January 12, 1905] 



NA TURE 



253 



hopes that before long not only every medical officer 

 of health and every school teacher, but every man and 

 woman who knows what is needed, will join its ranks. 

 Thus will be formed that body of enlightened public 

 opinion which is the moving power in every reform 

 worked, in every advance made by nation, district, or 

 parish, and thus the gospel of physical culture and 

 healthy environment may win its way to every British 

 home. No more patriotic work can be imagined, even 

 though " the foes be they of our own household." 



JVOTE5. 



The council of the Geological Society of London has de- 

 cided to award the medals and funds this year as follows : — • 

 Wollaston medal to Dr. J. J. Harris Teall, F.R.S. ; 

 Murchison medal to Mr. Edward John Dunn, of Melbourne ; 

 Lyeil medal to Dr. Hans Reusch, director of the Geological 

 Survey of Norway ; Bigsby medal to Prof. J. W. Gregory, 

 F.R.S. ; Wollaston fund to Mr. H. H. Arnold-Bemrose ; 

 Murchison fund to Mr. H. L. Bowman; and Lyell fund to 

 Mr. E. A. Newell-.'Vrber and Mr. Walcot Gibson. 



St. Margaret's Bay, Dover, where great falls of cliff 

 frequently occur, was the scene of another landslip on 

 Tuesday, January lo, when an enormous slice of the cliff, 

 estimated by the coastguard at about a quarter of a million 

 tons, fell into the sea. The fall occurred a little to the 

 eastward of the bay, where the cliff is about 250 feet high. 

 When the fall took place, about 9.30 a.m., it is said that 

 a very sharp earth tremor was felt throughout the village, 

 and was at first believed to be an earthquake. A further 

 fall occurred at noon. As the result of these landslips a 

 gap about 200 feet wide and 50 feet deep appears in the cliff. 

 The debris at the foot of the cliff covers a large area with 

 some very large fragments of rock. The mass is 20 feet 

 or 30 feet high, and extends seawards about a quarter of a 

 mile. 



We learn from the Times that an International ArchEeo- 

 logical Congress will be opened at Athens by the Crown 

 Prince of Greece on April 7. The opening meeting will be 

 held in the Parthenon, and M. Carapanos, the Minister of 

 Public Instruction, will address the members of the 

 congress. The director of Greek antiquities and the 

 directors of the foreign schools will give an account of the 

 progress of archseological research in Greece. The congress 

 will be divided into seven sections : — (i) classical arche- 

 ology ; (2) prehistoric and oriental archaeology ; (3) excava- 

 tions, museums, and preservation of monuments ; (4) epi- 

 graphy and numismatics ; (5) Byzantine archjeology ; 

 (6) instruction in archaeology ; (7) geography and topo- 

 graphy. 



A SLIGHT earthquake shock which lasted a few seconds 

 was felt at Gibraltar on January 7, at 5 a.m. No damage 

 was done. The disturbance was also felt in the Spanish 

 towns of Algeciras, Campamento, and San Roque. At La 

 Linea there were two severe shocks, each lasting about five 

 seconds, the first occurring at 4.40 a.m., and the second at 

 4.52 a.m. 



On Tuesday next, January 17, Prof. L. C. Miall will 

 begin a course of six lectures at the Royal Institution on 

 the " Structure and Life of Animals." The discourse on 

 Friday, January 20, will be delivered by Sir James Dewar 

 on " New Low Temperature Phenomena," and on 

 January 27 by Dr. E. A. Wilson on " The Life of the 

 Emperor Penguin." 



NO. 1837, ^'^''- 71] 



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

 G. W. Hemming, K.C., in his eighty-fourth year. In 

 addition to contributions extending over many years to 

 various magazines and periodicals, he was the author of a 

 "Differential and Integral Calculus," which appeared in 

 1848, and also of a work entitled " Billiards Mathematically 

 Treated " (1893), of which a second edition was recently 

 published. 



The death is announced of Mr. Robert Harris Valpy at 

 the advanced age of eighty-five. Although a keen geologist, 

 he published very little, but he made a very fine collec- 

 tion of fossils from the Devonian rocks of North Devon, 

 and his assistance was acknowledged in the late Mr. 

 Etheridge's work on the " Physical Structure of West 

 Somerset and North Devon " (1867). Mr. Valpy was the 

 author of " Notes on the Geology of Ilfracombe and the 

 Neighbourhood," published anonymously by Twiss and 

 Sons, of Ilfracombe. 



The first award of the Henry Saxon Snell prize will be 

 made this year by the Royal Sanitary Institute. The prize 

 was founded to encourage improvements in the construction 

 or adaptation of sanitary appliances, and is to be awarded 

 by the council of the institute at intervals of three years. 

 The first prize, which will consist of 50/. and a medal of 

 the institute, "is offered in the year 1905 for an essay on 

 " domestic sanitary appliances, with suggestions for their 

 improvement." Essays must be delivered on or before 

 March 30, addressed to the secretary of the Royal Sanitary 

 Institute, 72 Margaret Street, W. 



The Association for Maintaining the American Women's 

 Table at the Zoological Station at Naples and for Promoting 

 Scientific Research by Women announces the offer of a 

 third prize of 200/. for the best thesis written by a woman, 

 on a scientific subject, embodying new observations and 

 new conclusions based on an independent laboratory re- 

 search in biological, chemical, or physical science. The 

 theses offered in competition are to be presented to the 

 executive committee of the association, and must be in the 

 hands of the chairman of the committee on the prize, Mrs. 

 Ellen H. Richards, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 

 Boston, Mass., before December 31, 1906. The prize will 

 be awarded at the annual meeting in April, 1907. 



The death is announced of Mr. Beauchamp Tower, who 

 was associated for some years with Mr. W. Froude, F.R.S., 

 in the experiments made for the Admiralty on the models of 

 ships and on full-sized vessels and engines of the Navy, from 

 which experiments much of the present knowledge of the 

 scientific design of ships has been derived. While working 

 as a consulting engineer, says the Times, Mr. Tower de- 

 veloped several ingenious inventions, notably a machine to 

 carry out Mr. Spencer Deverell's idea of obtaining work 

 from wave motion, the well known " spherical " steam- 

 engine, largely employed for some years where high rotary 

 speeds were needed, a centrifugal pump revolution indicator 

 for ships, and a gyroscopic steady platform for guns at sea, 

 all of which afford good examples of originality and scientific 

 acumen. He also undertook for the Institution of 

 Mechanical Engineers, and carried to a successful issue, an 

 extremely complete series of experiments on friction, by 

 which much new knowledge on the subject was gained. 



Londoners probably began to realise that the electrifi- 

 cation of the " underground " railways was nearing com- 

 pletion when, last week, a partial electrical service was 

 started on the section of the lines running from Baker 

 Street to Harrow and Uxbridge. This marks the first step 

 in the change which will be carried out by degrees 



