84 



NA TURE 



[November 23, 1899 



Thurisday afternoon of last week produced quite a little ovation, I 

 M. Moissan being loudly cheered by the large number of students I 

 present. He gave a short address on the career of Prof. Riche, 

 and touched on the subject of electro-chemistry. j 



The Cecil Rhodes — the first iron steamer designed for service ! 

 on Lak6 Tanganyika — was launched at Wyvenhoe on Saturday, j 

 The steamer is to be employed primarily in laying the wires of : 

 the Cape to Cairo telegraph line along the shores of the lake. 

 After the trial trip the boat will be dismantled and taken to 

 pieces for shipment to Chinde, on the East Africa coast, whence 

 she will be taken up the Zambesi and Shire j-ivers by the 

 Sharrers Zambesi Traffic Company, thence by native porters 

 through Blantyre to Mpimbo, where she will be again shipped 

 and carried across Lake Nyassa to Karonga, and finally taken 

 overland along the Stephenson road to the south end of Lake 

 Tanganyika, at which point she will be reconstructed and 

 launched for the second time. 



Prof. Ferdinand Tiemann, honorary professor of che- 

 mistry in Berlin University, died on November 7. 



Dr. Henry Hicks, F.R.S., the distinguished geologist, died 

 on Saturday last, at the age of sixty-two. 



The death is announced, at Southport, of Mr. Alexander 

 McDougall, who was widely known about sixty years ago in 

 connection with the invention of the atmospheric railway, and 

 has been associated since then with a long succession of me- 

 chanical and chemical appliances of public utility. 



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

 Pestana, chief of the Bacteriological Institute at Lisbon. It 

 was his verdict on specimens sent to him from Oporto for 

 examination that conclusively established the existence of the 

 plague there in August last. Dr. Pestana caught the plague 

 while studying it at Oporto, and his death was due to that 

 disease. 



From the Cape Times we learn with regret that Prof. Francis 

 Guthrie, until the end of last year professor of mathematics 

 in the South African College, died on October 19. Prof. Guthrie 

 was a brother of the late professor of physics at the Royal College 

 of Science, South Kensington. He was born in 1831, and went 

 out to Cape Colony in 1 861 as professor of mathematics in the 

 then newly- established Graafif-Reinet College. In 1875 he re- 

 signed his appointment at this college, and went to Cape Town. 

 After a brief visit to England in 1876, he was appointed to the 

 chair of mathematics in the South African College, then vacant 

 by the retirement of the Rev. Prof. Childe. This appointment 

 he held for twenty-one years, retiring from it in 1898. The 

 Council of the college marked their appreciation of his long 

 and honourable term of service by according a pension of double 

 the amount to which he was legally entitled. Prof. Guthrie 

 was deeply interested in botany ; and he had the advantage of 

 attending the lectures of John Lindley, an English botanist of 

 high reputation. In Graaff-Reinet he gave, outside the college 

 course, a series of public lectures ; and on his removal to Cape 

 Town, took up again more assiduously his botanical pursuits. 

 Finally, he undertook, in conjunction with his life-long friend, 

 Mr. Harry Bolus, the enormous task of a revision of the Order 

 of the Heaths, for the next volume of the " Flora Capensis," 

 now in course of preparation at Kew. Into this work he threw 

 himself with all the ardour and enthusiasm of youth, and was 

 engaged upon it up to a short period before his death. 



Fellows of the Physical Society, and their guests, dined 

 together at the Hotel Cecil on Friday evening, November 17. 

 The president of the society. Prof. O. J. Lodge, took the chair, 

 and the guests included many distinguished men of science. 

 NO. 1569, VOL. 61] 



Mr. Stewart Culin, of the University of Pennsylvania, is 

 preparing a memoir on the late Dr. D. G. Brinton, at the 

 request of the family of the deceased anthropologist. He will 

 be glad to receive letters and other literary materials bearing 

 upon the subject of his memoir. 



The British Medical lournal stains that Mr. J. W. Stephens 

 and Dr. R. S. Christophers, members of the Royal Society expedi- 

 tion on malaria, have returned home, but they may possibly at 

 a subsequent date proceed to the West Coast of Africa. 



As a proof of his cordial sympathy with the cause of bird 

 protection, the Poet Laureate, Mr. Alfred Austin, has written 

 a special poem for the Christmas card which the Society for the 

 Protection of Birds is issuing this year. It is entitled " Peace 

 and Goodwill to the Birds," and is illustrated by a coloured 

 picture of that much persecuted bird the tern, designed for the 

 purpose by Mr. A. Thorburn. 



A monument erected, by public subscription, to the memory 

 of the lamented astronomer, M. Felix Tisserand, late director of 

 the Paris Observatory, was unveiled at Nuits-Saint-Georges on 



October 15, in the presence of a distinguished company of men 

 of science. The accompanying illustration of the monument is 

 given in La Nature with an account of the inauguration cere- 

 mony. General Bassot, speaking on behalf of the Academy of 

 Sciences, referred to Tisserand's scientific work. M. Poincare 

 spoke as the representative of the Bureau des Longitudes ; M. 

 Baillaud reminded the company of Tisserand's work at Toulouse ; 

 M. Callandreau spoke on behalf of the Societe Astronomique ; 



