April 12, 1894] 



NA TURE 



559 



investigators' rames were associated ; in others, the names of 

 men engaged in the same branch of science are grouped within 

 small areas. It is pointed out that the " Jardin des Planles is 

 bounded by streets named respectively Cuvier, Buffon, and 

 Geoffroy St. Ililaire ; while in the immediate vicinity are the 

 streets Laccpede and the Place Jussieu. Elsewhere in Paris the 

 following names occur : — -Lamarck, Linnaeus, de Saussure, and 

 Humboldt. Near the Ecole de Me lecine runs the .street Diipuy- 

 Iren, and in the same quarter the eminent physician Velpeau is 

 honoured. Near the Hospital La Saliietriere two English 

 physicians lend their names to streets, Harvey and Jenner. In 

 the neighbourhooi of the Arc de Triomphe occur the names of 

 the astronomers Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Euler, and New- 

 ton ; elsewhere we find the streets Iluyghen?, Laplace, and 

 Herschell. Mathematicians and physicists have not been for- 

 gotten, as shown by the occurrence of the following street 

 names:— Biot, Pa^caI, Lalande, Lahire, D'AIembert, Dulong, 

 Arago, Monge, Legendre, Ampere, Fresnel, Becquerel, Gal- 

 vani, Volla, Franklin, and Faradiy. Ampere, Galvani, and 

 Faraday are near each other. Philosophy is represented by 

 Dcscaites, Auguste Comte, and Bacon ; engineering by Vaub.in, 

 Watt, Stephenson, and Fulton; useful inventions by Bernard 

 Palibsyand Guttenberg ; exploration by Christopher CoIum')us 

 and Magellan. Chemists have received, however, a larger 

 share of the homurs than any other single class, not even ex- 

 cepting men of le ters. Thus we find streets named after the 

 French chemists Hayen, BerthoUet, Cadi-, Chaptal, Darcet, 

 Daguerre, Gay-Lus^a , Lavoisier, Langier, O.'fila, Parmentier, 

 Payen, Raspad, Reaumur, Rouelle, Thenard, and Vauquelin ; 

 the Swede Berzeius ; an.l the 'Englishmen Davy, Faraday, 

 Priestley, Cavendish, and Walt." A straw is sufficient to tell 

 which way the wind blows, and the above simple facts serve to 

 show that the municipal authorities of Paris consider the names 

 of men of science just as worthy of being handed down to 

 posterity as those of followers of other professions. Similar 

 authorities on this side of the Channel have not yet reached the 

 condition in which scientific workers are thus recognised. 



The Paris Geographical Society has made the following 

 awards for geographical research : — A gold medal to M. Casi- 

 mir Maistre for his exploration between the Congo and Niger ; 

 a gold medal to Prince Heniy of Orleans for his scientific 

 journey to Tonkin and in the Laos country ; Prix Pierre- Felix 

 Fournier to M. Vital Cuinet for his important work on " Turkey 

 in Abii";a gold mtdal to M. Andre Delebecque for his re- 

 searches on French lakes ; a gold medal to M. E. Foa for his 

 explorations in South Africi, from the Cape to Lake Nyasa ; 

 Prix Herbet Fournet to M. P. Savorgnan de Brazza for his ex- 

 plorations in the French Congo, and for the part he has played 

 in the colonial expansion of France ; a g dd medal to M. M. 

 Monnier for the whole of his exploration-., and especially for his 

 voyage to the Ivory Coast ; a gold medal to M. H. Schirmer 

 for his monograph on the Sahara ; a silver medal to Dr. A. 

 Hagen for his scientific studies on the New Hebrides ; a silver 

 medal to M. L. Vignon for his works on French colonies, 

 and especially for his important work " La France en 

 Algerie"; Prix Jomard to M. Camille Imbault-Huatt for his 

 work on the " Inland of Formosa." 



