December 15, 1904] 



NA TURE 



155 



as in the past, long- and tedious preliminary investi- 

 gations " (p. 3). Homogeneity for such a purpose 

 cannot be secured by mere similarity in publication of 

 results; indeed, this very process tends to cover up 

 vital differences of detail, and it is to be feared that, 

 unless these can be unearthed again, the work will 

 suffer in accuracy. 



There is an appendix at the end of the volume pro- 

 fessing to give a bibliography of the already large 

 literature on the Eros campaign, but containing no 

 reference to the Monthly Notices or other English 

 work. Is iK)t this rather a strange oversight? 



H. H. Turner. 



NOTES. 



British science has been honoured by the award of the 

 Nobel prize for physics to Lord Rayleigh, and the prize for 

 chemistry to Sir William Ramsay, K.C.B., F.R.S. Prof. 

 Pavloff, of the Military Academy of Medicine at St. Peters- 

 burg, has been awarded the prize for physiology. The 

 distribution of the prizes took place at Stockholm on 

 December lo in the presence of King Oscar and the Royal 

 Family, foreign ministers and members of the Cabinet, and 

 many leading representatives of science, art, and literature. 

 After speeches had been delivered by the vice-president and 

 other representatives of the Nobel committee, and of the 

 Academies of Science, Medicine, and Literature, King 

 Oscar personally presented Lord Rayleigh, Sir William 

 Ramsay, and Prof. Pavloff with their prizes, together with 

 diplomas and gold medals. The sum of money attaching 

 to each prize amounts to about 7825Z. The distribution of 

 the prizes was followed by a banquet, at which the Crown 

 Prince presided ; and among the company were Prince and 

 Princess Charles, Lord and Lady Rayleigh, Sir William 

 and Lady Ramsay, and M. and Mme. Pavloff. Count 

 Morner proposed the health of Prof. Pavloff, Prof. 

 Petterson that of Sir William Ramsay, and Prof. Hassel- 

 berg that of Lord Rayleigh. On Monday Sir William 

 Ramsay delivered a lecture on argon and helium at the 

 Academy of Sciences, and King Oscar gave a dinner party 

 to the prize winners. On Tuesday Lord Rayleigh delivered 

 a lecture at the academy on the density of gases. Both 

 lectures were highly appreciated and greatly applauded. 

 It is announced that Lord Rayleigh proposes to present to 

 Cambridge University the value of the Nobel prize for 

 physics awarded to him. 



Sir Norm.an Lockyer, K.C.B., F.R.S., has been elected 

 a corresponding member of the Imperial .Academy of 

 Sciences at St. Petersburg. 



The Lavoisier gold medal, which has been awarded by 

 the French Academy of Sciences to Sir James Dewar, 

 F.R.S., for his researches on the liquefaction of gases, was 

 founded in 1900, to be given, without distinction of nation- 

 ality, at such times as the French Academy should elect 

 in recognition of eminent services rendered to chemistry by 

 scientific men. The present is the first occasion on which 

 the medal has been awarded to a British man of science. 



The Wislicenus memorial lecture will be delivered before 

 the Chemical Society by Prof. W. H. Perkin, F.R.S., on 

 Wednesday, January 25, at 8.30 p.m. 



Mr. A. SiLVA White, formerly secretary to the Royal 

 Scottish Geographical Society, and editor of the Scottish 

 Geographical Magazine, has been appointed assistant 

 secretary of the British .'\ssociation, and has already taken 

 up the duties of the post. 



NO. 1833, ^OL. 71I 



Prof. Boyce, of Liverpool University, has proposed to 

 the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce a scheme for the 

 establishment of a commercial museum and bureau of 

 scientific information. The object is to correlate the various 

 scientific forces in the city in order to utilise them for com- 

 mercial advantage. The scheme has been referred to a 

 committee of the Chamber of Commerce. 



On the invitation of the director, Dr. J. J. Dobbie, F.R.S. , 

 and Mrs. Dobbie, a large and representative gathering 

 assembled in the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, on 

 Monday evening, December 12, to celebrate the jubilee of 

 the museum. The museum embraces three departments — 

 natural history, art and ethnography, and technology, under 

 their respective keepers. Dr. Traquair, F.R.S., Mr. D. J. 

 Vallance, and Dr. -Alex. Gait. In the natural history de- 

 partment the collection of fossil fish is one of the most 

 important in the world. Other special features of this 

 department are the hall of British zoology and the zoo- 

 logical type collection, the aim of the latter being to illus- 

 trate the bearing of comparative anatomy on the classifi- 

 cation of the animal kingdom. The ethnographical collec- 

 tion is one of the most extensive of its kind, and contains 

 many specimens brought home by explorers of the end of 

 the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries. 

 The technological department contains a large and fine 

 collection of machine and engineering models, most of 

 them made in the museum workshops, together with 

 mining and metallurgical specimens and models. There is 

 also a large collection of economic botany attached to this 

 department. The collections of H.M. Geological Survey 

 of Scotland are housed in the museum, and with these is 

 associated the Heddle-Dudgeon collection of Scottish 

 minerals, which has been described as the finest collection 

 of the minerals of any one country in existence. The 

 museum is supported by a Parliamentary grant, and is 

 under the Scotch Education Department, which was repre- 

 sented at the conversazione by Sir Henry Craik, K.C.B., 

 and Mr. Macdonald. assistant secretary. 



A MEETING was held in the geological lecture theatre of 

 the Owens College, Manchester, on December 8, at which 

 it was resolved to establish a Manchester University Geo- 

 logists' Association. The object of the association is to 

 afford a centre of social reunion for the discussion of geo- 

 logical subjects. Prof. Boyd Dawkins was elected presi- 

 dent, Mr. B. Hobson and Mr. Winstanley vice-presidents, 

 Mr. W. J. Hall secretary, and Mr. O. B. Leigh treasurer. 



.\ SHORT time ago Dr. Doyen claimed to have discovered 

 the microbe of cancer, and to have prepared with it a 

 curative serum for the disease. A committee was appointed 

 to investigate Dr. Doyen's claims (see Nature, October 27, 

 p. 631), and, according to the daily Press, has now reported 

 favourably on them. The Standard's correspondent tele- 

 graphs, however (December 14), that the committee has not 

 yet arrived at any conclusion. 



Ox the recent retirement of Sir William Macgregor from 

 the Governorship of Lagos, the Liverpool School of Tropical 

 Medicine decided to mark its appreciation of his valu- 

 able services to the cause of health and sanitation by raising 

 a fund, to which Sir -Alfred Jones contributed 500/. and 

 Mr. John Holt 20ol. It has been decided to expend this 

 fund on two medical expeditions to the west coast of Africa, 

 one in charge of Prof. Boyce. who, with Dr. A. Evans 

 and Dr. H. H. Clarke, sailed from the Mersey on Wednes- 

 dav, the other under Colonel Giles. These expeditions will 



