300 
NAFLURE 
[JANUARY 24, 1907 
reading these works, it is impossible not to feel regret 
that an enthusiasm so great should have lacked the 
advantage of a laboratory training, which would have 
enabled Miss Clerke to estimate the real value of the 
various researches successfully recorded. ‘‘ No one writing 
a history of modern astronomy,’’ says a correspondent of 
the Times, “‘ can fail to acknowledge the great debt owed 
to the masterly array of facts in her ‘ History.” No 
worker in the vast field of modern sidereal astronomy 
opened by the genius of Herschel and greatly widened by 
the application of the spectroscope to the chemical and 
physical problems of the universe lacked due recognition 
by Miss Clerke, who performed as it seemed no other 
writer could have done the work of collation and interpret- 
ation of this enormous mass of new material, ever point- 
ing the way to new fields of investigation, often by one 
pregnant suggestion sweeping aside a whole sheaf of 
tentative conjectures and indicating, if not the true line 
—for in many cases the truth is yet to seek—at least a 
plausible and scientific line well worth pursuing.”’ 
Tue Rothamsted Experimental Station (Lawes Agri- 
cultural Trust) has received a donation of 20001. from 
the Permanent Nitrate Committee, to be invested and 
added to the general endowment fund of the station. A 
donation of one hundred guineas has also been received 
from the Fertiliser Manufacturers’ Association. During 
the past summer the station entered into occupation of the 
“James Mason ”’ Bacteriological Laboratory, the gift of 
Mr. J. F. Mason, M.P. The society for extending the 
Rothamsted experiments, which was formed to obtain 
funds wherewith the experimental station might enlarge 
the scope of its work and initiate further agricultura! 
investigations, has further received during the past year 
subscriptions and donations amounting to 240]. Further 
subscriptions are still urgently needed to secure a more 
adequate staff, and may be addressed to the Secretary of 
the Rothamsted Experimental Station, Harpenden, Hert- 
fordshire. 
A REUTER message from The Hague, dated January 22, 
reports that a wave has destroyed the southern coast of 
the island of Simalu, near Sumatra. The island of Simalu 
has ‘nearly disappeared. Violent earthquake shocks have 
occurred daily. 
A Reuter telegram from Vyernyi (Turkestan) states that 
the eclipse of the sun on January 14 was not observed 
there owing to cloudy and foggy weather. 
Tue second National Poultry Conference will be held on 
July 9-11 at University College, Reading. The honorary 
secretary of the conference is Mr. Edward Brown, 12 
Hanover Square, W. 
Dr. H. R. Mitt has been elected president of the 
Royal Meteorological Society for the ensuing year, and 
Mr. F. C. Bayard and Mr. H. Mellish secretaries of the 
society. At the annual general meeting of the society on 
January 16, Mr. Richard Bentley, the president, on behalf 
of the members of the council, presented an illuminated 
address to Mr. William Marriott in recognition of his 
services as lecturer. 
THE annual general meeting of the Iron and Steel 
Institute will be held on Thursday and Friday, May 9 
and 10. The annual dinner will be held—under the presi- 
dency of Sir Hugh Bell, Bart.—in the Grand Hall of the 
Hotel Cecil on May ro. The council will shortly proceed 
to award Carnegie research scholarships, and candidates 
NO. 1943, VOL. 75] 
must apply before February 28. The awards will be 
announced at the general meeting. 
Tue Explosives in Coal Mines Order of December 17, 
1906, has been issued by the Home Office in the form of 
a pamphlet of sixty-six pages (price 4}d.). It contains 
full details of the composition of the fifty-eight explosives 
the use of which is permitted in unsafe collieries if certain 
specified conditions be observed. 
THE pipe line conveying petroleum from Baku to the 
Black Sea has been completed. It is 550 miles long, and 
is capable of passing 400,000,000 gallons of oil yearly. 
Another important oil-pipe line has been built for trans- 
porting Texas and California petroleum across the Isthmus 
of Panama. It is 8 inches in diameter and fifty-one miles 
long. 
On Tuesday next, January 29, Prof. A. C. Seward will 
commence a course of two lectures at the Royal Institu- 
tion on “‘ Survivals from the Past in the Plant World,”’ 
and on Thursday, January 31, Major P. A. MacMahon will 
deliver the first of two lectures on ‘‘ Standards of Weights 
and Measures."’ The Friday evening discourse on 
February 1 will be delivered by Sir Almroth E. Wright, on 
“The Methods of Combating the Bacteria of Disease in 
the Interior of the Organism.’’ 
Tue thirty-eighth general meeting of the German 
Anthropological Society will be held in Cologne in August 
next. It is proposed that this meeting should be con- 
stituted an international congress, and the Cologne 
Anthropological Society has issued a cordial invitation to 
fellows of the Anthropological Institute and others in- 
terested in anthropology and archeology to attend the 
congress. It is further proposed to arrange a tour of two 
or three weeks in the Low Countries and France to take 
place after the congress. During this tour places of the 
greatest interest from an anthropological point of view 
will be visited. In case a section of the visitors would 
prefer to make a tour in Germany, the authorities state 
that they will consider the possibility of carrying out any 
proposition they may receive. A complete programme will 
be published very shortly. Meanwhile, fellows of the insti- 
tute and other students of anthropology and archeology 
who would like to attend this congress are requested to 
communicate with the secretary of the Anthropological 
Institute, 3 Hanover Square, W. 
Tue Faraday Society, the object of which is to promote 
the study of electrochemistry, both pure and applied, and 
also the study of chemical physics, is endeavouring to 
develop this latter side in the hope that the physical- 
chemical worl done in this country may be published in 
its Transactions instead of being published in various 
journals, and much of it abroad. With this object in view 
the society held a meeting on January 15 to discuss the 
electron theory as applied to conduction in electrolytes, 
and on Tuesday, January 29, there will be a meeting at 
which a general discussion on osmotic pressure will take 
place. Prof. Armstrong will be in the chair, and the Earl 
of Berkeley will exhibit and describe his apparatus for 
the direct measurement of osmotic pressure. Mr. W. C. D. 
Whetham will speak on indirect methods of measuring 
osmotic pressure, Dr. T. M. Lowry on osmotic pressure 
from the standpoint of the kinetic theory, and a paper by 
Prof. Kahlenberg is expected upon the bearing of osmotic- 
pressure experiments upon the conception of the nature of 
solutions. The society invites all who are interested in 
the subject to be present. The meeting will be held, as 
