6.s6 



NA JURE 



[October 31, 1901 



committee recommends that there should be nickel coins of five 

 and ten cents, and bronze coins of one, two and four cents or 

 farthings." 



Meetings of the committee appointed by the Board of Trade 

 to inquire and report as to the best means by which the State or 

 local authorities can assist scientific research as applied to pro- 

 blems afTecting the fisheries of Great Britain and Ireland took 

 place on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of last week for the 

 purpose of taking evidence. Sir Herbert Maxwell, M. P., pre- 

 sided. Dr. T. Wemyss Fulton, scientific superintendent to the 

 Scottish Fishery Board, and Mr. E. W. L. Holt, scientific 

 adviser to the fisheries branch of the Department of Agriculture, 

 &c., Ireland, were examined, and Mr. G. C. Bompas and Prof. 

 G. B. Howes gave evidence with regard to the Buckland fish 

 collection at South Kensington. Prof. E. Ray Lankester, the 

 president, and Mr. E. J. Allen, the director, of the Marine 

 Biological Association, and Mr. R. A. Dawson, superintendent 

 under the Lancashire and Western Sea Fisheries Committee, 

 also attended. Prof. Herdman, who is a member of the com- 

 mittee, submitted a scheme for fi.shery investigations in the Irish 

 Sea, and the committee adjourned till December 3. 



Mr. J. Stirling, Government Geologist, &c., Victoria, is 

 to lecture at the Imperial Institute on November 18, on " Brown 

 Coal Beds of Victoria, their Char.icters, Extent and Commercial 

 value"; on December 9 Mr. D. Ilutcheon, chief veterinary 

 surgeon for Cape Colony, is to speak on "Agricultural 

 Prospects of Cape Colony," and on December 16 Mr. H. N. 

 Ridley, director of the Botanic Gardens, Singapore, will deliver 

 an address on "The Economic Resources of the Straits Settle- 

 ments and the Malay Peninsula." All the meetings will take 

 place at 8.30 p.m. 



The provisional programme of the new session of the Royal 

 Geographical Society has just been issued and contains the 

 following arrangements : — November 11, the opening address 

 by the president, and " The Uganda Protectorate, Ruwenzori 

 and the Semliki Forest," by Sir Harry Johnston, K.C.B. ; 

 November 25, "Four Years' Travel and Survey in Persia," 

 by Major Molesworth Sykes ; December 9, " The Glaciers of 

 Kanchinjunga," by Mr. Douglas W. Freshfield. Among the other 

 papers which it is expected will be delivered during the session 

 may be mentioned : — " A Journey from Omdurman to Mombasa 

 by Lake Rudolf," by Major H. H. Austin, R.E. ; "The 

 Maldives'," by Mr. J. Stanley Gardiner ; "Journeys in W^estern 

 China," by Dr. R. L. Jack; "The Influence of Geographical 

 Conditions on History and Religion, with special reference to 

 Asia Minor," by Prof. W. M. Ramsay ; " An Expedition across 

 Abyssinia, through Kaffa and the Region to the West and 

 North," by Mr. Oscar Neumann ; " Southwards on the Antarctic 

 Sin-p Discovery ," hy Mr. George Murray, F. R.S., and Dr. H. R. 

 Mill ; " The Bedford Level and Experimental Demonstration 

 of the Rotundity of the Earth," by Mr. H. Yule Oldham ; " The 

 Snows of Canada," by Dr. Vaughan Cornish; " A Journey 

 from Quetta to Meshed by the. new Nushki Trade Route," by 

 the Earl of Ronaldshay ; " The Ice Conditions of the Antarctic," 

 by M. Henryk Arctowski ; " Methods and Appliances in the 

 Teachinjiof Geography. Special Lecture for Teachers," by 

 Mr. A. W. Andrews. . 



