February 2, 1905] 



NA TURE 



525 



NOTES. 

 The Royal Meteorological Society has arranged for an 

 exhibition of meteorological apparatus to be held on 

 March 14-17. The exhibition will be chiefly devoted to 

 recording instruments, but it will also include new meteor- 

 ological apparatus invented or first constructed since the 

 society's last exhibition, as well as photographs, draw- 

 ings, and other objects possessing meteorological interest. 



Science announces that Prof. Ernest Rutherford, of 

 McGill University, has been appointed Silliman lecturer 

 at Yale University for 1905. The previous Silliman lec- 

 turers have been Prof. J. J. Thomson and Prof. C. S. 

 Sherrington. 



As Prof. G. H. Bryan, F.R.S., is unable to lecture at 

 the Royal Institution on Friday evening, March 24, Sir 

 Oliver Lodge, F.R.S., will deliver a discourse on that 

 date on "A Pertinacious Current." 



A GRANT of 50Z. has been awarded by the Berlin Academy 

 of Sciences to Prof. R. Hagenbach, of Aachen, and Dr. 

 Konen, of Bonn, for the publication of a spectrographic 

 atlas. 



The de CandoUe prize of 20I. for the best monograph 

 on a genus or family of plants is offered by the Physical 

 and Natural History Society of Geneva. Papers may be 

 written in Latin, French, German, Italian, or English, and 

 should be sent before January 15, 1906, to M. le President 

 de la Soci^t^ de Physique et d'Histoire naturelle de Genfeve, 

 I'Ath^n^e, Geneve (Suisse). Members of the society are not 

 admitted to this competition. 



We are sorry to see in the Atliciinenm the announcement 

 of the death, on January 21, of Mr. E. Crossley, of 

 Halifax, in his sixty-fourth year. Mr. Crossley published 

 in 1879, '" conjunction with Messrs. Gledhill and Wilson, 

 a valuable "Handbook of Double Stars," which is com- 

 plete in its information up to the time of publication. The 

 Crossley reflector, with rjhich excellent work is being done 

 at the Lick Observatory, was presented to that observatory 

 by Mr. Crossley, and contains one of the best mirrors 

 made by the late Dr. Common. 



Prof. J. W. Mason, professor of mathematics at the 

 College of the City of New York from 1879 to 1903, died 

 on January 10 at the age of sixty-nine years. The death 

 is also announced of Dr. Guido Bodlaender, professor of 

 physical chemistry and electrotechnics at the Brunswick 

 Technical College. 



We regret to see the announcements of the deaths of 

 Dr. T. H. Behrens, professor of microchemistry at the 

 Delft Polytechnic School, on January 14, at the age of 

 sixty-two ; of Dr. Albert von Reinach, the eminent 

 geologist of Frankfurt, on January 12 ; of Prof. Benjamin 

 W. Frazier, professor of mineralogy and metallurgy at 

 Lehigh University since 1871 ; and of M. Joseph Chaudron, 

 the Nestor of Belgian mining engineers, at the age of 

 eighty-two. M. Chaudron 's method of boring shafts was first 

 employed in 1848, and its most recent application is now 

 in progress at the colliery at Dover. 



The annual general meeting of the Iron and Steel 

 Institute will be held on May 11 and 12. The annual 

 dinner will be held — under the presidency of Mr. R. A. 

 Hadfield— in the Grand Hall of the Hotel Cecil on May 12. 

 The autumn meeting will be held in Sheffield on Sep- 

 tember 25-29. Members of the institute are invited to 

 participate in an International Congress of Mining, Metal- 

 NO. 1840, VOL. 71] 



lurgy. Mechanics and Applied Geology, to be held at Li^ge 

 on June 26 to July i, in connection with the International 

 Exhibition. The general secretary of the organising 

 committee is M. Henri Dechamps, 16 Quai de I'Uni- 

 versit^, Li^ge. 



Dr. F. T. Roberts will deliver the Harveian Oration 

 of the Royal College of Physicians of London on June 21. 

 Dr. W. H. Hamer has been appointed to deliver the Milroy 

 lectures on State medicine and public hygiene for 1906 ; 

 the lectures for this year will be delivered by Dr. T. M. 

 Legge on " Industrial Anthrax," on March 7, 9, and 14; 

 Dr. W. H. AUchin will deliver the Lumleian lectures, 

 " Some Aspects of Malnutrition," on March 28, 30, and 

 April 4; and the second Oliver-Sharpey lecture, "The 

 Influence of Atmospheric Pressure on Man," will be de- 

 livered by Dr. L. E. Hill on April 6. Other lectures to 

 be delivered during the year are the Croonian, by Prof. 

 E. H. Starling, F.R.S. ; the FitzPatrick, on " The History 

 of Medicine," by Dr. Norman Moore; and the Bradshaw 

 lecture, by Dr. G. R. Murray. 



On Sunday, January 22, M. Victor Serrin died, at 

 Neuilly-en-Tel, Department of Oise, aged seventy-five years. 

 M. Serrin was the inventor of the first automatic regulator 

 of the electric arc light used in the public service. The 

 action is so satisfactory that the apparatus is still in use, 

 after fifty years of scientific progress. M. Serrin produced 

 other ingenious inventions, but no other has had the 

 importance of his arc lamp. In 1852, M. Serrin was in 

 charge of the rebuilding of the Pont St. Michel in Paris, 

 and, as the work was urgent, men were kept busy night 

 and day. At night an electric light, with hand-feed adjust- 

 ment, was used, since no regulators existed. Provided 

 with blue spectacles, Serrin watched the lamp and adjusted 

 the carbons when necessary. He thus contracted ophthal- 

 mia, in consequence of which he nearly lost his sight. 

 The idea of the regulator then occurred to him, and he 

 made all the parts with his own hands. At the funeral 

 the principal scientific societies of Paris sent wreaths. 



The Johns Hopkins Hospital BiiUetin for January (xvi., 

 No. 166) contains a number of papers of pathological and 

 medical interest, together with an interesting account by 

 Dr. Piatt of Fabricius Guilhelmus Hildanus, the " father " 

 of German surgery, who lived in the latter part of the 

 sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries. 



»■ 



We have received the January number of Le Radhnii, a 

 monthly journal devoted to radio-activity and now com- 

 mencing its second year of publication. It contains articles 

 on Finsen's method of phototherapy, on the sensitisation 

 of living tissues by the injection of certain fluorescent dyes 

 whereby they become more susceptible to, and more pene- 

 trable by, the radium rays, and on the phenomena of induc- 

 tion, together with a comprehensive review of recent work. 

 The publication is excellently printed and illustrated. 



Messrs. Winslow and Belcher have carried out an 

 investigation on the variations in the number of bacteria 

 in samples of sewage kept in the laboratory {Journal of 

 bifectioiis Diseases, i., No. 1). They find that the total 

 number of bacteria rises rapidly during the first twenty-four 

 hours of storage, increasing more than ten-fold, and then 

 decreases steadily for at least six months. The rise and 

 fall in the number of bacteria appear to affect the various 

 organisms in an almost equal degree, there being no 

 tendency towards the development of u pure culture of 

 anv dominant form. : 



