July 23, 1903] 



NATURE 



277 



The results already published tempt one sorely to 

 estimate a provisional parallax. Indeed there is no 

 need to resist the temptation if one keeps the results to 

 oneself, and avoids multiplying provisional results in 

 print which only make confusion. An excellent ex- 

 ample of reticence has already been set. This much 

 may be said from experience ; if anyone indulges him- 

 self by studying the results in the tenth circular, he will 

 find no reason to be dissatisfied with the accuracy of 

 the work. 



The circular concludes with loo pages of tables for 

 facilitating the photographic reductions. Such tables 

 may be thrown into an endless variety of forms 

 according to individual taste ; and the differences be- 

 tween any two particular arrangements are not of much 

 importance compared with the great advantage of 

 having the tables published. The thanks of everyone 

 who measures photographs are due to M. Loewy for his 

 tables in the tenth circular. H. H. Turner. 



NOTES. 

 When it was announced, a few months ago, that Prof, 

 von Neumayer, the distinguished meteorologist, was about 

 to retire, on account of advanced age and ill-health, from 

 his post of director of the German Naval Observatory at 

 Hamburg, which was under his control for a considerable 

 number of years, the rumour quickly gained currency in 

 usually well-informed circles that his successor would not 

 be a man of science but a naval officer. This rumour was 

 discredited at the time by many people, but it proves to 

 have been quite correct, for during the Kaiser's recent visit 

 to Hamburg for the purpose of unveiling a statue to the 

 Emperor William I., he summoned Captain Herz, of the 

 Imperial Navy, to his presence, and informed him that he 

 had been appointed to the vacant post with the rank of a 

 Rear-Admiral. As the work of the observatory is neces- 

 sarily so largely scientific, it may at first sight seem strange 

 that a man, who, no matter how able he may be, is not a 

 man of science, should be placed at its head. A similar 

 arrangement, however, has been made in several other 

 cases in recent years — as, for instance, in the construction 

 department of the Navy, which until quite recently was 

 under the supervision of scientific engineers, but is now in 

 the hands of naval officers — and the explanation given is 

 that a man of science in such a position is so overburdened 

 with administrative work — for which, very possibly, he is 

 not well fitted— that he has little or no time for scientific 

 investigation. The naval authorities have, therefore, 

 decided to utilise their investigators wholly for scientific 

 purposes, and to place the work of organisation and 

 administration into the hands of a naval officer who is a 

 man of practical affairs. 



A BUST of the late Sir William Flower, F.R.S., will be 

 formally presented to the trustees of the British Museum 

 by the " Flower Memorial Committee " on Saturday next, 

 July 25. The ceremony will take place in the central hall 

 of the Natural History Museum at 1.15 p.m. The bust will 

 be unveiled by the Archbishop of Canterbury as the repre- 

 sentative of the trustees of the museum. 



Prof. W. J. McGee has been elected chairman, and Dr. 

 J. H. McCormick secretary, of the committee of arrange- 

 ments for the eighth International Geographical Congress 

 to be held at Washington, D.C., in September of next year. 



A FEW weeks ago we recorded the unveiling of a monu- 

 ment of Pasteur at Chartres. We learn from the British 

 Medical Journal that on July 12 another monument was un- 

 veiled in the commune of Marnes-la-Coquette in the presence 

 NO. 1760, VOL. 68] 



of many well-known men of science. It was in the district 

 of Marnes-la-Coquette that Pasteur established his labor- 

 atory for the study of hydrophobia, and it was there that 

 he died. 



The seventy-first annual meeting of the British Medical 

 Association will be held at Swansea on July 28-31, under 

 the presidency of Dr. T. D. Griffiths. After the delivery 

 of the presidential address on July 28, the Stewart prize 

 will be presented to Dr. F. W. Mott, F.R.S. Dr. F. T. 

 Roberts will deliver an address in medicine, and Prof. A. W. 

 Mayo Robson an address in surgery. The scientific work 

 of the meeting will be conducted in eleven sections — 

 medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, State 

 medicine, psychology, pathology, ophthalmology, diseases of 

 children, laryngology, tropical diseases ; Navy, Army, and 

 ambulance. 



The Wilts Archaeological Society held a meeting at 

 Stonehenge on Friday last, and the Rev. E. H. Goddard 

 gave an account of the raising of the leaning stone. Mr. 

 Story Maskelyne, in thanking Sir Edmund Antrobus for 

 his invitation to visit Stonehenge, said that, by raising the 

 leaning stone, the biggest stone of its kind in England, 

 one of the most important pieces of archaeological work he 

 had known had been accomplished. People might quarrel 

 about barbed-wire fences and rights of way, but in his 

 opinion the greatest public right in Stonehenge was the 

 pieservation of the monument, and that the present owner 

 was doing to the best of his abilities. 



The long excursion of the Geologists' Association will be 

 made from July 28 to August 4. The head-quarters will be 

 at Berwick-on-Tweed, and in the course of the week the 

 coast at Scremerston, Burnmouth, Eyemouth, and St. Abb's 

 Head, and the country inland along the Whiteadder, the 

 Eildon Hills and Melrose, and a portion of the Cheviot Hills 

 will be visited. Silurian, Old Red Sandstone, Lower 

 Carboniferous, various igneous rocks and glacial drifts will 

 be examined under the direction of Mr. J. G. Goodchild, 

 with Mr. R. S. Herries as excursion secretary. 



The death is announced of Mr. J. Peter Lesley, who from 

 1872 to 1878 was professor of geology and Dean of the 

 Faculty of Science in the University of Pennsylvania, and 

 was recognised in America as one of the most competent 

 experts on coal and iron mining. From an obituary notice 

 in Science (July 3) we learn that he was born in Phila- 

 delphia on September 17, 1819, and after graduating at the 

 university in 1838, served on the first geological survey of 

 the State, when he paid especial attention to the coal- 

 deposits. On the abrupt termination of the survey in 1841 

 he passed through a course of theology, was licensed to 

 preach in 1844, and was for some years pastor of a Con- 

 gregational church at Milton, Mass. His views, however, 

 underwent some changes, and returning to Philadelphia 

 he again took up geological work, making elaborate surveys 

 of several coal and iron fields in different States. For 

 twenty-seven years he was secretary and librarian of the 

 American Philosophical Society, part of the time holding 

 the geological professorship in Pennsylvania, and in 1874 

 taking charge also of the second geological survey of the 

 State. This last post he retained until 1893, when he retired 

 to Milton. He died on June i. 



A SEVERE earthquake was felt throughout the island of 

 St. Vincent on the morning of July 21. 



We have received the official Protokoll of the third meet- 

 ing of the International " Commission " for Scientific 

 Aeronautics, which was held in Berlin on May 20-25, 1902. 



