FEBRUARY 7, 1907 | 
NATORE 
347 
by many leading men of science. The Royal Society, 
of which Sir Michael Foster was a_ secretary for 
twenty-two years, was represented by Lord Rayleigh, 
O.M., president; Prof. D, Ferrier, vice-president; Sir 
Archibald Geikie, secretary; Mr. R. Harrison, assistant 
secretary; and a large number of fellows of the society. 
Among those present were Lord Reay (president of the 
British Academy), Lord Monkswell, Sir William Crookes, 
Sir Philip Magnus, M.P., Sir Arthur Riicker (principal of 
the University of London) and Lady Ricker, Sir 
Norman and Lady Lockyer (British Science Guild), Major 
MacMahon (British Association), Sir William Ramsay, 
Sir Joseph Swan, Sir J. Crichton-Browne, Sir James Blyth, 
Prof. R. Meldola (president of the Chemical Society), Dr. 
Russell Wells, Prof. S. P. Thompson, Dr. E. Divers, Dr. 
J. Kingston Fowler (dean of the faculty of medicine at the 
University of London), Prof. Wyndham Dunstan, Prof. 
Tilden, Prof. Priebsch, Sir Alexander Pedler, Dr. Bash- 
ford, Prof. Thane, Prof. Starling, Dr. Hugo Miller, Prof. 
Emerson Reynolds, Sir Henry Howorth, Prof. McLeod, 
Sir H. Trueman Wood, Dr. Horace Brown, Prof. Judd, 
Prof. Hull, and Mr. Frederick Macmillan. 
A large and representative congregation also attended 
the memorial service held in Trinity College Chapel, Cam- 
bridge, of which college Sir Michael was a fellow. The 
congregation included the Vice-Chancellor (the Rev. E. S. 
Roberts, Master of Caius), Profs. Sir R. S. Ball, E. C. 
Clark, T. Clifford Allbutt, A. Macalister, A. R. Forsyth, 
Carey Foster, F. Howard Marsh, G. Sims Woodhead, 
H. Jackson, and A. C. Seward, Dr. W. N. Shaw, and the 
following representatives of learned societies :—University 
of Oxford, Prof. Poulton, Dr. Collier, Prof. Gotch; the 
Royal Society, Mr. A. B. Kempe (treasurer), Mr. F. 
Darwin (foreign secretary), and other councillors; Uni- 
versity College, London, Prof. H. S. Foxwell; British 
Association, Sir George Darwin and Mr. A. E. Shipley ; 
Cambridge Philosophical Society, Dr. Hobson (president) 
and: Mr. H. F. Newall (treasurer); the Epidemiological 
Society of London, Dr. H. Timbrell Bulstrode ; Manchester 
University, Prof. Lamb and Prof. Conway. 
NOTES. 
At the forthcoming meeting of the British Association 
in Leicester, the evening lectures will be by Mr. W. 
Duddell, on “‘ The Arc and the Spark in Radio-telegraphy,”’ 
and by Dr. F. A. Dixey, on ‘‘ Recent Developments in the 
Theory of Mimicry.’’ The lecture to the operative classes 
will be given by Prof. H. A. Miers, F.R.S., on ‘‘ The 
Growth of a Crystal.”’ 
WE notice with deep regret that Prof. D. I. Mendeléeff, 
the eminent Russian chemist, who was born seventy-three 
years ago to-day, died on February 2. Prof. Mendeléeff 
was the subject of a ‘‘ Scientific Worthy ’’ article in 
Nature of June 27, 1889 (vol. xl., p. 193), and we hope 
to supplement this next week with a short account of work 
accomplished by him since that date. 
WE learn from the British Medical Journal that the 
seventh International Congress of Physiology will be held 
this year at Heidelberg on August 13-16, under the presi- 
dency of Prof. August Kossel. In connection with the 
congress there will be an exhibition of scientific apparatus. 
