May 7, 1903 



NATURE 



13 



The Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society will 

 hortly celebrate the centenary of Dalton's enunciation of 

 !ie atomic theory. On May 19 Prof. F. W. Clarke, of the 

 I olumbia University, Washington, will deliver a lecture 

 n the evolution and philosophy of the theory. Arrange- 

 nents are also being made for a conversazione at Owens 

 ' "ollege, and exhibition of Dalton manuscripts, portraits, 

 nd other records. 



Reuter reports that if within a short time no ship from 

 tlie Falkland Islands arrives at Montevideo or Buenos Ayres 

 with news of the Nordenskjold Antarctic expedition, an 

 expedition to relieve Nordenskjold will be equipped at Stock- 

 holm immediately, and should no intelligence of the ex- 

 plorer have come to hand in the meantime, will leave on 

 September 1 for the South Shetland Islands, where it should 

 arrive about the middle of November. The funds required 

 for the relief expedition have already been secured. 



A GREAT rock slide occurred on the morning of April 29 

 at Frank, a small mining town on the Canadian Pacific 

 Railway in the Rocky Mountains, and in Alberta Terri- 

 tory. A telegram from Sir Wilfrid Laurier states that the 

 whole east end of Turtle Mountain from the mouth ol 

 Frank Mine slid into the valley and blocked it entirely. 

 The railway was covered with debris for a mile and a half 

 east of Frank. The landslip gave rise to great clouds of 

 dust, which were at first thought to be due to a volcanic 

 eruption, and was reported as such, but this conclusion was 

 entirely unfounded. 



Captain Sverdrup gave an account of his expedition to 

 hp Arctic region in 1898 to 1902 before the Royal Scottish 

 K'ographical Society on Monday night, and was presented 

 with the gold medal of the Society in recognition of his 

 achievements. Sheriff Guthrie, who presided, prefaced the 

 address with an appeal on behalf of the Scottish Antarctic 

 expedition under Mr. W. S. Bruce. The leader hoped to 

 be engaged in his work for two years, and funds for the 

 first year are still short by 2250/., while for the whole ex- 

 pedition a sum of lo.oooZ. is wanted. 



The Government of India is endeavouring to bring into 

 being the Tata institution for scientific teaching and re- 

 search at Bangalore. The Daily Mail states that the 

 Government has just addressed the Bombay Administration, 

 offering to increase the grant so as to raise the total annual 

 income of the institute to 15,000^., conditionally on the 

 Mysore durbars carrying out its proposal that they should 

 assist. Lord Curzon hopes that Mr. Tata will now expedite 

 his arrangements so as to enable legislation for the con- 

 stitution of the institute to proceed. 



L\ the article on standardisation which appeared in 

 Nature of April 23 (p. 587), it is stated that the work of 

 the Engineering Standards Committee was started two 

 years ago at the suggestion of the Institution of Mechanical 

 Engineers. .Mr. Leslie S. Robertson, the secretary of the 

 committee, writes to point out that the committee was 

 formed in pursuance of a resolution of the council of the 

 Institution of Civil Engineers. We are glad to make this 

 correction, both for the sake of historical accuracy and 

 because the fact was well known to the writer of the article, 

 who inadvertently named the wrong institution. 



M. E. DupoRCQ (Ing^nieur des t^l^graphes), whose death 

 was announced recently (p. 589), was general secretary of 

 the Mathematical Congress at Paris in 1900, and worked 

 hard to make it a success. He was also a vice-secretary of 

 the Mathematical Society of France, and editor of the 

 Xouvelles Annales, where most of his mathematical con- 



NO. 1749, VOL. 68] 



tributions are to be found. These were chiefly in the region 

 of elementary pure mathematics, and he was also a deviser 

 of mathematical problems of the style of Prof. Wolsten- 

 holme. 



Prof. George E. Hale has informed Science that Miss 

 Helen E. Snow, of Chicago, has provided for the reconstruc- 

 tion of the coelostat reflecting telescope of the Yerkes Observ- 

 atory as a memorial to her father. The telescope will be 

 provided with solar and stellar spectrographs, spectrohelio- 

 graphs and other important accessories. The coelostat re- 

 flector which the new telescope is to replace was seriously 

 injured by fire last December, giving rise to erroneous but 

 widespread statements that the main building of the Yerkes 

 Observatory, as well as the 40-inch refractor, had been 

 destroyed. 



We are requested to announce that a representative com- 

 mittee has been formed for the purpose of raising a 

 memorial to the late Sir Henry Bessemer. The remarkable 

 industrial development of the world in recent years is largely 

 due to the metallurgical process which bears the name of 

 Bessemer, and it has long been felt that his life's work 

 should be suitably commemorated in the centre of the British 

 Empire. The objects of the memorial are, first, the erec- 

 tion (and, if necessary, the endowment) of metallurgical 

 teaching and research works in connection with the Uni- 

 versity of London, equipped for the testing of ores and 

 metallurgical products by modern methods, and for the in- 

 vestigation of new methods and processes ; and, second, the 

 foundation of international scholarships for post-graduate 

 courses in practical work in connection with proposals now 

 under the consideration of the Board of Education. The 

 committee is thoroughly representative, and among the men 

 of science upon it are Sir William Abney, K.C.B., F.R.S., 

 Sir John Wolfe Barry, K.C.B., F.R.S., Dr. C. Le Neve 

 Foster, F.R.S., Prof. A. K. Huntingdon, Sir Arthur 

 Rucker, F.R.S., and Sir H. Trueman Wood. A meeting to 

 inaugurate the fund will be held at the Mansion House on 

 Monday, June 29 next, particulars of which will be pub- 

 lished later. All communications should be addressed to the 

 secretary, Mr. Charles McDermid, Bessemer Memorial 

 Fund, Salisbury House, London, E.C. 



By the death of Mr. Osier, which occurred on April 26 

 at his residence, South Bank, Edgbaston, Birmingham, at 

 the age of ninety-five, meteorological science has lost 

 another of its distinguished pioneers. His principal works 

 in this science were contributed to the Proceedings of the 

 British Association, and to the Proceedings of the Literary 

 and Philosophical Society of Birmingham, between the 

 years 1836 and 1858. He was perhaps best known by his 

 invention of a self-recording direction and pressure anemo- 

 meter and rain-gauge ; one of these instruments was erected 

 at the Philosophical Institute at Birmingham, and a dis- 

 cussion of the observations obtained by it during the years 

 1839 and 1840 was published in the Proceedings of the 

 British Association. Another instrument was erected at the 

 Liverpool Observatory in 185 1, and a summary of the records 

 for 1852-5 was published in the latter year. From a report 

 recently received from that observatory, we .find that his 

 combined anemometer and rain-gauge is still in use, and 

 continues to give entire satisfaction. In recognition of his 

 researches in this branch of science he was elected a fellow 

 of the Royal Society in 1855. In his earlier years he was 

 actively engaged in the development of the glass industry 

 in Birmingham. 



M. Paul du Chaillu, the African explorer and discoverer 

 of the gorilla, died at St. Petersburg on April 30. Paul 



