460 
was re-elected president. A new by-law was adopted 
authorising members of the society to call themselves 
fellows. Since its foundation in 1754 the society has 
consisted of members only, but as most of the younger 
societies use the term fellow, many members of the 
society have expressed a wish that this title should 
also be used by members of the Royal Society of Arts. 
Tue Institute of Archeology in connection with the 
University of Liverpool, has arranged, in the rooms 
of the Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House, 
Piccadilly, on July 7-25, a special exhibition of anti- 
quities, discovered at the excavations at Meroé, Sudan, 
during the past five seasons. The council of the 
University of Liverpool, we notice, has approved the 
acceptance by Prof. John Garstang, director of the 
excavations, of an invitation from the Sudan Govern- 
ment to be their honorary adviser to the Service of 
Antiquities of the Sudan. 
THE statue of Captain Cook, the explorer, executed 
by Sir Thomas Brock, R.A., is to be unveiled on July 
7 at noon. The statue has been placed on the Mall 
side of the Admiralty Arch, at the end of the Pro- 
cessional Road. It will be remembered that a statue 
of Captain Cook presented to the town of Whitby by the 
Hon. Gervase Beckett, M.P., was unveiled in that 
town on October 2, 1912. The erection of a fitting 
memorial to the great explorer in the capital of the 
Empire is largely due to the activity of the British 
Empire League. 
In a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society 
on June 22, Captain F. M. Bailey described his ex- 
ploration of the Tsangpo, or Upper Brahmaputra 
river. The main results of the expedition were as 
follows :—The mapping of some 380 miles of the 
Tsangpo, which had previously been done by un- 
trained or untrustworthy explorers; the mapping of 
the lower course of the Nagong Chu; the discovery 
of Gyala Peri, a snow-peak 24,460 ft. in height, and 
its glaciers. 
through the Himalayas some information regarding 
its enormous drop has been gained, and the falls 
reported to be 150 ft. in height have been proved to 
be merely an exaggerated rapid of 30 ft. The upper 
waters of the Subansivi have been discovered, and 
it is proved that this river rises north of the Hima- 
layas, and breaks through the range. Many new 
snow-peaks, ranges, and rivers have been discovered, 
and a small collection of mammals, birds, and butter- 
flies, among each of which were new species, was 
made. ° 
INFORMATION has reached the Royal Geographical 
Society of the further work accomplished by Sir 
Aurel Stein in his new Central Asian expedition since 
he wrote at the end of last year. His objective was 
the region round Lop-nor, at the other extremity of 
the Tarim Basin, and various considerations obliged 
him. to travel vid Khotan. Pursuing a route hitherto 
largely unsurveyed, he moved to Maralbashi along the 
southernmost range of the Tien-shan, where he found 
some ruined Buddhist shrines, and thence towards the 
desert hills of the Mazar-tagh, the most forbidding 
ground he had hitherto encountered in the Takla- 
makan. Crossing the Tarim, he reached Niya, where 
NON,233 1, VOL, 93) 
NATURE 
By observing the river where it breaks’ 
[JuLy.2; TO ig 
he discovered an important sand-buried settlement 
with numerous documents inscribed on wood in the. 
Indian language and script, furniture, household im- 
plements, etc. Meanwhile his Indian surveyor had 
resumed the triangulation along the Kun-lun range, 
thus connecting his observations with the Indian Trigo- 
nometrical Survey beyond the actual Lop-nor. Ample 
evidence of Chinese occupation, in the shape of a 
well-built fort and relics of the silk trade, which we 
know to have been a chief factor in opening the 
earliest route for Chinese direct intercourse with Cen- 
tral Asia and the distant West, was discovered. The 
ancient caravan route was marked by hundreds of 
early Chinese copper coins and unused arrow-heads 
dropped during the night marches. The difficulties 
were over when some scanty vegetation was reached, 
and the various parties reunited at Kumkuduk. A 
short halt at Tunhuang towards the end of March 
refreshed men and beasts, and after a renewed visit to | 
the ‘‘ Halls of the Thousand Buddhas,” Sir Aurel Stein 
at the time of writing was starting to move into 
Kan-su for the work of the spring. 
Many readers of this journal will learn with deep 
regret of the death on June 13 of Mr. Thomas Thorp, 
whose name is widely known in connection with his 
transparent celluloid replicas of Rowland’s and other 
diffraction gratings, whereby spectroscopes of high 
dispersion may be produced at a trifling cost. Born 
at Whitefield, near Manchester, and educated at the 
Manchester Grammar School, Mr. Thorp was appren- 
ticed to a firm of architects and surveyors. Soon, 
however, he evinced a strong mechanical and scientific 
bent, and, happily combining a wonderful scientific 
ingenuity with a keen appreciation of the practical 
application of his inventions, he was able to follow 
his inclinations, to the great benefit of science and 
of industry. A much larger world owes to him the 
first ‘*penny-in-the-slot’’ gas-meter. | While every 
mechanical device was an object of fascination, optical 
instruments were most constantly in his thoughts. <A 
keen amateur astronomer, he made _ himself several 
telescopes and took up the manufacture of small 
mirrors. His replica gratings were invented many 
years ago, but he constantly returned to the subject, 
producing silvered replicas, applying them to direct- 
vision spectroscopes, and especially applying the trans- 
parent replicas to colour-photography, for which last 
invention he was awarded the premium under the 
Wilde Endowment Fund by the Manchester Literary 
and Philosophical Society. Almost his latest inven- 
tion was an ingenious method of varnishing telescope 
mirrors to prevent tarnish—a feat which he accom- 
plished without sensibly impairing the definition. At 
the time of his death he was engaged on a machine 
by which he hoped to rule gratings superior to any 
yet produced. Mr. Thorp became a member of the 
Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 
1896, and was one of the most valued members of its 
council from i902 until his death. The Manchester 
Astronomical Society was similarly indebted to him. 
| A man of sterling quality, beloved by all who knew 
him, some regret must be felt that an aversion to 
| publication hindered the spread of his richly deserved 
' reputation. 
