October 29, 1903] 



NATURE 



637 



(rom America to superintend the experiments; the system, 

 in which an electrolytic conductor is used in place of the 

 ordinary coherer,. is in considerable u§e in America. 



A FORTNIGHT ago we were able to record the fact that a 

 speed of 125^ miles an hour had been attained by the 

 Siemens car in the high-speed trials Which are being carried 

 on at Berlin. Last Friday this record was beaten, and a 

 speed of 1305 miles an hour attained. It is said that a higher 

 speed than this is not desired. The passing of the car at full 

 speed seems to have created a strong impression on a large 

 crowd of sightseers who witnessed the experiments from 

 Dahlwitz Station. 



We regret to see the announcement of the death of Dr. 

 C T. Hudson, F.R.S., president of the Royal Microscopical 

 Society from 1888 to 1890, and joint author of Hudson and 

 Gosse's " Rotifera." Dr. Hudson was born in 1828, and 

 was fifteenth wrangler in the mathematical tripos of 1852. 

 From 1855 to i860 he was headmaster of Bristol Grammar 

 School, and from 1861 to 1881 of Manilla Hall, Clifton. 

 He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1889, chiefly 

 on account of his work on Rotifers, concerning which he 

 was the chief authority. The genus Pedalion, discovered 

 and described by him, was a very remarkable and important 

 contribution to animal morphology ; Dr. Hudson was also 

 the discoverer of numerous other new genera and species of 

 Rotifera, described in the publications of various scientific 

 societies. 



An announcement is made in a Government resolution 

 on the annual report of the Survey of India for 1901-2 that 

 the necessity for effectively revising and keeping up to date 

 the maps now in existence, as well as of providing fresh 

 ones, has been forced upon the Government of India. " We 

 can only hope," says the Pioneer Mail, " that there may 

 be no half measures, and that the reform may be thorough, 

 for assuredly the need is more crying than most can have 

 any idea of." 



According to the Westminster Gazette, Mr. F. du Cane 

 Godman has recently presented to the British Museum (of 

 which he is a trustee) a collection of nearly 30,000 speci- 

 mens of beetles, following on a previous donation of 50,000. 

 The present collection consists mainly of representatives of 

 the family Elateridae, or " ship-jacks," the bulk being from 

 Central America. The collection in the Museum is now 

 the firtest in the world, and housing space is a problem. 

 Our contemporary makes a curious mistake in referring 

 to the fact that 150,000 specitnens of beetles are already 

 described, and that the annual addition to the British 

 Museum collection averages 400 specimens ; in both cases, 

 of course, species are meant. 



A Reuter telegram from Wellington, dated October 25, 

 states that the Antarctic relief ship Morning has left Lyttel- 

 ton to join the Terra Nova, the relief ship for the Discovery, 

 at Hobart. In connection with the relief of the Nordens- 

 kiold Antarctic Expedition, the limes reports that the 

 Swedish vessel Frith jof, the French steamer Le Franfais, 

 and the Argentine gunboat Uruguay will meet at Ushnaia 

 on November i, and will then proceed to Seymour's Island, 

 and from thence to Snowhill, Dr. Nordenskiold's proposed 

 base. 



A correspondent, referring to Prof. W. H. Everett's 

 letter on rocket lightning in our last issue, directs attention 

 to .a closely similar phenomenon observed in London 

 between 2 and 3 a.m. on the morning of October 16. From 



the south-eastern horizon of a clear sky, a " wriggling 

 stream " of bluish-white light shot up in a vertical direction 

 and broke off short without spreading. It would be interest- 

 ing to know if any other observer witnessed this display, 

 and if a thunderstorm occurred that night anywhere to the 

 south-east of London within twenty or thirty miles. 



Commander R. E. PearV has been granted leave of 

 absence in order to make one more attempt to reach the 

 North Pole. In a letter to the Secretary of the U.S. Navy, 

 published in the National Geographic Magazine for this 

 month, Mr. Peary outlines the plan he proposes to adopt. 

 He intends to make his winter camp fully one hundred 

 miles north of his previous winter quarters, so that when 

 he is ready to start in spring he will be a hundred miles 

 nearer his goal. The distance from Peary's proposed 

 winter camp near Cape Joseph Henry to the North Pole 

 and back again is less than the average distance of four 

 sledging trips which he has made. Mr. Peary proposes to 

 start in July, 1904, to reach Cape Joseph Henry with his 

 vessel in the fall of that year, and to make his dash for the 

 Pole in 1905. In case he does not reach the proposed 

 winter camp in 1904, he will spend 1905 in reaching it, and 

 attempt to reach the North Pole in 1906. 



The fourteenth International Congress of Americanists 

 will be held at Stuttgart on August 18-23, 1904, under the 

 presidency of Prof. Karl von den Steinen. The congress is 

 concerned with the history, culture, linguistics, and myth- 

 ology of the various aboriginal races of America, and 

 generally with the archaeology and ethnography of the New 

 World. Correspondence referring to anthropology and 

 ethnography should be addressed to Prof. Karl von den 

 Steinen, Berlin-Charlottenburg, Hardenbergstrasse 24, and 

 that referring to archaeology, discovery, and Central 

 America to Prof. Eduard Seler, Steglitz bei Berlin, Kaiser 

 Wilhelmstrasse 3. The general secretary is Prof. K. 

 Lampert, Stuttgart, Archivstrasse 3. 



The volume referred to in the foregoing note affords con- 

 vincing evidence of the interest shown in scientific subjects 

 in New Zealand, and it is not unnatural to find that men 

 of science in that colony are beginning to ask that scientific 

 principles may influence the national system of education. 

 Mr. Hill, in a paper on technical education, read before 

 the Hawke's Bay Institute, rightly maintained that " the 

 study of natural science should be fostered even beyond the 

 public school course, and this can readily be done by the 

 introduction of botany, geology, agricultural chemistry, and 

 other cognate subjects into the advanced or secondary- 

 course. The maintenance by the Government of technical 

 schools and schools of science and agriculture would give 

 prestige to such institutions, and these, with the university- 

 colleges, should supply all the academic, scientific, and 

 technical training that is wanted for the professions and 

 the pursuit of every specialised form of industrial work." 



The council of the Royal Society will proceed on 

 November 5 to the election of a Joule student for the period 

 1903-5. The studentship will be awarded for investigations 

 in those branches of physical science more immediately con- 

 nected with Joule's work. Applications from candidates 

 will be received by the Assistant Secretary, Royal Society, 

 Burlington House, London, W\ 



The first number of vol. ix. of the Bulletin issued 

 by the Society Sismologica Italiana gives the rules of 

 that Society, a list of its members^ and a continuation. 



NO. I 774. VOL. 68] 



