3 2 4 



NA TURE 



[February 5, 1903 



and fourteen other maps. There are also eighty-six text 

 illustrations, mostly of towns and of striking physical 

 features. By the courtesy of the publishers, we are 

 enabled to give one of fhe illustrations. 



BRITISH FORESTRY. 



THE recommendations in the report which has just 

 been issued by the committee appointed by the 

 President of the Board of Agriculture " to inquire into 

 and report upon British forestry " follow very much the 

 trend of the opinions that have in recent years been 

 expressed in Nature and elsewhere. As was expected 

 from the terms of the reference to the committee — "to 

 consider whether any measures might with advantage 

 be taken, either by the provision of further educational 

 facilities or otherwise," to improve and encourage the 

 "position and prospects of forestry" — the report deals 

 chiefly with the root-matter of the forestry question — 

 education. To such an extent is this the case that other 

 elements of the forestry problem in Britain, such as the 

 incidence of rates, the taxes upon timber transport, 

 inequality in the levying of estate duty and the game 

 question, are treated as minor considerations. 



The report recognises the different classes requiring 

 education in the country — landlords, land-agents and 

 wood-foresters. In the forefront of the recommendations, 

 the committee places the acquisition by the State of "two 

 areas for practical demonstration," "one in England and 

 the other in Scotland, of not less than 2000 acres, if 

 possible, nor over 10,000 acres in each case," to furnish 

 an object-lesson and to serve as areas of instruction for 

 working foresters. They also recommend that forestry 

 should be a subject of instruction at Oxford and Cam- 

 bridge as it is at Edinburgh, and that example-plots of 

 100-200 acres in extent should be formed in the vicinity 

 of these universities for the illustration of forestry teach- 

 ing, and in this connection they also express the opinion 

 that the forestry department of Coopers Hill should be 

 transferred to a university centre. Forestry should also, 

 they recommend, be a subject of study in the curricula 

 of all agricultural colleges, and the teaching of forestry 

 by county councils is recommended. 



The whole tenour of the report is sound, although 

 timidity and want of grasp might be indicated in several 

 places, and it is satisfactory that the President of the 

 Board of Agriculture has now in his hands a statement 

 showing the main lines upon which, in the opinion of 

 those who have given their attention to the subject, the 

 forestry of this country may be improved. It remains to 

 be seen whether any action will follow upon the report. 



NOTES. 

 It is with deep regret that we announce the death of Sir 

 George Gabriel Stokes, Bart., F.R.S., at Cambridge on Sunday 

 last, at eighty-three years of age. By direction of the pre- 

 sident, the ordinary meeting of the Royal Society announced 

 for to-day will, out of respect for his memory, not be held. 

 We believe that representatives of all the scientific organisa- 

 tions with which Sir George Stokes was connected will attend 

 he funeral at Cambridge to-day. 



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

 Norman Macleod Ferrers, F. R.S., master of Gonville and 

 Caius College, Cambridge, in his seventy-fourth year. 

 Dr. Ferrers graduated in 1851 as senior wiangler and Smith's 

 prizeman. He was the author of several mathematical treatises, 

 including one on trilinear coordinates and another on spherical 

 harmonics. He was appointed master of his college in 1880, 

 and was elected a lellow of the Royal Society in 1877. 

 NO. 1736, VOL. 67] 



It is reported that the Lick Observatory has received from 

 the Carnegie Institution a grant of 800/. 



The annual meetings of the Institution of Naval Architects 

 will be held on Wednesday, April I, and the two following 

 days at the Society of Arts, London, W.C. The Earl of 

 Glasgow, president, will occupy the chair. 



Mr. Henry Phipps, who is now travelling in India, has 

 given Lord Curzon the sum of 2000/. to be devoted to an 

 object of practical benefit or scientific research promising to be 

 of enduring good to India. 



The Times correspondent at Rome states that on January 3a 

 the Chamber of Deputies unanimously passed a vote of con- 

 gratulation and thanks to Mr. Marconi for the great services 

 he had rendered to the world and the glory he had won for his 

 country, Italy. 



The annual meeting of the Society for the Protection of 

 Birds will be held on Tuesday, February 10, at the West- 

 minster Palace Hotel, Victoria Street, London, S.W. The 

 chair will be taken at 3 p.m. by His Grace the Duke of Bed- 

 ford, K.G. 



It was hoped chat Gilbert White's house, " The Wakes," at 

 Selborne, Hants, and the grounds of thirty acres, would be 

 secured by the nation as a memorial to the famous naturalist. 

 Announcement has, however, just been made that the property 

 has been purchased by Mr. Andrew Pears. 



The International Congress of Historical Science will be held 

 in Rome on April 2-9, 1903. Among the eight sections is one 

 of history of the mathematical, physical, natural and medical 

 sciences. Communications should be addressed to the secre- 

 tary, Via del Collegio Romano, 26, Rome. 



The great electric generating plant at Niagara Falls was 

 destroyed by fire on the night of January 30. The corre- 

 spondent of the Standard says the fire was caused by lightning, 

 which struck a cable with defective insulation. The short 

 circuit thus caused resulted in the explosion of one of the big 

 transformers in the electric power-house operated by the Falls. 



AG ORDING to a Reuter message from St. Petersburg, the 

 total number of deaths caused by the earthquake at Andijan on 

 December 16 last was 10,000. Nearly every day, subterranean 

 tremblings of varying intensity are still felt at Andijan ; on 

 lanuary 19 and 20 there were violent shocks, and at Uzgent, 

 some ninety kdometres to the east of Andijan, cracks appeared 

 in the walls of the houses. 



Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., has been reelected 

 president of the Royal Microscopical Society. Two visits of 

 members of the Society to the Natural History Museum, South 

 Kensington, have been arranged. The first will be on 

 February 14 at 2 p.m., and the party will be conducted by Dr. 

 H. Woodward ; the second visit will take place on March 14, 

 when Mr. W. Carruthers, F. R.S., will act as conductor. 



A Reutek message from Bologna announces that Prof. 

 Tizzoni, who recently presented to the Royal Academy of 

 Science a report containing the results obtained from the use of 

 a serum which he has discovered for the cure of pneumonia, 

 states that his discovery is, so far, of purely scientific interest. 

 Prof. Tizzoni has obtained satisfactory results from experiments 

 with the serum on animals. Experiments have been also made 

 with the serum in a hospital at Rome with excellent results. 



Prof. Sirodot, whose death was announced in a recent 

 number, was professor in the Faculty of Science at Rennes for 

 many years. Referring to his contributions to science in an 



