May 21, 1903] 



NATURE 



65 



A GENERAL meeting of the British Academy was held on 

 May 14, Lord Reay, the president, being in the chair. 

 Papers were read by Dr. Edward Caird, Master of Balliol 

 College, Oxford, on " Idealism and the Theory of Know- 

 ledge," and by Prof. W. M. Ramsay on " The Importance 

 of a Systematic Exploration of Asia Minor (in conjunction 

 with the recently formed societies for the same purpose in 

 Austria and in Germany)." 



We regret to record the death, on May 12, of Mr. William 

 Talbot Avcline, at the age of eighty-one. He was engaged 

 on the staff of the Geological Survey under De la 

 Beche, as long ago as 1840. His early field-work was 

 carried on in the region of the Mendip Hills and in South 

 Wales ; subsequently in many parts of North Wales, the 

 western and midland counties of England, he personally 

 surveyed large areas, while in later years he was called on 

 to superintend the field-work in the Lake District. The 

 maps and sections of the Geological Survey, especially in 

 Silurian regions, form the chief records of his labours, for 

 he wrote but little. He became a fellow of the Geological 

 Society in 1848, and in 1894 he was awarded the Murchison 

 medal in appreciation of his long-continued and careful 

 labours in field-geology. 



We learn from the Athenaeum that a Norwegian ex- 

 pedition, commanded by Captain Roald Amundsen, left 

 Christiania a few days ago with the object of fixing the 

 ■exact situation of the magnetic North Pole. The party are 

 expected to be absent for four years, the route taken being 

 by Lancaster Sound, Boothia Felix, where a magnetic 

 observatory will be established for a period of two years 

 under control of two members of the scientific staff, and 

 back by the North-West Passage, Victoria Land, and the 

 Behring Straits. 



On Tuesday next, May 26, Prof. E. J. Garwood delivers 

 the first of two lectures at the Royal Institution on " Ihe 

 Work of Ice as a Geological Agent " ; on Thursday, May 

 :28, Prof. J. A. Fleming commences a course of two lectures 

 on " Electric Resonance and Wireless Telegraphy " ; and 

 on Saturday, May 30, Prof. S. P. Thompson begins a course 

 of two lectures on " The ' De Magnete ' and its Author." 

 The Friday evening discourse on May 29 will be delivered 

 by His Highness the Prince of Monaco on " The Progress 

 of Oceanography," and on June 5 by Prof. H. H. Turner 

 on " The New Star in Gemini." The extra discourse on 

 June 19 win be delivered in French by Prof. Pierre Curie 

 on " Radium." 



A Paris correspondent states that on May 8, a balloon 

 built for MM. Lebaudy made a notable performance. The 

 balloon left the Moisson Aerodrome in the morning and re- 

 turned to it after having navigated round Mantes at a dis- 

 tance of 10 kilometres. The performance was executed in 

 ih. 36m. by a circuitous way the length of which has been 

 estimated as 37 kilometres. The length of the air-ship is 

 56 metres, and the volume 2300 cubic metres. The engine 

 is a 40 horse-power. There were two persons on board, 

 M. Juchm^s, a well-known professional aeronaut, and a 

 mechanician. The peculiarity of the balloon is that it has 

 two screws working in the central part, and not a single 

 propeller at some distance behind. There are two rudders 

 behind at a distance of about 20 metres from the car, one for 

 the vertical motion and the other for movement in a hori- 

 zontal direction. 



During the course of his speech at the opening of the 

 Johnston Laboratories of the University College of Liver- 

 pool, of which a short account was given in these columns 

 last week, the President of the Local Government Board 

 NO. 175 I, VOL. 68] 



made it clear that he at least understands fully the im- 

 portant part science has taken in the work of civilisation 

 and progress. Mr. Long said that so long as he had the 

 honour to occupy the position he now held he would do his 

 best to secure on behalf of the Government of the day the 

 utmost assistance that could be given to the advancement 

 of science in all parts of the country. It seemed to him that 

 the connection was very close between the development of 

 science, and especially of that form of science which was 

 known as preventive medicine, and the commerce for which 

 this great country was so justly famous. There is no doubt 

 of this intimate interdependence of scientific knowledge and 

 commercial success, and Mr. Long did well to commend 

 the people of Liverpool for having raised by donations to 

 university education the sum of 200,000/. 



At the anniversary meeting of the Royal Geographical 

 Society on Monday, the medals and awards which are 

 given annually for the encouragement of geographical 

 science and discovery, and have already been announced 

 (March 19, p. 469), were presented. In the course of an 

 address the president said that Captain Sverdrup, in com- 

 pleting our knowledge of the Parry archipelago, had also 

 completed our general knowledge of Arctic geography. 

 The whole problem of Arctic geography had now been 

 solved. There were many isolated pieces of work that 

 would have to be undertaken, but none which would justify 

 the dispatch of an expedition on a large scale. With 

 regard to the Antarctic regions, he said that the German 

 expedition had the great advantage of having selected one 

 of the two best routes for Antarctic discovery. After giving 

 a short summary of the position of the British expedition, 

 the president said that the Morning must go south again 

 next December, and for this purpose funds, amounting to 

 perhaps 15,000/., must be provided. 



The fall of dust between February 21 and 23 last was 

 observed over such an exceptionally extensive area of 

 Europe, from Ireland eastward into Austria, that the 

 phenomenon has attracted more than usual attention, and 

 already a number of papers dealing with local falls have 

 been written. On the May pilot chart, just published by 

 the Meteorological Office, there is, however, an extremely 

 interesting map of the area from the Equator to 55° N., and 

 from 40° W. to 20° E., exhibiting at a glance the distribu- 

 tion of dust or sand, of mist, haze or fog, the mean 

 barometric pressure for the five days February 18 to 22, 

 and the wind direction recorded by observers out at sea. 

 The accompanying letterpress shows that prior to the dust 

 reaching Europe, sandstorms had interfered with the pro- 

 gress of the British Boundary Commission in Nigeria, south 

 of the Sahara, and had also been experienced on the northern 

 edge of the Sahara. At sea, off Africa, ships were hampered 

 in their movements by the obscuration due to the great 

 quantities of sand in the air, from the Gulf of Guinea to 

 30° W. and up to the Azores. The map shows very clearly 

 that the wind about the Canaries, becoming easterly to 

 south-easterly in direction on February 19, drove the dust- 

 cloud to west and north-west, and near the Azores, the 

 wind being south-westerly, the cloud was quickly carried 

 north-eastward to England and Europe. It is deserving of 

 notice that, according to the log of the R.M.S. Briton, keep- 

 ing near the African coast, the sand was very dense, " huge 

 quantities of red dust," with the wind at north-east, but 

 a temporary change to south-south-west for ten minutes 

 cleared the air immediately. On the wind going back into 

 north-east, the sandstorm came over again. The steamer 

 Kirkby, on the other hand, running westward from Madeira, 

 had the dust fall with a south-east wind ; when the wind 

 changed to north the dust ceased. 



