December 4 1902] 



NA TURE 



1 1 1 



speech given by the Berlin correspondent of the Times, we take 

 the following extract : — " We stand on the threshold of the de- 

 velopment of new forces ; our age demands a race which under- 

 stands it. The new century is dominated by science — which 

 includes technicil skill — and not, like the last century, by 

 philosophy. We must be men of the age. Great is the German 

 in scientific investigation, great in his capacity for organisation 

 and discipline. The freedom of the individual, the strong ten- 

 dency towards development of individuality which is inherent 

 in our race, is conditioned by subordination to the whole for 

 the good of the whole. May the future, therefore, see the growth 

 of a generation which, in the full recognition of these facts, de- 

 velops in the course of joyous labour individuals who sub- 

 ordinate themselves to the good of the whole, to the good of the 

 people and of the fatherland. Freedom for thought, freedom 

 in the further development of religion and freedom for our 

 scientific investigation — that is the freedom which I desire for the 

 German people and would win for them." 



Dr. Deslandkes, astronomer at the Meudon Astro-physical 

 Observatory, has been elected a member of the Paris Academy 

 of Sciences in succession to the late M. Faye. 



Prof. E. B. Poui.ton, F. R.S., will deliver the juvenile 

 lectures at the Society of Arts this year, and has selected as his 

 subject " Means of Defence in the Struggle for Life among 

 Animals." The dates of the lectures will be December 31 and 

 January 7. 



We regret to announce that Prof. Ladislava Celakovskeho, 

 professor of botany in the Bohemian University at Prague, died 

 on November 24, at sixty-nine years of age. 



The Times reports that the Swedish Academy of Sciences 

 has conferred the Nobel prize of the year 1902 for chemistry on 

 Prof. Emil Fischer, professor of chemistry at the University of 

 Berlin, where he succeeded Prof, von Hofmann in 1892. 



The Cape Agricultural Journal announces that Dr. A. Loir, 

 of the Pasteur Institute, Paris, has proceeded to Bulawayo to 

 establish a branch of the Institute there for the treatment of 

 rabies by the anti-rabic inoculation method. Dr. Loir is a 

 nephew of the late M. Pasteur, and has been engaged in the 

 establishment of branches of the parent Institute at S>dney, 

 N.S W., and Tunis. 



The death is announced of Prof. O. N. Rood, known by his 

 work in experimental physics. We learn from Science that 

 Prof. Rood was born in 1831, and was professor of chemistry 

 and physics at Troy University from 1858 to 1863. For the 

 past thirty-nine years he had been professor of physics in 

 Columbia University. He had been vice-president of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science and was 

 a member of the National Academy of Sciences. 



The committee of the class including agricultural practice and 

 agricultural statistics at the Paris Exhibition of 1900 has 

 decided to make a grant of 2400 francs to the agricultural 

 section of the Paris Society for the Encouragement of National 

 Industries, to be employed in agricultural research in such a 

 manner as the committee of the Society determines. In his 

 letter to the president of the Society, M. Tisserand, on behalf 

 of the exhibition committee, expresses satisfaction that such a 

 grant is possible as the outcome of the work of the section of 

 the exhibition represented by him. 



The Hon. F. M. Alleyne, member of the Legislative 

 Council of Barbadoes, writes to say that in Barbadoes great suc- 

 cess has been achieved in the cultivation of sweet potatoes and 

 y ims of the very best quality, and an endeavour is now being made 

 to introduce these into this country as vegetable foods. Messrs. 

 NO. I 727, VOL. 67] 



W. Pink and Sons, of Portsmouth, are importing regular sup- 

 plies, and with every parcel receipts are sent for various ways of 

 cooking both sweet potatoes and yams. 



A Reuter telegram from Kingstown, St. Vincent, announces 

 that the Soufriere was in violent eruption on November 26. 

 Georgetown and Chateau Belair have again been deserted. 

 Telephonic communication was interrupted early in the day 

 owing to the fierce lightning. Rumblings could be heard and 

 volcanic clouds seen from Kingstown. According to a telegram 

 from St. Thomas, the steamer /are, which has arrived there, 

 reports that when she passed Mont Pelee on the morning of 

 November 26, the volcano was in violent eruption. 



Science states that Prof. J. J. Thomson has been invited to be 

 the fir*t lecturer at Yale University on the Silliman foundation. 

 This lectureship, endowed by the late Benjamin Silliman with 

 S5,ooo dollars, is somewhat similar to the Gifford lectures of the 

 Scottish universities, providing for a course of lectures "the 

 general tendency of which may be such as will illustrate the 

 presence and wisdom of God as manifested in the natural and 

 moral world." The lectures, however, must not be " on topics 

 appropriate to polemical or dogmatic theology." 



The lecture which Sir Oliver Lodge delivered to the Institu- 

 tion of Electrical Engineers on November 27 was followed with 

 much interest by a large and appreciative audience. The 

 subject was "Electrons," and the lecturer made it his aim to 

 expound the work which had been done in recent years, work in 

 which the names of Crookes, J. J. Thomson, Stoney and 

 Larmor stand out preeminent, rather than to attempt any new 

 contribution to the theory. This was no easy matter before an 

 audience composed chiefly of engineers, but Sir Oliver Lodge's 

 powers were fully equal to giving a simple exposition of a diffi- 

 cult subject and making clear to his listeners the lines of 

 reasoning involved and the legitimate inferences to be drawn 

 from the experimental work. 



Reuter's Agency understands that the work of the Com- 

 mission dispatched to Uganda some months ago by the Royal 

 Society and the Foreign Office to inquire into the cause of the 

 mysterious malady known as " sleeping sickness," which has 

 made such ravages in Central Africa, has not yet been completed. 

 Dr. Low, the pathologist of the Commission, having finished 

 his portion of the work, is returning home, but Dr. Castellan 

 is continuing his bacteriological investigations in the country, 

 and Dr. Christy, the third member of the Commission, as at 

 present arranged, will pursue his studies along the Upper Nile, 

 by which route he will return to England. 



M. Cai.mette has claimed that antivenin, the anti-serum for 

 snake-poison, is to a large extent non-specific, that is to say, 

 cobra anti-serum, for example, would neutralise the venoms of 

 other snakes, though perhaps not so actively as it would cobra 

 venom. This view has been called in question by Prof. Martin 

 and by Captain Lamb, and more recently Dr. Tidswell has 

 found {Australasian Med. Gaz., April 21) that Calmette's 

 antivenin has little or no neutralising power when tested against 

 the venom of the Australian tiger snake. 



At a meeting held last week at the Polyclinic in connection 

 with the Prince of Wales's Leprosy Fund, Mr. Jonathan 

 Hutchinson, F.R.S., gave an exposition of his views upon the 

 propagation of leprosy. He stated that he had come to the 

 conclusion, after much study of the question, that the disease 

 is spread only to avery small extent by anything of the nature of 

 personal contagion, and that it is a food-disease, the living 

 bacillus being received into the body by way of the stomach. 

 The one article of food whicli was to be suspected was badly 

 cured fish, eaten without sufficient cooking. Mr. Hutchinson, 



