492 



NA TURE 



[March 26, 1903 



off the African coast. So dense was the sand that speed 

 was reduced owing to the impossibility of seeing- far ahead, 

 and even at midday passengers had to resort to artificial 

 light for the purposes of reading. The ship was navigated 

 by dead reckoning, it not being possible to secure observ- 

 ations. The storm is described as the worst in an experience 

 embracing twenty-five years." 



The annual meeting of the general board of the National 

 Physical Laboratory was held at Bushy House, Teddington, 

 on Friday last. Lord Rayleigh, the chairman of the board, 

 was supported by Sir F. Hopwood, Sir E. Carbutt, Sir W. 

 Preece, Sir A. Riieker, Col. Crompton, Mr. A. Siemens, 

 Prof. Perry, Prof. Larmor, Mr. Kempe, Mr. Stromeyer, and 

 a large number of other members of the board. The annual 

 report of the executive committee, giving details of the work 

 since the opening of the laboratory by H.R.H. the Prince of 

 Wales, was approved. It appears from the report that sub- 

 scriptions and donations amounting to nearly ioooi. a year 

 have been promised by the Institution of Civil Engineers, 

 the Iron and Steel Institute, the Institute of Chemical In- 

 dustry and various private firms. Efforts are being made to 

 extend the list, and more especially to render the laboratory 

 self-supporting by increasing the work done for firms and 

 private individuals. Examples of such work are given in the 

 report, and in a lecture recently delivered at the Institution 

 of Mechanical Engineers by the director. The scheme of 

 work suggested by the director for 1903 was also approved. 

 After the meeting an inspection of the laboratory took place, 

 and in this the board was accompanied by a number of 

 gentlemen who have assisted the laboratory by serving on its 

 various committees or as donors of apparatus. Among the 

 visitors were Sir Herbert Jekyll, of the Board of Trade; Sir 

 Thos. Elliott, of the Board of Agriculture ; Sir Wm. White, 

 Commander Sclater, of the Admiralty ; Sir Oliver Lodge, 

 Mr. Dewar, M.P., the Master of the Mercers' Company, 

 Col. Vickers, Mr. Smith Carington, of Messrs. Sir W. G. 

 Armstrong, Whitworth and Co. ; Mr. Swinburne, Mr. 

 Ferranti, and many others. 



The death is announced, at seventy-five years of age, of 

 Prof. M. S. Voronin, member of the Imperial Academy of 

 Sciences at St. Petersburg, and distinguished by his 

 botanical work. 



The U.S. National Geographic Society has awarded the 

 Cullum medal to the Duke of the Abruzzi for his ascent 

 of Mount St. Elias and his Arctic explorations. 



The competition for the prize offered by the Academv of 

 Verona for a historical and artistic guide of the city and 

 province of Verona has been deferred until December 31, 

 1903. 



It is announced in Science that Mrs. Rowland has given 

 to the Johns Hopkins University the library of the kite Prof. 

 Rowland relating to spectroscopy, and a former student has 

 given more than 1000/. to purchase books on this subject. 

 With these gifts there will be established a " Henry A. 

 Rowland Memorial Library," to contain publications in the 

 field of radiation and spectroscopy. 



-Mr. Otto J. Klotz, astronomer of the Department of the 

 Interior, Canada, leaves shortly for the Pacific, in charge of 

 the longitude determinations along the British Pacific cable. 

 It is stated in Science that the stations occupied will be 

 Vancouver, Fanning, Suva, Norfolk and Southport, near 

 Brisbane, Australia. Connection will also be made with 

 New Zealand from Norfolk, where the cable bifurcates. 



According to Reuter's Agency, Mr. Fiala, the leader of 

 North Pole expedition which Mr. Ziegler is dis- 



NO. 1743, VOL. 67J 



patching to the Arctic, is leaving at once for Norway to join 

 the steamer America, which has been lying at Tromso since 

 the return of the expedition last year. Provisions and stores 

 for two years will be taken, and on leaving Tromso the 

 America will steam direct for Archangel, where she will 

 embark fresh supplies. Mr. Fiala states that the main idea 

 is to make a forced march to the Pole from a base of 

 supplies. 



Prof. F. J. Studnicka, whose death occurred on February 

 21, was a prolific and versatile author. The long list of his 

 papers begins with two or three on physics proper, but his 

 work was mainly in the field of pure mathematics. Among 

 the subjects on which he wrote are determinants, chain- 

 fractions, congruences, magic squares, the eight-square 

 theorem in arithmetic, definite integrals, and quaternions. 

 Meteorological questions seem to have interested him 

 always, and he published several papers on rainfall. Besides 

 all this he was the author of various mathematical treatises, 

 and professor of mathematics in the University of Prague. 



The tercentenary of the close of Queen Elizabeth's reign 

 was celebrated by the Royal Geographical Society on March 

 23 at an interesting gathering, at which special stress was 

 laid on the importance of that memorable reign as the start- 

 ing point of progress in every branch of geographical science. 

 The names of the great sailors of those days have become 

 such household words that an occasion of the kind was 

 hardly needed to impress upon the public the great results 

 which have followed from those early beginnings of nautical 

 enterprise. But it is far less generally recognised that the 

 Elizabethan era was quite as important from the point of 

 view of the more scientific branches of the subject, and this 

 fact was clearly demonstrated by Sir Clements Markham in 

 his opening address, in which the services rendered by such 

 men as Hakluyt, Davis, Wright, Blundeville, and Saxton to 

 the science of surveying and map-making was fully set 

 forth. A special address by Prof. Silvanus Thompson em- 

 phasised the value of the work of William Gilbert as the 

 first to reduce to a connected system the vague notions pre- 

 viously prevalent on the subject of magnetism, and showed 

 that though by no means free from error, Gilbert's theories 

 were the starting point from which the gradual elimination 

 of those errors followed in due sequence. Short addresses 

 by Mr. Edmund Gosse and Mr. Julian Corbett dealt with 

 special aspects of the work of Raleigh and Drake, while 

 an interesting exhibition illustrated the geographical achieve- 

 ments of the reign in the form of books, maps, instruments, 

 and so forth. 



In the House of Commons on Monday, in answer to a 

 question with regard to the fitting of coastguard signal 

 stations with wireless telegraphy apparatus, Mr. Arnold- 

 Forster said : — The following stations have been established : 

 Dover, Culver Cliff, Portland, Rame Head, Scillys, and 

 Roches Point. The following are proposed to be fitted 

 during the next financial year : — Bere Island, Spurn Head, 

 Alderney, St. Abb's Head, St. Ann's Head, Languard, Port 

 Patrick, Duncansby Head. As regards commercial signal- 

 ling, it is proposed to carry this out from the stations which 

 will be included in the new Lloyd's-Admiralty agreement, 

 which are : — Culver Cliff, Scillys, Spurn Head, St. Abb's 

 Head, St. Ann's Head, Duncansby Head, and Roches Point. 



It is announced in the Boston Transcript that a plan 

 has been definitely approved for holding an International 

 Congress of Arts and Sciences at the St. Louis Exposi- 

 tion on September 19-September 30. The congress will 

 attempt to correlate the scattered theoretical and practical 

 scientific work of our time. In each of the various sub- 



