438 



NATURE 



[March 8, 1894 



We learn from the British Medical Journal that a prize of 

 10,000 roubles (^f looo) is offered by Count Orloff-Davidoff for 

 the discovery of a remedy "perfectly certain to cure or to 

 protect horned beasts against cattle plague." The efficacy of 

 the remedy is to be proved by the same standard as those 

 known to science as protective against small-pox, anthrax, 

 swine fever, &c. The award of the prize is in the hands of the 

 Curator of the Imperial Institute of Experimental Medicine of 

 St. Petersburg acting on the advice of a committee of experts 

 selected for the purpose. The competition is open to the 

 wh-'ie world with the exception of active members of the above- 

 nam.=d institute. The description of the proposed remedy must 

 be clear and complete ; it must be sent in, under the ordinary 

 conditions as to concealment of the identity on the part of the 

 author, on or before January i, 1897. The award of the prize 

 will be made on January i, 1899. If no remedy satisfies the 

 committee, a further competition will take place, and the 

 award made on January i, 1902. 



Mr. F. G. Jackson, whose scheme of Arctic explora- 

 tion from Franz Josef Land as a base has been frequently 

 referred to in Nature, announces definitely that he will 

 set out on his expedition this summer, the whole cost of 

 e quipment being borne by Mr. Alfred C. VV. Harmsworth, 

 of St. Peter's, Kent. 



The Canadian Geological Survey, not content with mapping 

 the peopled and fertile regions of the Dominion, have for 

 several years been actively engaged in exploring the vast tracts 

 of utterly unknown lands in the far north. Mr. J. B. Tyrrell, 

 who has had much experience in pioneer work, started from 

 Lake Athabasca in June 1893, with his brother Mr. J. W. 

 Tyrrell, to cross the Barren Lands in canoes on the unmapped 

 rivers. From Black Lake a portage was made to the head of a 

 river, the Doobaunt, sketched in, from native report pre- 

 sumably, on Stieler's Atlas, but shown in practically the same 

 position as the Messrs. Tyrrell found it to occupy. Descending 

 this river and its chain of connected lakes for over 800 miles, 

 they reached the head of Chesterfield Inlet on Hudson Bay in 

 the beginning of September, and after completing the survey 

 of that region, made a perilous canoe voyage in the open sea to 

 Fort Churchill, whence the journey was pursued on foot, Winni- 

 peg being reached, after many hardships and much suffering, 

 early in 1894. Mr. A. P. Low, of the same Survey, carried 

 out an important piece of exploration last summer, passing 

 through the centre of the Labrador peninsula from the south to 

 XJngava Bay on Hudson Strait, in the course of which he 

 crossed 750 miles of country hitherto quite unknown. Mr. 

 R. G. McConnell was also engaged in explorations on the 

 upper valley of the Peace River, in the Rocky Mountain 

 region. 



Some time ago, in the Gurhwal district in India, an immense 

 slip from a precipitous mountain blocked the valley of the 

 Behai-Ganga River. The dam is some nine hundred feet high, 

 and is already consolidated in its lower portions. The water 

 confined within it has now reached a height of 450 feet, and is 

 fast increasing. It is feared that the winter rains will cause a 

 sudden overflow of the water, and bring an overwhelming 

 disaster to the villages in the valley beneath. Nothing can be 

 done to avert the disaster. Lieutenant Crookshank, R.E.. is 

 stationed near to watch the progress of events, and give timely 

 warning. 



Our contemporary and namesake. Die Natur, has an article 

 by Dr. Karl Miiller on Prof. Philippi's paper, to which we 

 recently called attention, on the analogies between the floras of 

 Chili and Europe. He regards them as furnishing a striking 

 example of the general law that similar conditions will produce, 

 NO. 1271. VOL. 49] 



on the most widely separated portions of the surface of the 

 earth, the same type, whether of animal or vegetable life, but in 

 different forms. 



We learn from the Circular of the Johns Hopkins Univer- 

 sity (Baltimore), that Captain John Donnell Smith has signified 

 his intention of presenting to the University his valuable 

 botanical library and herbarium, as soon as a suitable building 

 shall be offered for their reception, and provision made for their 

 maintenance in connection with a department for instruction 

 and original work in botany. They are already open to the 

 students in botany at the University. The herbarium is one of 

 the largest and best selected private herbaria in existence, and 

 is especially rich in the flora of Guatemala and other parts of 

 Central America, where Captain Donnell Smith has made large 

 collections himself, including a great number of new species and 

 some new genera. This indefatigable collector has again started 

 on another visit to Central America. 



During the afternoon of February 23, a remarkable oscilla- 

 tion of the barometer took place in the northern parts of these 

 islands, accompanied by a south-westerly gale of great force and 

 suddenness. At 8 a.m. the reading published by the Meteorolo- 

 gical Office for Stornoway was 29'39 inches, being a fall of 0*7 

 inch since the previous day, and at 6 p.m. the reading was 28 '58 

 inches. But from a tracing of a self-recording aneroid, kindly sent 

 to us by Mr. R. H. Scott, F. R.S., it appears that the minimum 

 occurred there about 4 p.m., and was about o'3 inch lower than 

 the 6 p.m. reading. The fall during the eight hours preceding 

 the minimum had been 0*9 inch, and between 2 and 4 p.m. 

 the barometer fell at the rate of nearly o'2 an hour, while the 

 rise during the next two hours (as shown above) was nearly as 

 rapid. This remarkable oscillation was fully borne out by the 

 changes at other stations, where they were probably smaller in 

 extent. By 8 a.m. on the 24th the centre of the disturbance had 

 travelled in a north-easterly direction to the coast of Norway. 



At the Society of Arts, on the 28th ult. Mr. G. J. Symons 

 read an interesting paper on " Rainfall records in the British 

 Isles." About forty years ago, Mr. B. Denton read before that 

 society a paper pointing out the advantage of daily rainfall 

 values, and giving the means for about 100 stations, and in 

 i860 Mr. Symons printed in the Builder a summary for the year 

 1859 ; subsequently he obtained some small grants from 

 the British Association, which enabled him to continue his 

 useful work with great success. In the year i860 the total 

 number of stations from which he received records was only 

 168, but in the year 1892 the number had increased to 2850. 

 Ireland has not a fair share of stations, although a large number 

 of rain-gauges have been gratuitously distributed ; the returns 

 only amount to 192. The question of the size of the gauge was 

 discussed, from those of i inch to those of 6 feet in diameter, 

 and the practical result is that the rainfall collected does not differ 

 as much as 5 per cent, in any case, and for the smaller gauges 

 it agrees within less than 2 percent., so that it becomes merely 

 a question of the most convenient size for use. As regards the 

 influence of elevation on the amount of rain collected, the 

 decrease is owing chiefly to the velocity of the wind being 

 greater at a height. The first observations of this kind were 

 made by Dr. Heberden on the top of Westminster Abbey more 

 than a hundred years ago. ,Prof. Hellmannhas also shown that 

 if a gauge on a roof can be screened from the wind, the rainfall 

 will not differ materially from the amount measured on the 

 ground. Among the various diagrams exhibited was one repre- 

 senting the relative rainfall of about 160 successive years. From 

 1730 to 1750 the rainfall was considerably deficient, and there 

 was no period of more than five consecutive wet years down to 

 very recent times, but from 1875-83 there were nine consecu- 

 tive wet years. Attention was drawn to the peculiar fact that 



