director of 
MarRCH 28, 1907 | NATURE 515 
the shocks have been sharp, though short, and accom- | measures which to them are incomprehensible. The in- 
panied by loud subterranean rumblings. congruities. and absurdities of the cumbersome British 
Deen nt Goreremeieeitnat Mc. Franz Herger, units of weights and measures were exhibited by Mr. 
the Meteorological Observatory of the ei Strauss and Sir H. Norman, who seconded the motion, 
= while the latter gave a convincing exposition of the 
Gothard, was caught by a snowstorm while returning 
from the observation tower, and his dead body was found 
a few days ago, almost completely covered with snow, near 
the Lucendro Bridge. 
Tue seventy-ninth meeting of the German Association 
of Naturalists and Physicians will be held at Dresden on 
September 15-21. General meetings will be held on 
Monday, September 16, and Friday, September 20, at which 
lectures will be given by Profs. Hempel (Dresden), 
Hergesell (Strassburg), Hoche (Freiburg-im-Baden), and 
Strassen (Leipzig). The sections will meet on September 
16, 17, and 18. There will be a section of geophysics, 
meteorology and terrestrial magnetism, and anyone desiring 
to give a short lecture or demonstration to the section 
should communicate before May 25 with Prof. Paul 
Schreiber, Direktor des K. Met. Instituts, Dresden-N. 6, 
grosse Meissner Strasse 15. 
WE regret to see the announcement that Prof. E. von 
Bergmann, professor of surgery in the University of Berlin 
since 1882, died at Wiesbaden on Monday, March 25, in 
his seventy-first year. For a few years before his appoint- 
ment to his Berlin chair and to the directorship of the 
University Clinical Hospital he was professor of surgery 
at Wiirzburg. An obituary notice in the Times records 
that in Berlin von Bergmann devoted himself to the develop- 
ment of Lord Lister’s antiseptic methods, and became one 
of the leading exponents of the purely aseptic treatment 
which dispensed with the carbolic spray, and relied upon 
the prevention of infection by means of perfect cleanliness. 
His suceess was especially remarkable in operations upon 
the skull and the brain, and surgery owes to him con- 
siderable advances in this particular department of its 
labours. After the death of Prof. Virchow, von Bergmann 
became the most eminent representative of the German 
medical world, and he was a present or a past president 
of the leading medical and chirurgical societies. Last year 
he was made a life member of the Upper House of the 
Prussian Diet. German and foreign universities honoured 
him by the bestowal of their academic degrees, and only 
last December he celebrated his seventieth birthday, and 
received tributes of admiration and esteem from the leading 
members of his profession at home and abroad. 
Tue motion for the second reading of the Weights and 
Measures (Metric System) Bill was defeated in the House 
of Commons on March 23 by a majority of 32, 118 voting 
for the second reading and 150 against. The Bill pro- 
posed that from April 1, 19r0, or at a later date to be 
fixed by Order in Council, the standard metre and kilo- 
gram should be established, and that sales and contracts 
should thenceforth be made according to the metric system. 
Mr. Strauss, in moving the second reading, said that 
resolutions in favour of the Bill have been passed by the 
London County Council, large numbers of chambers of 
commerce, and many local authorities, and it is supported 
by the heads of many trade and engineering firms and 
numbers of trade unions. He asked the House to give 
the Bill a second reading for three reasons :—the loss of 
time and money in business and trade involved in the 
present system; the most serious waste of time in the 
education of children; and the loss of commerce with 
other countries owing to our dealing in weights and 
NO. 1952, VOL. 75 | 
simplicity and interdependence of the metric weights and 
measures. 
THE opposition made out a strong case against the 
Metric System Bill referred to above. Mr. Haworth 
urged that 80 per cent. to go per cent. of the 
engineers of this country are against the Bill, and 
that it had been estimated that in engineering alone 
the cost of the change would be 100 million pounds. In 
shipping, measurements of draught, displacement, and 
tonnage, which are nearly universal on the British 
standard, would have to be altered throughout the world. 
The cotton trade, again, is carried on all over the world 
on the English measure. Similar cases were quoted by 
subsequent speakers, and it was also maintained that the 
greater part of our trade is with non-metric countries, and 
that unless the colonies and the United States adopted 
the change with us, few of the advantages offered by the 
metric system could be reaped. The metric system was 
legalised in Great Britain ago, and the 
manufacturers of the country can adopt it when they find 
it to their interest to do so. In commerce, as in science, 
it is desirable to secure international standards so far 
possible, and the metric system has been adopted by many 
countries, and has become the basis of scientific measure- 
simple and _ satisfactory 
system of and 
an 
several years 
as 
because it provides 
standards. An_ international 
measures may be impracticable 
language, but the advantages of either of these common 
means of expression are obvious. When traders and 
manufacturers find that the metric system must be adopted 
in order to have commercial relations with other countries, 
they will no doubt adapt themselves to the new circum- 
stances. Until some common agreement has been arrived 
at among leading business men, it can scarcely be urged 
that Parliament should male compulsory a system which 
would involve an industrial revolution. 
dinner of the Chemical 
held on March 22, Prof. Meldola, president of the society, 
being in the chair. Lord Rayleigh proposed the toast of 
“The Chemical Society,’’ and he is reported to have said, 
in the course of his remarks, that an ardent student, if he 
is so disposed, can become the parent of a new substance. 
Others of maturer age look upon this increase of the 
chemical population rather an embarrassment. No 
doubt there is a multitude of details, and one can only 
hope that in the course of time generalisation may arise 
and be established which will supersede much of that 
detail, link it together, and so render it no longer so 
serious a burden upon the memory. In replying to the 
toast, Prof. Meldola said its intimate relations with 
other branches of science chemistry is as far-reaching, as 
cosmopolitan, has many points of contact with all 
branches of science, organic or inorganic, as any branch 
of science that is being cultivated at the present time. He 
expressed regret at the enormous wastage of chemical 
talent and faculty going on all over this country, and said 
ments, 
weights 
as as international 
THE anniversary Society was 
as 
in 
as 
the society could do very much if it had larger resources 
to fall back upon. The research fund should be in such 
a position that the society could afford to give personal 
grants to workers to enable them to secure the services of 
competent cooperate with them in their work. 
The toast of ‘‘ Scientific Societies ’’ was’ proposed by Sir 
men. to 