Announcements of communications should be sent to the 
Physiological Institute, Heidelberg, before June 15. 
A Reuter message from Melbourne on January 31 re- 
ports that slight shocks of earthquake have occurred at 
Eden, New South Wales, and at Gabo Island, off the 
coast of Victoria. Severe shocks were felt in north-eastern 
Tasmania on January 30. News has reached Melbourne 
that two severe and prolonged shocks were felt in the 
Tonga Islands on January 2. 
NO. 1045, VOL. 75 | 
Science announces that Dr. Otto Lummer, professor of 
experimental physics at Breslau, will begin a course of 
ten lectures at Columbia University on February 15. 
Prof. J. Larmor, Sec.R.S., will begin a course of six 
lectures on March 27. Mr. W. Bateson, F.R.S., will give 
the Silliman lectures at Yale University next 
year. The preceding lecturers on this foundation have been 
Prof. J. J. Thomson, F.R.S., Prof. C. S. Sherrington, 
F.R.S., Prof. Ernest Rutherford, F.R.S., and Prof. W. 
Nernst. 
memorial 
On Tuesday next, February 12, Prof. W. Stirling will 
begin a course of six lectures at the Royal Institution on 
“The Visual Apparatus of Man and Animals”; on 
Thursday, February 14, Mr. A. Harker will give the first 
of two lectures on ‘“‘ The Minute Structures of Igneous 
Rocks. and their Significance’’; and on Saturday, 
February 16, Prof. J. J. Thomson will commence a course 
of six lectures on ‘‘ Réntgen, Kathode, and Positive Rays.” 
The Friday evening discourse on February 15 will be by 
Mr. J. J. Lister, on ‘ Foraminifera.” 
A commir1TEE has been appointed by the Board of 
Treasury to inquire generally into the work now performed 
at the National Physical Laboratory, with special reference 
to the character of the tests undertaken there and the lines 
on which any further development of the work of the 
laboratory should proceed. The committee consists of Mr. 
G. W. Balfour, chairman, Sir Andrew Noble, Bart., 
K.C.B., F.R.S., Sir J. Wolfe Barry, K.C.B., F-R.S., Mr. 
W. J. Crossley, M.P., and Mr. R. Chalmers, C.B. Mr. 
G. C. Upcott, of the Treasury, will act as secretary to the 
committee. 
Upon the authority of the Figaro, the Paris correspon- 
dant of the Times reports that M. Daniel Osiris has left 
by his will a sum of one million sterling to the Pasteur 
Institute. The bequest by which the Pasteur Institute 
thus benefits will provide it with an annual income of 
from 30,0001. to 40,0001. It is already one of the best 
endowed scientific institutions in the world, and_ this 
princely gift will enable it to organise on a practical basis 
a large number of new branch establishments for scientific 
research all over France and in the French colonies. 
Coronet Jonn Mercer Brooke, whose death in his 
eightieth year was recently announced, was best known 
as the inventor of a deep-sea sounding apparatus which 
was subsequently superseded by that of Lord Kelvin. 
During the American Civil War, Colonel Brooke, along 
with Maury, the distinguished hydrographer, associated 
himself with the seceding States, and was successful in 
effecting many improvements in the cannon of the time. 
At the close of the war he was appointed a professor in 
the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington, and held the 
chair of physics and astronomy until 1899. In the years 
preceding the Civil War, he was engaged in making hydro- 
graphic surveys in the Pacific Ocean, particularly in the 
archipelago and along the coasts of China and Japan. 
A RECENT Reuter message from Entebbe shows that the 
new Commissioner of Uganda is making vigorous efforts 
to combat the scourge of sleeping sickness. Acting upon 
the discoveries fade by the Royal Society’s commission 
with regard to the transmission of the disease by the local 
species of tsetse-fly, it is sought to render the fly innocuous 
by preventing it from becoming infected with the micro- 
organism (Trypanosoma) which causes the disease. With 
this end in view the natives are being removed from the 
