NA TURE 



[January 8, 1903 



and his starting at ten cents might soon lead to a charge of 

 one cent per word and thus bind England and her colonies 

 more closely together. 



The Daily Mail states that Sir Ernest Cassel has offered to 

 give 40,000/. towards the study and investigation of ophthalmia 

 in Egypt. 



The death is announced of M. Pierre Laffitte, who, since 

 1893, has filled the chair at the College de France for the 

 exposition of the general history of science. 



An anti-tuberculosis union for Austria has been formed, with 

 Count Lutzow as president. The Vienna correspondent of the 

 Times reports that nearly 5000/. has already been received 

 in subscriptions, and the Government has promised the fullest 

 support in combating the disease. 



The death is announced of Prot. Dr. Max Schede, professor 

 of surgery at the University of Bonn, to which post he was 

 appointed in 1895. During the time that Prof. Schede was 

 organiser of the surgical section of Hamburg Hospital, he made 

 it his aim to develop the system of antiseptics introduced into j 

 surgery by Lord Lister. 



Mr. Otto Hilger, whose death we announced last week, 

 was born at Darmstadt on January 20, 1850, where he passed 

 his apprenticeship under his father, who was the master of the 

 mint. At eighteen years of age, he went with his brother, the 

 late Mr. Adam Hilger, to Paris, where they started a workshop, 

 doing much good work for the observatory. At the outbreak of 

 the Franco-German war in 1S70, being Germans they had to 

 leave Paris and came to London. In a few years, they were 

 able to start a small business as scientific instrument makers, 

 and the name ol Hilger soon became well known in the scientific 

 world. In iSSS, Mr. Otto Hilger was appointed by Lord 

 Blythswood to lake charge of his private laboratory, where he 

 was until 1897, when the death of his brother compelled him to 

 return to London to carry on the business, though this neces- 

 sitated leaving partially completed a dividing engine for ruling 

 diffraction gratings which he had been constructing under Lord 

 Blythswood. Duiing recent years, the demand for a high degree 

 of accuracy in scientific instruments has greatly increased, and 

 many men of science will regret the death of a maker who was 

 able to appreciate the necessity for refinements in workmanship. 



On Tuesday, January 13, Prof. Macfadyen will deliver the 

 first of a course of six lectures at the Royal Institution on " The 

 Physiology of Digestion." On Thursday, January 15, Mr. 

 A. J. Evans will begin a course of three lectures on " Pre- 

 Phoenician Writing in Crete, and its Bearings on the History of 

 the Alphabet." The Friday evening discourse on January 16 

 will he delivered by Prof. Dewar, on " Low Temperature In- 

 vestigations." On January 23, Dr. Tempest Anderson will 

 lecture on " Recent Volcanic Eruptions," and on January 30 

 Prof. VV. E. Dalby will lecture on " Vibration Problems in 

 Engineering Science." 



According to a Reuter message from San Francisco, advices 

 from Corinto (Nicaragua), dated December 15, state that the 

 volcano Santiago, near Granada, was then in active eruption. 

 At night the sky was lit up by the volcano, and great havoc 

 had been wrought. Momotombo, on Lake Managua, was also 

 discharging clouds, and the volcano Izalco, in San Salvador, 

 was in more active eruption, clouds and lava issuing from the 

 crater at short intervals. At night a brilliant spectacle was 

 presented, the lava pouring down the side of the mountain 

 looking like a stream of fire. A telegram from Valparaiso 

 states that it is reported that five volcanoes in the province of 

 Llarquihue are active. 



NO. 1732, VOL. 67] 



The Moscow correspondent of the Standard states that a 

 well-marked record of the recent earthquake at Andijan was 

 obtained by the seismological instruments at the observatory 

 there. The time recorded was n a.m., that is, about 8.30 

 a.m. Greenwich time. Andijan is the second largest town in 

 the "Territory" of Fergana, and had not less than fifty 

 thousand inhabitants at the time of the earthquake. 



During the past ten months, the Odessa correspondent of 

 the Standard points out, Transcaucasia and Transcaspia have 

 been visited by several severe earthquakes. In February last, 

 Schemakha, on the Caspian side of the Caucasus, was laid in 

 ruins by a series of violent earthquakes and volcanic disturb- 

 ances, in which upwards of three thousand people perished. 

 In July, a similar calamity desolated several districts in Kashgar, 

 involving the loss of some six thousand lives. Those events 

 have now been followed by the destructive series of earthquakes 

 in the districts of Novi-Marghelan and Andijan. According 

 to the latest reports, the loss of life is equally as appalling as 

 that at Kashgar. A few days previous to the dreadful event ir» 

 Andijan, a series of slight earthquake shocks was felt at 

 Schemakha, the site of the disaster in February last. 



Prof. Robert KOCH and two assistants, Surgeon Dr. 

 Kleine, of the Prussian Headquarters Staff, and Hr. Neufcld, of 

 the Prussian Institute for Infectious Diseases, are on their way 

 to investigate cattle plague in Rhodesia. To the Berlin cor- 

 respondent of the Daily Mail, Prof. Koch has remarked :— " I 

 contemplate my mission with more or less misgiving, because 

 the Rhodesian plague is of an absolutely mystifying character. 

 Such symptoms as I have so far examined indicate that the 

 disease is wholly different from any species of rinderpest that 

 has ever come under medical observation. What is peculiarly 

 baffling is that the Rhodesian plague dates only from the late 

 war. The cattle imported from Egypt, Australia and South 

 America, which it was supposed would prove immune, have 

 fallen early victims to its ravages, which threaten to denude the 

 entire colony of live stock. While in South Africa, I shall not 

 neglect the opportunity of continuing my tuberculosis experi- 

 ments with the view of adducing still more positive evidence of 

 my theory of the non-communicability of bovine tuberculosis to 

 human beings, which I, of course, adhere to resolutely." 



Cattain Boyd Alexander has just returned to England, 

 after a short visit to the west coast of Africa, where he has 

 been collecting birds and mammals on the islands of St. Thomas 

 and Fernando Po, in the Bight of Biafra. Captain Alexander 

 has obtained altogether nearly 400 specimens, and is expecting 

 more from a collector that he left in Fernando Po. The results 

 of his work as regards birds will probably be published in 

 the Ibis. 



Mr. J. S. Budgett, Bilfour student of the University of 

 Cambridge, has returned to England from Lake Albert (where he 

 has been engaged in studying the development of the Polypi erine 

 fishes) by the Nile route, and will give an account of his expe- 

 dition at the scientific meeting of the Zoological Society on 

 January 20. Not having been altogether successful in Uganda, 

 Mr. Budgett will probably make another visit to the Upper 

 Gambia, where he has better prospects of obtaining the required 

 information, in the course of the present year. 



Mr. W. G. Doggett writes from Entebbe (November 5, 

 1902) that he was then preparing to start for the southern 

 frontier of Uganda, to take up his post as naturalist to the 

 Anglo-German Boundary Commission under Major Delme' 

 Radcliffe. The expedition will start from the shores of Lake 

 Victoria at i° S.L. , and will define the boundary between 

 Uganda and German East Africa as far west as the Semliki 



