which occur in the conditio.. 

 the atmosphere. At a conference on maritime meteorology, 

 held in London in 1874, it was also recommended to publisl 

 deductions in the form of tables, in addition to charts. Thus 

 while general opinion favours a tabular, as one form of publica-^ 

 lion of marine meteorological data, experience of over fort)' 

 years, since the Maritime Conference held at Brussels, show 

 that each country is disposed to publish its observations in Ih. 

 form suited to its own requirements, Russia, only, havin| 

 published a small number of meteorological logs in (xl.-iiso ; u 

 that the prospect of any international agreement binding «l 

 countries lo adopt any special form of publication, howeve 

 desirable it may be, seems very remote. 



The Midland Union of N.atural History and Scicnlifi 

 .Societies held their seventeenth annual meeting at Kllesmere 

 Shropshire, on Friday and Saturday last. The Council met a 

 lheTo«n Hall on Friday afternoon, under the presidency o^ 

 Mr W. H. Wilkinson, and eleven delegates from the variou 

 societies were present. It was decided that the papers com 

 peting for the Darwin medal should be published within the are . 

 of the Union, in place of the ^/iMa„J NaUnaliu, now defunct ^ 

 1 The annual meeting was subsequently held in the Museum, whc. 

 I Mr lirownlow R. C. Tower was elected president forth 

 ' ensuing year, Mr. Egbert de Ilamel w.as re-elected treMure. 



and Piof. Ilillhouse (Mason College, Birmingham) and Mr. 



j V. Hodgson (of Harborne) were elected secretaries. 



1 Proi. W. C, Mackkn/.ie. of the Tcwftkieh College of Agr 



' culture, Ghizch, sends us some further particulars with regar 



to the nitrate-bearing clays of Egypi, described in Ihcs 



columns in May List (vol. I. p. 61). It appears that Messr 



Floycr and Sickcnbergcr have sent in a preliminary report, 1 



which they state that the supply seems to be almost ir 



exhaustible. They consider it to be a ' ' foliated marl, greenis 



and sometimes reddish, with veins of white gypsum, .ind incrif 



tations or small crystals of chloride of sodium, ands,.me su phai 



of sodium. Its taste is sally and slightly bitter, from the latle, 



