620 



NATURE 



[October 25, 1894 



NOTES. 

 Reuter's correspondent at Amsterdam reports that, accord- 

 ing 10 a telegram received from Batavia, there has been an 

 eruption of the volcano of Galoenggoen, near Garoet, in the 

 Preang Regency. Several native villages are said to have been 

 destroyed. The great eruption of this volcano in 1822 involved 

 an enormous loss of life and property. 



A SEVERE shock of earthquake is reported by the Central 

 News correspondent at Tokio as having occurred on Monday 

 night in the province of Akita. The centre of the disturbance 

 was apparently the town of Sakata, which was almost entirely 

 destroyed. 



We regret to note the death of Mr. Charles Carpmael, the 

 Director of the Meteorological Service of Canada. He died at 

 Hastings on Saturday. The death is also announced of General 

 Robson Benson, whose work in connection with the develop- 

 ment of the Botanic Gardens at Madras and Rangoon earned 

 for him the esteem of all botanists ; and of Mr. Edwin Clark, 

 the engineer. Mr. Clark was a Fellow of the Royal Astro- 

 nomical and Meteorological Societies. 



We learn from the American Naturalist that the Salt Lake 

 Literary and Scientific Association has recently given sixty 

 thousand dollars for the endowment of a chair of Geology in the 

 University of Utah. The chair has been named the Deseret 

 Professorship of Geology, and Dr. J. E. Talmage has been 

 appointed to it. 



A CORRESPONDENT informs us that he recently tested two 

 samples of oxygen supplied for the use of lanternisls, and 

 found them to be mixtures of sixty-five per cent, oxygen and 

 thirty-five per cent, nitrogen. Persons who use compressed 

 oxygen should therefore obtain, from the dealer who supplies 

 the gas, some kind of guarantee that it is up to a certain 

 standard of purity. 



A VERY fine auroral display was observed in New Zealand 

 and the south-eastern parts of Australia on August 20. Mr. 

 H. C. Russell writes to us, that at Sydney the south-eastern 

 sky assumed a peculiar green tint at 6.35 p.m. Clouds inter- 

 fered with his view of the display, and finally blotted out the 

 auroral light and streamers at 8.33 p.m. In New Zealand, 

 the aurora is said to have been very brilliant. 



The London and Provincial Ornithological Society will hold 

 their ninth annual show at the Royal Aquarium, Westminster, 

 on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, October 30, 31, and 

 November I. The extent of the show may be judged by the 

 fact that over one thousand British and foreign birds will be on 

 view. 



The following strange incident is described in the Times as 

 having occurred in the replile-house of the Zoological Society's 

 menagerie, the scene being one of the compartments in which 

 the boa-constrictors are confined. Two large boas occupied the 

 chamber, one snake being nine feet and the other eight feet long. 

 When the house was opened in the morning only one boa was 

 found in this cage ; the other had disappeared. Though the 

 survivor was only a foot longer than the other snake, there was 

 DO reason to doubt that it had completely swallowed its com- 

 panion. It was so distended that the scales were almost 

 separated, and it was unable either to coil itself or to move. 

 There is every reason to believe that in accomplishing this 

 almost incredible feat the snake acted by mistake, and that it 

 devoured its companion by what deserves to be called an 

 accident. The larger boa was fed with a pigeon before the 

 house was closed for the night. It swallowed the bird, and the 

 other boa was then given a pigeon, which it had begun to 



NO. 1304, VOL. 50] 



swallow when the snakes were left for the night. It is believed 

 that the larger snake then caught hold of the part of the pigeon 

 which projected from the other's mouth, and gradually en- 

 veloped, not only the bird, but the head of the other snake. 

 Once begun, the swallowing process would go on almost 

 mechanically. .\s the swallowed snake was only one foot less 

 in length than the swallower and of nearly equ.il bulk, weighini^ 

 about fifty pounds, the gastric juices must have dissolved the 

 portion which first entered the snake's stomach before ihe 

 remainder was drawn into the jaws. Though still rather 

 lethargic, the surviving boa is not injured by its meal. It coils 

 itself up without difficulty, and its scales have the beautiful 

 iridescent bloom peculiar to the skin of snakes when in perfect 

 health. 



The Committee of the Bexley Cottage Hospital are to be 

 commended for their enterprise. They have induced Mr. Hiram 

 S. Maxim to consent to exhibit his flying machine to the public 

 on Saturday afternoon, November 3, at Baldwin's Park, 

 Bexley, and to give an account of its history, construction, and 

 future. The machine will be run along its track at a high 

 velocity, so there will be an opportunity o( judging of its 

 capabilities. Mr. M.ixim's workshop will be open to visitors, 

 and his scientific apparatus will be on view. There will 

 also be a practical display of the Maxim automatic machine 

 guns. This method of obtaining funds for hospital work is 

 worth developing. We hope it will meet with the success it 

 deserves. Perhaps the time will soon come when the public 

 will take as much interest in a scientific invention as it does in 

 a good picture. 



Two Russian Kalmuks from the lower Volga, one of them a 

 Buddhist priest, have recently spent some time in Thasa, and 

 the Ci'w//<M-nHa'Kj of the Paris Geographical Society expresses 

 the hope that they may be able to make public some interesting 

 facts about the sacred city, from which all Europeans have been 

 rigidly excluded for the last half-century. 



The provisional programme issued by the Royal Geogaph- 

 ical Society for the Session 189^-5 shows that the Society is 

 responding to the more general interest no.v being taken by its 

 Fellows in the serious study of geography. The rooms of the 

 Society have been altered and greatly improved, bitter 

 accommodation being provided for the large collection of maps 

 to which the public has free access, and for the library. .\ large 

 room has been added to the library for Ihe use of Fellows 

 who wish to carry 011 special stu ly undisturbed. A new series 

 of technical meetings is to be instituted, at which important 

 papers may be discussed by specialists, and the investigation of 

 the scientific aspects of geography encouraged. It has long 

 been felt that the evening meetings did not serve this purpose, 

 the lateness of the hour and the presence of a large general 

 audience preventing anything like technicil discussion or de- 

 tailed criticism. The new afternoon meetings are intended for 

 specialists only, and they will take place in the map-room of the 

 Society as frequently as occasion arises. 



EVKNINO lectures will continue to be a prominent feature of 

 the activity of the Royal Geographical Society, and the Session 

 will be opened on November 12 by Mr. H. II. Johnston, C.B., 

 who will speak of the British Central Africa Protectorate, of 

 which he is Administrator. The two following meetings will 

 also be devoted to Africa, Mr. Walter li. Harris giving an 

 account of his recent visit in disguise to the oasis of Tafilet in 

 Southern Morocco, and M. Lionel Dccle describing his adven- 

 turous journey from the Cape to Uganda. Papers are also 

 promised by Mr. BaMi H. Clixmberlain on the Luchu Islands, 

 Mr. O. Howarth on the Sierra Madrc of Mexico, Mr. D. G. 

 Hogarth on recent explorations in Asia Minor, Mr. G. G. 

 Dixon on North-west British Guiana, Mr. S. Hutclier on 

 Luristan, Mr. H. Weld Blundell on Cyrenaica, Mr. W. M. 