The explora'ion of the Lukuga river, which forms the periodic 

 outlet of Lake Tanganyika, hy the Katanga expedition under 

 M. Delcommune, forms the subject of a >hort article and map 

 in a recent issue ot the Aloiivement Geographique. The river 

 was traced down to its confluence with tiie Lualaba or Upper 

 Congo, in the last months of 1892. After leaving the lake the 

 river pierced the Kakazi hills in a gorge, lined by cliffs 300 

 metres high, then expands in a marshy tract, contracts 

 to pass another gorge, and expands once more on 



NO. 1 276, VOL. 49] 



the plain, where it enters the Lualaba 230 miles from its 

 source in Lake Tanganyika, and at a level 300 metres lower. 

 Though the volume of the river was small at the time of 

 observation, and the water very shallow, evidence was found of 

 the occasional occurrence of very heavy floods. It appeared 

 that the Lukuga first became an outlet of the lake in consequence 

 of an exceptional rise of the water level forcing an exit through 

 the most easily breached part of its coast-line. 



The Norwegian whaler Jas)n, Captain Larsen, has suc- 

 ceeded in reaching what is probably a higher southern latitude 

 than any steam vessel had previously done. Part of the log of 

 the vessel has been forwarded to Dr. John Murray, wh) com- 

 municated i*. to the April number of the Scottish Geographical 

 Magazine, along with a map of the fjison s route. The dis- 

 coveries made were, in Dr. Murray's opinion, the most im- 

 portant since Ross's voyage. The Dundee and Norwegian 

 sealers in 1892 found the sea to the south of Joinville and 

 Louis Philippe Lands blocked with ice and swarming with 

 seals ; but in November 1893, Captain Larsen foun 1 clear 

 water, and saw few seals. On December I, when in lat. 66' 4' S. 

 and long. 59^ 49' W., roc'^^y land was seen to the eas', the 

 coast-tending from N.W. to S.E. High snow-covered Ian i was 

 seen to the south on December 4, in lat. 67° S. and long. 60° W., 

 and two days later the ship reached her farthest south point, 

 68° 10' S., finding a stretch of low bay ice with few cracks. 

 A group of islands was found on the return, situated aboat 

 65° 7' S. and 58° 22' W., on two of which active volcanoes 

 were observed. Captain Larsen landed on these islands, which 

 were not covered with snow ; but in order to do so, he had to 

 cross seven miles of ice, using Norwegian snow-shoes for that 

 purpose. Volcanic rocks were strewn on this ice, evidently 

 thrown up by the volcanoes. The , currents were observed 

 to come from the south, and southerly winds were frequently 

 met with, indicating the possibility of an Antarctic area of 

 high atmospheric pressure. The map on which these dis- 

 coveries are marked shows Grahamsland as a peninsula, and 

 involves a slight alteration in the provisional sketch of the 

 probable outline of the Antarctic continent. The result of 

 this cruise adds great point to the agitation for an Antarctic 

 expedition on a large scale, and it is interesting to note that the 

 open sea so far south occurred simultaneou ly with an excep- 

 tional dispersal of Antarctic ice over the sjuihern ocean. 



But cojiparaively little is known of the bacterial contents 

 of sea-water, and by far the greater part of the information which 

 we have on this subject has been collected by Dr. H. L. Russell. 

 The first observations made by this investigator were carried 

 out at the Naples Zoological Station, and were subsequently 

 published in the Zcitschrift f. Hygiene, vol. xi. 1891. Since 

 then Dr. Russell has made an elab )rate inquiry i.ito the 

 conditions affecting the distribution of bacteria, b A\\ in sea- 

 water and mud, collected from the Atlantic Ojean near the 

 coast of Massachusetts. A reprint in pamphlet form of the>e 

 results, published from time to time in the Botanical Gazette, 

 places very conveniently before the reader the various questions, 

 which have been attacked. Four new varieties of bacdii have 

 been isolated, described, and carefully drawn, but to none of 

 them was any pathogenic property attached. One of the most' 

 prevalent of the sea-mud forms that was isalated in the 

 Mediterranean, was also found to be a common inhabitant of 

 the sea-slime in this part of the Atlantic. One of the 

 varieties isolated was found exclusively in the ground layers of 

 the sea-bottom, whilst the three other forms were found both 

 in the water and the underlying ground layers. Sunshine 

 produced as disastrous results nn these sea-water bacteria as on 

 those obtained from fresh water. In his conclusions Dr. 

 Russell points out that the indigenous marine flora of both, 