' An exhibition of scientific apparatus constructed by pupils 

 and teachers of the London School Board for the purpose of 

 teaching and illu.strating some of the branches of experimental 

 science is opened to-day at the Examination Hall, Victoria 

 Embankment, and will remain open until Monday nfext.;' Nb 

 charge is made for entrance, and the Board invite the inspection 

 "of the ' exhibits: Among the latter are to be found 'induction 

 coils,' iilegraph instruments, motors, voltameters, galvanometers, 

 NO. 1670, VOL. 64] 



Boyle's tubes, balances, and lantern and microscopic slides. \ 

 There will also be shown dissections in a preservative spirit, 

 such as a skate's ear, sheep's kidney, rabbit's lung, &c. 



Prof. Bashford Dean, says Science, has returned lo 

 Columbia University, bringing with him from the east an 

 almost complete series of developmental stages of the Port 

 Tackson shark, Heterodontus japoiiiciis, a number of stages in 

 the development of Chlamydosekachus, two new Myxinoids, a 

 new Chim.i;ra, together with a general zoological collection. 

 During a visit to the Hokkaido (Yezo), he brought together 

 several hundred specimens of Aino antiquities, which are now 

 deposited in the American Museum of Natural History in New 

 York. He also secured a collection of interesting glass sponges 

 from the region of Misaki, which are also destined for the 

 American Museum. Among other specimens are included a 

 number illustrating artificial selection, a series of the highly 

 specialised varieties of Japanese gold fishes, together with a 

 number of the long-tailed fowls of Tosa, whose tail feathers 

 sometimes reach the extraordinary length of fifteen feet. For 

 the Columbia collection he obtained during a visit in southern 

 Negros, P.I., a series of dissections of Nautilus, prepared from 

 fresh material. 



The sleam yacht Antarctic called at Falmouth on Saturday 

 last and left on the same day with the members of the Swedish 

 Antarctic Expedition on board. The leader of the expedition 

 is Dr. Otto Nordens'KJbld, whose work in Tierra del Fuego and 

 Spitsbergen is well known to geographers. Other members are 

 Captain Larsen ; Dr. A. Ohlin and Mr. K. Anderson, zoologists ; 

 Mr. C. Skottsberg, botanist ; Dr. G. Bodman, magnetician and 

 hydrographer ; and Dr. E. Ekelof, medical officer and bacteri- 

 ologist. From an article in the Times we learn that the vessel 

 will proceed direct to Buenos Ayres, and thence by Staten 

 Island (where the instruments will be compared with those of 

 the Argentine scientific station) and the Falkland Islands, to 

 the South Shetlands and the east coast of Graham Land (King 

 Oscar Land), where, if a suitable spot for the winter quarters 

 can be found, a station will be established for six or seven 

 persons, under the command of Dr. Nordenskjdld himself, and 

 observations carried out in harmony with thbfee of the British 

 and German expeditions. If, however, suitable quarters cannot 

 be obtained, the winter station will be established somewhat 

 further north. In any case, the ship, with two or three of the 

 scientific observers, will return to South America and the Falk- 

 land Islands for the winter, after the best possible use has been 

 made of the Antarctic summer. 



A SHORT account of Antarctic exploration, and of the pro- 

 blems which still await solution by systematic observations in 

 South Polar regions, is contributed to the October Quarterly 

 Review. The German and British ships, the Gauss &nA the 

 Discovery, have each been described as the best which have ever 

 left on voyages of discovery, but the Quarterly reviewer demurs 

 to this estimate, and remarks that Admiral Makaroff regards 

 both the vessels as at least half a century behind the times. A 

 steel ship like the great icebreaker Ermack is suggested as more 

 serviceable than wooden vessels. " All who have inspected the 

 Ermack, or have made a voyage in her, will probably admit that 

 she is the most powerful and efticient vessel afloat for explora- 

 tion, and the best equipped and most convenient for scientific 

 observation and research. Should the Tzar send this splendid 

 ship to the Antarctic seas next season her operations would most 

 certainly result in large additions to knowledge in directions 

 which cannot be attempted by the Discovery and the Gauss." 



Fro.m the point of view of tnodern shipbuilding, the opitiion 

 expressed in the foregoing note upon the Discovery as a ship for 

 scientific explorationis probably correct, but for obvious reasorts 

 if was impdssible to design and build a vessel regardless of 



