53« 



NA TURE 



[April 5, 1894 



NOTES. 



A FAMOUS physician and physiologist has just passed away. 

 vVe allude to Dr. BrownSequard, of the Paris Academy of 

 Sciences, whose death occurred on Sunday night. Dr. Sequard 

 was born at Port Louis, Mauritius, in 1817, and was, therefore, 

 seventy-seven years of age at the time of his death. 



Wb regret to record the death of M. H. C. G. Pouchet, 

 Professor of Comparative Anatomy at the Paris Museum of 

 Natural History, at the age of sixty-one. He became assis- 

 tant-naturalist and head of the anatomical department of the 

 museum thirty years ago, and in 1870 was appointed to the 

 chair he occupied up to his death. He was the author of 

 numerous works of scientific value, among which may be 

 mentioned his " Traite d'Osteologie Comparee," published in 

 1889. 



Prof. Robertson Smith has also passed away at the early 

 age of forty-eight. 



The following deaths have recently occurred abroad: — Dr. W. 

 H. Delffs, Professor of Chemistry in Heidelberg University, Dr. 

 G. A. Weiss, Professor of Botany at Prague, and Dr. F. Ulrich, 

 Professor of Mineralogy and Geology in Hanover Polytechnic. 



The Royal Meteorological Society's fourteenth exhibition o 

 instruments, which will open on Tuesday next in the rooms of 

 the Institution of Civil Engineers, 25 Great George-street, 

 Westminster, will be devoted mostly to instruments, drawings, 

 and photographs relating to the representation and measure- 

 ment of clouds. The exhibition promises to be a very interest- 

 ing one, and will include original cloud sketches by Luke 

 Howard, as well as photographs of clouds by the highest 

 authorities in various parts of the world. The exhibition will 

 remain open till the 20th inst. 



The eleventh International Medical Congress was formally 

 opened by the King of Italy on March 29. It is said that the 

 congress includes more than six thousand members. The Pre- 

 sident, Prof. Baccelli, delivered the inaugural address in Latin, 

 and dwelt on the importance of the "great and solemn festivals 

 of science." Prof. Virchow, speaking as the President of the 

 tenth International Congress, held at Berlin in 1890, expressed 

 the thanks of the members of the eleventh congress for the 

 warmth of the welcome extended to them by the city of Rome 

 and by Italy. The British Medical Journal, to whom we are 

 indebted for this information, contains a number of portraits of 

 some of the officers of the congress and readers of addresses, 

 among them being an excellent one of Prof. Michael Foster. 

 Members of the Congress were invited to a garden party in the 

 Quirinal Gardens on Monday, and in this and other ways 

 the King of Italy and the Italian Government have shown 

 their interest in the meeting. Foreign visitors must marvel at 

 the different way things are managed here, where the Royal 

 Family and Government generally ignore them. 



Information has been received, through Renter's agency, 

 that the members of the International Sanitary Conference met 

 on April 2, at the Ministry for Foreign Affairi in Paris, as a 

 private committee, to collate the different copies of the text of the 

 convention. The instrument was to have been signed on Tuesday 

 by the plenipotentiaries of all the Powers, except the representa- 

 tives of Turkey. A very complete scheme has been formulated in 

 order to diminish to the utmost any chance of the cholera being 

 conveyed to Europe by means of the Indian pilgrimages to the 

 Hedjaz, and also to improve the unsatisfactory conditions to 

 which pilgrims are exposed in the Red Sea and Arabia, both 

 NO. 1275, VOL. 49] 



on the outward and homeward journeys. These changes will 

 involve a complete reorganisation of the sanitary stations now 

 controlled, and the creation of a number of hospitals and refuges 

 at Jedda, Mecca, and elsewhere. With the exception of 

 Turkey, all the countries represented at the congress, includ- 

 ing Persia, are unanimous in their decisions. 



Dr. G. S. Turpin, of the Storey Institute, Lancaster, has^ 

 been appointed principal of the Huddersfield Technical School. 



Prof. O. Mattirolo has been appointed Extraordinary 

 Professor of Botany and Director of the Botanic Garden at the 

 University of Bologna. 



We learn hom the journal of Bolanv that the first volume 

 of the Conspectus Florce Africa", by M. Durand and Dr. Schinz, 

 will shortly appear. 



Prof. Guido Cora, of the Royal University of Turin, is re- 

 presenting the Societe d' Anthropologic de Paris at the Inter- 

 national Medical Congress, now being held in Rome. 



Dr. H. Kayser, who, with Prof. Runge, has carried out 

 some important spectroscopic researches, has been appointed 

 Profe-sor of Physics at Bonn University, in succession to the 

 late Prof. Hertz. 



It has been decided by the Veterinary Section of the Wur- 

 temberg Academy of Medicine to establish a laboratory for the 

 preparation of vaccines by Pasteur methods. The laboratory 

 will bear Pasteur's name. 



The Rouen Academic des Sciences, Belles-lettres, et Arts,, 

 offers a prize of five hundred francs to the author of the best 

 work on a new method of accurately measuring high tempera- 

 tures, or for the improvement of one of the methods already 

 known. 



The Liverpool Library Science and Arts Committee have 

 received an anonymous offer of ;!f5000 towards the cost of 

 erecting central buildings for the School of Science, Technology, 

 and Arts, on condition that the Corporation subscribe a like 

 amount. 



Mr. J. Jenner Weir, the well-known entomologist, died 

 on March 23, in his seventy-second year. He became a Fellow 

 of the Entomological Society fifty years ago, and was also a 

 Fellow of the Linnean, the Zoological, and other Societies. 

 His first paper was contributed to the Zoologist in 1845 ; his 

 last appears in the April number of the Entomologist. As an- 

 enthusiastic worker, and an acute observer, he was esteemed 

 by all, and by his death natural history suffers a severe loss. 



Mr. George Pycroft died at Torquay a few days ago. 

 He was one of the founders of the Devonshire Association for 

 the Advancement of Science and Art. 



Messrs. Baly and Chorley have devised a high temperature 

 thermometer, the novelty of which consists in the replacement of 

 mercury by the singular liquid alloy of potassium and sodium. 

 The boiling point of this alloy lies somewhere in the neighbour, 

 hood of 700°, and its solidifying point is -8°, so that between 

 these limits the liquid is particularly suitable for thermometric 

 use. In order not to inconveniently lengthen the thermometer, 

 the graduations are caused to commence at 200°, the bore for 

 this purpose being widened just above the bulb. The space 

 above the alloy is filled with pure nitrogen at such a pressure 

 that when the glass begins to glow, and therefore soften, the 

 interior pressure shall be equal to the atmospheric, and thus any 



