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NA TURE 



[March 12, 190^ 



Speaking at the Chambers of Commerce conference on 

 March 5, Mr. Marconi said wireless telegraphy had now, 

 he thought, reached a stage in which it could be satisfac- 

 torily employed for communications between lightships, 

 lighthouses and the shore. In England at present there is 

 no lighthouse connected with the land by this system, but 

 instances outside England where such communications have 

 been established and have performed useful service can be 

 quoted. In England the system was once tried between 

 the East Goodwin lightship and the shore, and Mr. Marconi 

 said he believed it was in the records of Trinity House that 

 it worked satisfactorily. As to the cost, up to twenty or 

 thirty miles, or even a greater distance, this would amount 

 to from 300/. to 400/. Cables, he pointed out, cost at least 

 200/. per mile. 



The New York Central Railway has, the Westminster 

 Gazette announces, made arrangements with the American 

 Deforrest Wireless Telegraph Company to instal its appa- 

 ratus on the twenty-hour express from New York to Chicago. 

 The installation is to be complete by April 1. It will be 

 run for two months as an experiment, and if successful the 

 plan will be permanently adopted. 



By the joint efforts of the Middlesex Field Club and the 

 Selborne Society, a committee has been formed with the 

 view of organising a Home Counties Nature-Study Ex- 

 hibition, to be held in London during the coming summer. 



An international exhibition is to be held at Limoges from 

 May to September this year. The exhibits will be com- 

 prised under the heads of education, the liberal arts, general 

 mechanics, electricity, civil engineering, agriculture, horti- 

 culture, forestry, metallurgy, social economics, hygiene, 

 special applications of medicated alcohol to motive power, 

 lighting and warming, and other departments. 



On Tuesday next, March 17, Sir Robert Ball will com- 

 mence a course of three lectures at the Royal Institution on 

 " Great Problems in Astronomy." The Friday evening 

 discourse on March 20 will be delivered by Prof. E. A. 

 Schafer, on the " Paths of Volition " ; on March 27 by Prof. 

 Herdman, on the " Pearl Fisheries of Ceylon"; and on 

 April 3 by Lord Rayleigh, on " Drops and Surface Tension." 



A letter received by Sir Alfred Jones, chairman of the 

 Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, from Prince dAren- 

 berg, president of the Suez Canal Company, informs him 

 that the Campagnie du Canal de Suez is anxious to assist 

 in the work that the Liverpool School is carrying on in West 

 Africa, and has accordingly resolved to subscribe 50L ster- 

 ling to the school. 



The officials of the Sanitary Department of the Egyptian 

 Government, into whose hands the expenditure of the recent 

 gift of 40,000!. entrusted to Lord Cromer and his successors 

 in office by Sir Ernest Cassel for the relief of ophthalmia 

 and eye diseases has virtually passed, have decided to em- 

 ploy it in establishing a " travelling dispensary " in the 

 form of a tent, to suffice for all purposes of operation and 

 treatment, and to work solely in the provinces. 



In the House of Commons on March 4, in reply to a 

 question as to the course the Government proposed to take 

 on the expiration of the present Vaccination Act, and 

 whether legislation would be proposed this Session to 

 make revaccination generally compulsory, Mr. Balfour 

 stated that it is proposed to renew the existing Act for 

 this year, and to defer any further legislation on the subject 

 to a future Session. 



NO. I 74 I, VOL. 67] 



The council of the Zoological Society of London has just 

 sold to an American purchaser the Society's African elephant 

 "Jingo," we believe on account of periodical outbreaks of 

 temper, which rendered him dangerous and practically un- 

 manageable. " Jingo " was purchased by the Society in 

 July, 1882, at which date he stood 4 feet 2 inches in height 

 and weighed 78S lb. He was then believed to be about 

 three or four years old. At the time of his departure he 

 was considered to be the largest elephant ever kept in cap- 

 tivity. 



It is reported by Reuter that at the Ministry of Foreign 

 Affairs in St. Petersburg a Russian committee is being 

 created for historical, archaeological, linguistic and ethno- 

 graphic research in Central and East Asia. The regula- 

 tions applying to the committee allow all men of science 

 without distinction of nationality to take part in the labours 

 of the committee. The president and delegates of the 

 foreign committee of the International Association for Re- 

 search in north-east Asia will have the right to attend the 

 sittings of the Russian committee at St. Petersburg. 



The Viceroy has decided, it is announced in the Pioneer 

 Mail, to devote the donation of 20,0001. from Mr. Henry 

 Phipps to two objects, a laboratory for agricultural research, 

 to be called the Phipps Laboratory, which will probably 

 be situated at Dehra Dun, and the provision of a second 

 institute in the south of India similar to that at Kasauli, 

 which has already conferred such immense benefits upon 

 Europeans and natives alike by saving them from hydro- 

 phobia. The donation will be devoted to the requisite build- 

 ings, while the site will in both cases be provided by Govern- 

 ment, which will also in the first case contribute to and in 

 the second undertake the cost of maintaining the institution. 



The Athenaeum announces the death of Ritter von 

 Scherzer, the Austrian explorer, who from 1852 to 1855, in 

 company with the naturalist Moritz Wagner, carried out 

 extensive scientific exploration in Northern and Central 

 America. In 1S57 he was appointed chief scientific adviser 

 to the famous expedition of the Novara, the results of which 

 were published in the volumes of the " Voyage of the 

 Austrian Frigate Novara Round the World," which has 

 appeared in many editions since its first issue in 1861-2, and 

 has been translated into English. 



The following countries took part in the international 

 balloon ascents on the morning of January 9 : — France, 

 Germany, Austria, Spain, Russia and the United States 

 (Blue Hill). At Itteville, the new balloon station estab- 

 lished by M. Teisserenc de Bort, twenty-five miles south of 

 Paris, the lowest temperature, — 65°'2 C, was at a height 

 of 10,650 metres, temperature on the ground 5°'i ; an in- 

 version, o°'2, occurred at 520 metres. At Strassburg a 

 temperature of — 63°'i was registered at 10,600 metres, 

 temperature at starting i°'5 ; inversion a°'5 at 500 metres. 

 At Berlin the minimum temperature was — so°'o at 11,400 

 metres, temperature on the ground 5°'S, inversion 6°'3 at 

 537 metres. At Vienna the readings were : tin the ground 

 i°'o, — io°'o at 4090 metres, — 6o°'o at 10,230 metres. 

 Ascents in manned balloons were made at Munich, Berlin, 

 Vienna and Guadalajara. An area of high barometric 

 pressure lay over the south-east of the Continent ; the ascents 

 from Itteville and Strassburg appear to have been made 

 under the influence of a depression lying to the westward. 



A Blue-book has been issued containing the report of the 

 Departmental Committee appointed to prepare a draft of 

 the regulations to be made in pursuance of Section vii. 

 of the Cremation Act, 1902. The objection which has 



