NA TURE 



[May 26, 1904 



sciences, but they could not achieve the same stril^ing 

 results. He thought it highly desirable that side by side 

 with physical sciences the societies which devoted them- 

 selves to moral and political sciences should be able to hold 

 their own, and he appealed to the representatives of those 

 academies to try to vie in energy and in determination to 

 succeed with those who represented physical science alone. 

 Replying to the toast, the Comte de Franqueville remarked 

 that science belonged to no country, and was essentially the 

 patriotism of humanity. Every scientific discovery, every 

 conviction, every step of progress, whoever the author might 

 be, in whatever country it took place, was spreading to 

 every land like the beams of the sun illuminating the worlds. 

 It was natural that all should contribute to that which 

 should be a profit to all ; to individual efforts and labours 

 they gave a common impetus, in grouping and classifying 

 the numerous problems which humanity had not yet solved. 



Sir William Huggins, K.C.B., has been elected a 

 foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences ; 

 and also an honorary member of the Royal Philosophical 

 Society of Glasgow. 



The Times correspondent at Colombo announces that Dr. 

 Castellan! has discovered the bacillus of dysentery, and will 

 shortly read a paper upon the subject before the Medical 

 Association. 



The Globe reports that Dr. Gottfried Merzbacher, who 

 has been engaged for two years on a scientific e.xpedition 

 in the Thian-shan Mountains, in Central Asia, has returned 

 to .Munich with many objects of geological, palreontological, 

 zoological and botanical interest. 



-A. Reuter telegram from Malta states that a slight shock 

 of earthquake was felt there at 6.13 a.m. on May 21. 



A Reuter message from Copenhagen, dated May 21, 

 states that the Danish scientific expedition to Greenland 

 has arrived in the Danish colony of West Greenland, and 

 reports that the Gjoea expedition, which started in August 

 of last year, was found at Dalrymple Rock. All the 

 members of both expeditions are well. 



We learn from the British Medical Journal that the Inter- 

 national Congress of Physiologists will hold its sixth meet- 

 ing at Brussels this year from August 30 to September 3. 

 All communications relative to the congress should be 

 addressed to Dr. Slosse, Institut Solvay, Pare Leopold, 

 Brussels, before July i. 



The annual meeting and conversazione of the Selborne 

 Society will be held at the Civil Service Commission, 

 Burlington Gardens, to-morrow. May 27. Lord Avebury, the 

 president of the society, will give an address. There will 

 also be a lecture, by Prof. B. H. Bentley, on " Flowers 

 and their Insect Visitors," and one by Mr. Fred Enoch 

 on " Colour Photography of Living Insects." 



We have received from the secretary of the Library 

 Association a report of the proceedings of the committee 

 of the Library Association on binding leathers. We notice 

 that more than sixty institutions have undertaken to try 

 the new leathers prepared — in accordance with the re- 

 commendations of the committee appointed by the Society 

 of .^rts — to obviate the rapid deterioration of book-binding 

 leathers. It is hoped that British producers will take care 

 to prepare the light leathers specified. 



."Vt a sale recently held by Mr. Stevens in King Street, 

 Covent Garden, a great auk's egg in fine condition was 

 NO. 1804, VOL 70] 



sold for two hundred guineas, the purchaser being Mr. 

 Pax. This is a considerable falling-off from the three 

 hundred guineas obtained for the las' specimen sold by Mr. 

 Stevens, the reason being attributed tc- the fact that several 

 other fine examples are in the market. VIr. Pax's specimen 

 w^as originally bought for two sovereigns. The next highest 

 price obtained at the recent sale was 8/. 185. 6d. for a clutch 

 of four eggs of Bonaparte's sandpiper. For a single egg, 

 the highest price was 27s. trf. for one of Pallas's sand- 

 grouse. 



Mr. a. W. McCurdy, at a recent meeting of the Canadian 

 Institute, gave an account of his invention of the device for 

 developing photographs without a dark room, now so well 

 known as the Kodalc developing machine. It appears that 

 his first idea was to use one solution that would both 

 develop and fix, containing pyrocatechin as the developer. 

 He afterwards employed a combined developer and fixer 

 containing pyrogallol and sodium carbonate to avoid the 

 troublesome caustic alkali. But separate developing and 

 fixing solutions have always been recommended by the 

 commercial makers of the apparatus, doubtless because of 

 the greater certainty when the operations art individually 

 controlled. 



The death is announced of Mr. J. N. Tata, the millionaire 

 philanthropist of Bombay. A correspondent of the Times 

 points out that Mr. Tata made experiments extei-.ding over 

 a series of years for the acclimatisation of Egyptian cotton 

 in India, and in suitable localities these met with some 

 measure of success. In many other directions, notably that 

 of sericulture after the Japanese method in Mysore, the 

 extension of the use of artesian wells and the introduction 

 of cold storage, Mr. Tata contributed to the industrial ex- 

 pansion of the country of his birth. Mr. Tata, by means 

 of his scholarships, tenable by Indian youths of special 

 promise in this country as well as on the Continent and in 

 Ainerica, afforded many of his young fellow-countrymen 

 exceptional opportunities for gaining technical knowledge. 

 The Indian University of Research, to be created at 

 Bangalore as the outcome of his offer of an endowment of 

 200,000/., will be the monument of his beneficent career. 



In the death of Mr. Frank Rutley, geological science has 

 lost an enthusiastic worker on rocks and rock-forming 

 minerals — one of the earlier investigators who brought the 

 microscope to bear on petrological studies. His interest in 

 geology was kindled at the Royal School of Mines, but he 

 served as lieutenant in the army for a few years before 

 1867, when he joined the staff of the Geological Survey 

 under Murchison. After carrying on field work for a time 

 in the Lake District, he began to devote his special atten- 

 tion to the study of igneous rocks, and was transferred to 

 the office in Jermyn Street, where he laboured for a number 

 of years as acting petrologist. In 1876 he described the 

 volcanic rocks of east Somerset and the Bristol district, and 

 subsequently wrote memoirs on the eruptive rocks of Brent 

 Tor and on the felsitic lavas of England and Wales. He 

 was the author of the first English text-book of petrology, 

 " The Study of Rocks " (1879), also of " Rock-forming 

 Minerals " (1888) and " Granites and Greenstones " (1894). 

 He likewise published a very useful handy book of 

 mineralogy which passed through several editions. To 

 the Geological Society he communicated papers relating to 

 perlitic and spherulitic structures, fulgurites, novaculites, 

 &c., and a special memoir on the rocks of the Malvern Hills. 

 In 1S81 the Murchison fund was awarded to him by the 

 council of the society. He resigned his post on the Geo- 

 logical Survey in 1SS2, when he was appointed lecturer on 



