86 



NA TURE 



[November 27, 1902 



has been decided upon. At Friday's meeting, Lord Lister was 

 appointed chairman of the memorial committee; Lord Avebury 

 hon. treasurer; and Sir Felix Semon hon. secretary. It is to 

 be hoped that the response to the appeal for subscriptions will 

 be prompt and generous, so that Great Britain may take a 

 worthy share in the erection of a monument to a man whose 

 genius was used to benefit the whole world. Contributions 

 should be sent to " the Hon. Treasurer of the Virchow Memorial, 

 care of Messrs. Robarts, Lubbock, and Co., 15 Lombard 

 Street, London, E.C.," who will send an acknowledgment to 

 the individual contributors. When the list has been closed, the 

 hon. treasurer will forward the amount to the treasurer of the 

 Berlin committee, together with a list of the contributors, but 

 the amount of the individual contributions will not be stated. 

 All who appreciate Virchow's services to science and humanity 

 should, therefore, not hesitate to pay their tribute to the memory 

 of one of the greatest men of our time. 



The Liverpool correspondent of the Central News states that 

 the Nobel prize of 3000/. for researches in connection with 

 malaria will be a personal one to Major Ross, principal of the 

 Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. According to the 

 Stockholm correspondent of the Daily Chronicle, the prize for 

 medicine will be awarded to Prof. Finsen, the Danish discoverer 

 of the treatment by red light for lupus, and the prize for physics 

 to Prof. S. A. Arrhenius. 



The directors of the Ben Nevis Observatories intimated, in a 

 memorandum dated June, 1902, that the observatories at the 

 top of Ben Nevis and in Fort-William were to be discontinued 

 at the beginning of October, 1902. But, in consequence of a 

 proposal by the Treasury to make an inquiry into the adminis- 

 tration of the grant to the Meteorological Council, it was 

 widely felt that an effort should be made to keep the observ- 

 atories at work until the inquiry had been completed. The 

 directors are now able to state that they have succeeded in 

 obtaining the necessary funds, and that there will be no stop- 

 page of the work at the observatories until October, 1904 ; that 

 is, the work will go on as hitherto for at least two more years. 

 One generous donor is to provide the whole funds necessary for 

 the second year. This prolongation will give ample time to 

 make such arrangements as may be consequent on the report of 

 the committee of inquiry. 



A violent shock of earthquake is reported to have occurred 

 during the night of November 20 at Oued Marsa, in Algeria. 



Dr. Gilbert T. Morgan has succeeded Prof. W. P. Wynne, 

 F. R. S. , as editor of the Journal of the Chemical Society. 



The inaugural address prepared by Mr. J. Swinburne, 

 president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, will be 

 delivered at an extra meeting, to be held on Thursday, 

 December 4. Mr. Swinburne's illness prevented the address 

 from being read at the meeting of the Institution on 

 November 13. 



Owing, it is supposed, to a defect in the heating apparatus, 

 a fire broke out at midnight of November iS in the Zoological 

 Gardens at Amsterdam. The outbreak started in the birds' 

 gallery, the centre of which is occupied by rare apes. Fortun- 

 ately, the loss of life was not great, though Keetje, the popular 

 female orang-utan, was suffocated. 



Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, M.P., chairman of the Wilts 

 County Council, at the last meeting of the Council made a state- 

 ment with regard to his negotiations with Sir Edmund Antrobus 

 respecting Stonehenge. Though nothing has yet been definitely 

 decided upon, Lord Edmond expects to be able to place before 

 Ihe Council, in February next, a scheme to arrange satisfactorily 

 for the future of Stonehenge. 



NO. 1726, VOL. 67] 



Prof. Guido Cora informs us that a severe snowfall has 

 occurred in several parts of Piedmont. At Costigliole d'Asti, 

 during the morning of November 19, the snow attained a height 

 of a foot (30 cm.) in the most exposed spots. Another fall of 

 show took place on November 20-21. During the nights, the 

 temperature has been very severe, and in the morning of 

 November 23, at 8 a.m., the thermometer reached -7°C.,an 

 extraordinarily low temperature for such a season. In Alessan- 

 dria and Ivrea, also on November 19, the fall of snow was 

 20 cm. and 30 cm. thick. 



A crematorium, established by the London Crematorium 

 Company (Limited), was opened at Golder's Green, Hendon, 

 on November 22, when an address was given by Sir Henry 

 Thompson. The crematorium at Woking is too far from 

 London to be of much use to the metropolis, but it is hoped 

 that the institution now available, being within five miles of the 

 Marble Arch, will do much to supply a real deficiency. 



The Atkenaeum announces that the Vienna Academy of 

 Sciences is making the necessary preparations for a fifth expe- 

 dition out of the funds placed at its disposal by the Treitzsche 

 Stiftung. It is to start in January, 1903, under the leadership 

 of Hofrat Franz Steindacher, the director of the Vienna Natural 

 History Museum. Dr. Pentor, of the same institution, will 

 accompany the expedition as entomologist, and Othmar Reiser, 

 the director of the Bosnian Museum at Sarajevo, as ornithologist. 

 The expedition will land at Paranagua, in Brazil, and thence 

 proceed to the study of the fauna of the hitherto unexplored 

 districts of Piauhy and Maranhao. 



A correspondent writes :—" A semi-official announcement 

 in the Transvaal Leader of October 23 records the formation of 

 a regularly constituted Department of Agriculture in the Trans- 

 vaal, with Mr. F. B. Smith, the recently appointed agricultural 

 adviser to Lord Milner, as director. Forestry will be repre- 

 sented on the staff by Mr. Chas. E. Legat, of Edinburgh 

 University, from the Cape Forestry Department ; fruit by 

 Mr. Davis, late manager of Mr Rhodes's fruit farms ; and 

 poultry by Mr. Bourlay, from England. A veterinary branch 

 has been created, but the appointment of principal veterinary sur- 

 geon has not been filled. The Agricultural Journal was taken 

 in hand some little time back, Mr. Burton being editor. The 

 appointment of a forester has not been made a moment too soon, 

 for he must select a suitable place and set about establishing a 

 Government nursery of fruit and forest trees on the lines of the 

 Government nurseries at Tokai, near Cape Town, where special 

 attention is paid to the propagation of the splendid indigenous 

 timber trees of South Africa. It is much better to plant 

 stretches of veldt with wattles and gums than not to plant them 

 at all ; but where these grow, yellow-wood, laurel, assegai, Cape 

 ash and white pear will also grow, than which there is no 

 better timber for cabinet and waggon work. Afforestation 

 should go hand in hand with irrigation in conserving the rain- 

 fall of the country." 



In the opening address which Sir William Preece delivered 

 at the Society of Arts on November 19 (published in the Journal 

 of the Society for November 21), he showed that the commer- 

 cial conduct of industrial processes arising from the practical 

 application of discoveries follows distinct laws, which may be 

 said to constitute a science of business. Selecting the industries 

 of water, gas, railways and telegraphs, a series of diagrams 

 was given to exhibit graphically the comparative rates of growth 

 of capital, revenue and expenditure. Several directions in which 

 advance is necessary if Great Britain is to compete successfully 

 with other progressive nations were mentioned. In the course 

 of his address, Sir William Preece said : — " The Germans have 

 an admirable Intelligence Department all over the world. If 



