May 1 6, 1901] 



NA TURE 



The atlas also contains five maps showing the distribu- 

 tion of the nebute in the northern and southern hemi- 

 spheres according to the various classes into which they 

 are generally divided. Mr. Stratonoff states that the law 

 which operates to cause the galaxy to be poor in nebuLi 

 is a general one and extends to all classes of these 

 objects, bright, feeble, large and extended. The nebuls, 

 however, do not appear to have been studied from a spec- 

 troscopic point of view, as it is well known that the 

 gaseous nebul.x are chiefly found in the Milky Way. 



The last map is devoted to star clusters in both hemi- 

 spheres, and shows that these objects are intimately 

 connected with the galaxy, the globular clusters, as dis- 

 tinct from star clusters generally, being the only ones 

 which show no tendency to accumulate in this region. 



Mr. StratonolT has executed a laborious piece of re- 

 search, and we congratulate him on making so interesting 

 a contribution to stellar literature. Howard P.wn. 



THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY AND ITS 

 MUSEUM} 



THE Geological Society of London, which was founded 

 in 1807, began in early days to accumulate a collection 

 of rocks and fossils, minerals and recent shells ; and 

 when, in 1S28, the Society was provided with apartments 

 in Somerset House, adequate space was aftbrded for the 

 arrangement of the museum. Although many specimens 

 were distributed throughout the rooms, two of these 

 were specially set aside for the museum, an upper room 

 containing the foreign specimens and a lower room 

 mainly for the British rocks and fossils, while the minerals 

 and recent shells were stored in cabinets in the smaller 

 library. The museum then supplied a real educational 

 want, and was of great service in preserving specimens 

 which illustrated many of the papers read before the 

 Society and published in its Transattions. Its state may 

 be judged of from the Report of the committee in 1S36 ; 

 they express "the pleasure they derived from the excel- 

 lent state of preservation of the whole museum, and from 

 the unwearied zeal and discriminating skill displayed by 

 the curator in arranging the collections." For fourteen 

 years William Lonsdale devoted himself to the welfare 

 of the Society, not only reorganising the museum but 

 editing the publications. He retired in 1842 and was 

 succeeded by Edward Forbes. There is no doubt that 

 in those days the museum was fully appreciated, and 

 the lower room particularly, with its cosy fires, w-as in 

 winter time a pleasant resort for conversation and study. 

 Meanwhile, however, the work of the Society increased, 

 the library growing especially, while the museum made 

 little progress, and although a curator (who gave his 

 whole time to the museum) was now and again appointed 

 for a period, it was not possible to offer remuneration 

 sufficient for the purpose ; and increasing difficulty was 

 felt in keeping the collections properly named and in 

 proper order. In 1868 the Council "decided on the dis- 

 continuance of the formation of a general collection," and 

 restricted it " in future to specimens illustrative of papers 

 read before the Society and those received from abroad.' 

 In 1S74 the Society removed to its present rooms in 

 Burlington House, and took the opportunity to present 

 "superfluous duplicates" to the British Museum, the 

 Museum of Practical Geology and other institutions. 

 Since this date, however, the museum, while occupying 

 valuable space, has been of comparatively little service 

 to science or to any of the fellows. The collection, as a 

 whole, has been sadly neglected, owing to the fact that the 

 other work of the Society has fully occupied the officers. 

 It has been realised, too, that the want which the Society 

 in its earlier days supplied was now better supplied 



■•The Ne 

 , appeared i 



n of the Geological Society " at 

 I for January 20, 1876, p. 227. 



NO. 1646, VOL. 64] 



elsewhere, and that the fellows have ceased to take much 

 personal interest in the museum. As Sir John Evans 

 remarked, in his address to the Society in 1875, "the 

 best home for a collection of British specimens was at the 

 headquarters of the Geological Survey " in the Museum 

 of Practical Geology. In 1896 a proposal was made to 

 transfer great part of the Geological Society's collection 

 to the British Museum, but the transfer was not then 

 agreed to. On March 27 of the present year a special 

 general meeting of the Society was again called to con- 

 sider the matter, and it was then resolved "That in the 

 opinion of this meeting the time has now come when this 

 Society shall transfer its collections to some other 

 museum." That this is a wise resolution most of those 

 who know the museum and value its contents will cor- 

 dially agree. Nor is this view inconsistent with the 

 possession of a considerable amount of sentiment for the 

 museum and its associations with the early history of the 

 Society, with Greenough, Lonsdale, Fitton, Murchison, 

 Leonard Horner, Daniel Sharpe, Falconer and others 

 who actually worked in the museum or largely contributed 

 to its stores. Those inspired with such sentiment would 

 prefer to see the specimens well taken care of and ac- 

 cessible. It is reckoned that there are 2460 figured or 

 described fossils. In the interests of geological science 

 it is desirable that these be placed in the British Museum, 

 Cromwell Road, where as many type-specimens as pos- 

 sible should be deposited ; and it would not be difficult 

 to find appropriate resting-places for all other specimens 

 worthy of preservation. 



The question is simply this : How can the specimens 

 in the museum be best dealt with in the interests of 

 geological science ? And we hope the Society will sooi> 

 settle it to the satisfaction of the fellows and of geologists 

 in general. 



THE ROYAL SOCIETY CONVERSAZIONE. 



THE conversazione held at the rooms of the Royal 

 Society on May 8 was a very successful one, and 

 a large gathering assembled to e.xamine the many in- 

 teresting objects contributed by the fellows and others. 

 We regret that the pressure on our space does not permit 

 the publication of the various explanations carefully 

 given in the official catalogue. But some of the more 

 important of the exhibits have already been referred to in 

 our columns, and we propose to return to more of them 

 later on. 



Mr. J. E. S. Moore, the Tanganyika problem. This exhibit 

 was intended to give some idea of the additions which have been 

 made by Mr. Moore, during the second Tanganyika Expedition, 

 to our knowledge of the faun;? in the great African lakes. 



Dr. H. E. Annett and Mr. J. E. Dutton, of the School of 

 Tropical Medicine, University College, Liverpool : (l) Speci- 

 mens of some new blood Filari;ie, (2) specimens illustrating the 

 life-history of Ankylostoma duodcnah of the Chimpanzee, 

 .Mr. T. Mackenzie Davidson : (I) Stereoscopic transparencies of 

 electrical discharges, and (2) skiagrams of bullet wounds. Mr. 

 Eric S. Bruce, the meteo-parachute, a new instrument for in- 

 vestigating the upper atmosphere. 



Commander D. Wilson-Barker, cloud photographs. Prof. 

 J. W. Judd, F.R.S., on behalf of the Coral Reef Committee of 

 the Royal Society, specimens of Foraminifera and Ostracoda, 

 from Funafuti, Ellice Islands. Mr. H. J. Elwes, F.R.S., re- 

 versible drawers of butterflies from the Holarctic Region 

 arranged to show wide distribution and adaptability to extremes 

 of climate. Also to show variation and difficulty of apply- 

 ing binomial system of nomenclature. Mr. Killingworth 

 Hedges, fulgurites, or lightning tubes, from the sand hills at 

 Kensington, N.S.W. 



Mr. J- E. Barnard and Dr. Allan Macfadyen exhibited 

 luminous bacteria (from the Bacteriological Laboratory of the 

 Jenner Institute of Preventive Medicine). The luininoiis 

 bacteria are a group of organisms, whose natural habitat is 

 sea- water. They are the cause of the so called phosphor- 

 escence to be seen at times on such objects as dead fish, meat. 



