ye 
NoveMBER 8, 1906] 
NATURE 37 
a 
Curie alone. But however this may be, it should be 
gratifying to those who have worked for the extension of 
opportunities for intellectual work by women to find 
that the scientific world is prepared to acknowledge merit 
without distinction of sex. The logical result of the action 
of the Royal Society and the University of Paris is that 
women should be eligible for election into any society or 
academy that exists for the purpose of extending the 
boundaries of natural knowledge. 
A weertinGc of the executive committee of the British 
Science Guild was held at the rooms of the Royal Society 
on November 2, Mr. Haldane, M.P., president of the 
Guild, in the chair. In addition to the ordinary business, 
the following matters were under consideration :—a 
memorandum on the application of improved methods in 
agriculture; an interim report of a subcommittee of the 
Guild on the amendment of the British patent laws; the 
appointment of local committees of the Guild in industrial 
centres; and the proposed anthropometrical survey. 
Dr. J. Gunnar ANDERSON has been appointed director- 
general of the Geological Survey of Sweden in succession 
to Dr. A. E. Térnebohm, who retires. 
Tue Swiney lectures on geology, in connection with the 
British Museum (Natural History), are being delivered this 
year by Dr. R. F. Scharff, who commenced on Monday a 
course of twelve lectures on the ‘‘ Geological History of 
the European Fauna”? in the lecture theatre of the Victoria 
and Albert Museum, South Kensington. The lectures will 
be given on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, at 6 p.m. 
Admission to the course is free. 
Dr. Porrier, professor of anatomy at the Paris Academy 
of Medicine, has proposed the establishment of an organ- 
isation to combine the efforts of French investigators who 
are studying cancer. It is hoped that France will before 
long have an institute similar to that in connection with 
our Imperial Cancer Research Fund, and to correspond- 
ing institutions in Germany and the United States. Dr. 
Henri de Rothschild has contributed 4oool. to the funds 
of the proposed league against cancer 
Tue preliminary forecast of the indigo crop of Bengal 
for 1906 is given in the Pioneer Mail. It appears that 
owing to the competition of the synthetic dye, the area 
under indigo has contracted very rapidly. The cultivation 
is being gradually abandoned in Lower Bengal. The total 
area sown this year is 138,300 acres, against 170,700 acres 
of last year, and 223,100 acres of 1904. Of the important 
districts, Saran reports 62 per cent. of a normal out- 
turn per acre, Darbhanga reports 57 per cent., and 
Muzaffarpur 33 per cent., while Champaran reports only 
27 per cent. The estimated outturn per acre for Lower 
Bengal, including the minor Behar districts, is 67 per 
cent. of a-normal crop, and that for North Behar, in- 
cluding Monghyr, only 42 per cent. The average for the 
province comes to 46 per cent., against 47 per cent. The 
- director of agriculture, however, thinks the district officers’ 
estimates are unduly pessimistic. 
ComMANDER R. E. Peary, who has been in the Arctic 
region since July, 1905, when he left New York on the 
steamer Roosevelt to make a further attempt to reach 
the North Pole, arrived in Battle Harbour, Labrador, on 
November 3, and dispatched a message announcing his 
return. From this it appears that the expedition wintered 
on the north coast of Grant Land, somewhat north of the 
Alert’s winter quarters. In February the sledge party 
went north wid Hecla and Columbia, but was delayed by 
NO. 1932, VOL. 75]| 
open water between 84° and 85°. Beyond 85° a six days’ 
gale disrupted the ice, destroyed the caches, cut off com- 
munication with the supporting bodies, and drifted the 
party due east. Journeying over ice, farthest north was 
reached in lat. 87° 6’, while the ice was drifting steadily 
eastward. The north coast of Greenland was arrived at 
afterwards, and by travelling along the Greenland coast the 
ship was regained. 
the west, and the message states that the party 
pleted the north coast of Grant Land, and reached other 
land near the hundredth meridian.’’ Further details about 
the movement of the ice, and the land to the north of the 
hundredth meridian west of Greenwich, that is, north of 
the American mainland, will be awaited 
The most northerly point reached—lat. 87° 6’—is nearly 
three degrees farther north than Commander 
attained in 1902. The Duke of the Abruzzi’s expedition 
reached lat. 86° 33’ 49”, in long. 64° 30’ E., in 1900. 
A sledge journey was then made to 
** com- 
with interest. 
Peary 
Tue promise of an interesting and useful addition to the 
local museums in the London district has been furnished 
by the spirited action of the Tottenham Local Board. In 
1892 the Board purchased the fine ““ Queen Anne ”’ mansion 
known as Bruce Castle from Mr. Joshua Pedley at the 
price he had given for it, 15,000/., toward which sum 
he contributed 7ool., in the hope that some day the house 
would become the home of a museum for Tottenham. 
The estate included twenty acres of garden and timbered 
land, which was soon thrown open as a public park. The 
idea of a museum having been grasped, many specimens 
and offers of aid came in from neighbours and friends. 
By gift, and as a result of a public subscription, several 
important collections were acquired. Especially worthy of 
mention are the long series of birds, small mammals, and 
insects in cases and cabinets, made by Mr. H. W. Roberts, 
formerly a resident in Tottenham; a collection of minerals 
and fossils formed by Mr. Penstone, a friend of John 
Ruskin; and the collections of fossils and wax models 
made and lent by Mr. H. E. H. Smedley. Mr. Smedley 
is acting as honorary curator, and has generously devoted 
much time and skill to getting the collections into a fit 
state for public exhibition. Other important gifts have 
been made by Mr. C. C. Knight, the Hon. Walter 
Rothschild, Mr. Ruck, Mr. Currie, and others. The 
museum was publicly opened by Mr. W. W. Lewin, chair- 
man of the libraries committee, and Councillor Knight on 
October 26. Mr. Smedley is responsible for the scheme 
of the museum, which will embrace a purely local collec- 
tion of Middlesex natural history and illustrations of 
ancient Tottenham, while the educational aspect will be 
kept well in view, including exhibitions of living animals 
and plants designed to encourage observation at first-hand 
in the field amongst the young people and school pupils 
in the district. 
IN commemoration of the forty years’ reign of H.M. 
King Charles I. of Rumania, an exhibition is now being 
held at Bucharest, where the fifth Congress of the 
Rumanian Association of Science also assembled during 
last month, and was attended by more than four thousand 
members. Judging from the importance of the papers read 
and the discussions following, there is noticeable a decided 
advance in the appreciation of the value of education on 
the part of the Rumanians. The congress was divided 
into ten sections, the best attended being the one dealing 
with educational science, numbering more than three 
thousand members, including university professors and 
teachers of all classes. Great attention was given 
in this section to the question of extending the 
