228 



NATURE 



[July 7, 1904 



were felt in Sheffield and the surrounding district. The 

 tremor was from west to east. At Matlock Bath there 

 were shocks running from north-east to south-west. The 

 tremor appears to have been felt almost simultaneously 

 throughout Derbyshire, south Yorkshire, Cheshire, and 

 Staffordshire. Writing from Leek, Staffs, Mr. G. H. 

 Martyn says the disturbance occurred there at 3h. 22jm. ± 

 im. p.m. " It seemed to be a succession of about a dozen 

 shocks in three seconds. The shocks increased to a 

 maximum at about the third, and then diminished until 

 imperceptible." Dr. Davison found a very slight record 

 of the disturbance upon his seismometer at Birmingham. 



The death is announced of Prof. T. Bredichin, formerly 

 director of the Pulkowa Observatory. 



The Vienna Academy of Sciences has awarded its Baum- 

 garten prize, of the value of about i6oZ., to Prof. Walter 

 Kaufmann, for his investigations on the theory of electrons. 



The first meeting of the trustees of the Percy Sladen 

 fund for the assistance of scientific research (see p. 182) 

 was held at the Linnean Society last week. The trustees 

 will not meet for the consideration of the first applications 

 before November next, and such applications should be 

 addressed to the clerk to the trustees of the Percy Sladen 

 Memorial Fund, care of the Linnean Society, Burlington 

 House, London, W., by the ist of that month. 



The Congress of the Royal Institute of Public Health 

 will be held at Folkestone on July 21-26, the Earl of 

 Radnor presiding. In the preventive medicine section. Dr. 

 Nash, medical officer of health, Southend, will open a dis- 

 cussion on a clean milk supply. In the section of 

 bacteriology. Dr. Klein, the president, will give an address 

 on the aim and scope of bacteriological analyses of water 

 and shell-fish with reference to sewage pollution, and the 

 report of a committee appointed to inquire into the methods 

 of bacteriological analysis of water will be presented by 

 Prof. Hewlett. Valuable papers and discussions are 

 promised in the other sections — engineering, child study, 

 and tropical medicine. 



At the second annual general meeting of the fellows of 

 the British Academy, held on June 29, Lord Reay was re- 

 elected president, and the following corresponding fellows 

 were elected, this being the first occasion on which such 

 fellows have been elected : — Count Ugo Balzani, Prof. H. 

 Diels, M. le Comte de Franqueville, Prof. M. J. de Goeje, 

 Prof. I. Goldziher, Prof. T. Gomperz, Prof. J. L. Heibergi 

 Piof. K. Krumbacher, Prof. F. Leo, M. Paul Meyer, M. 

 Georges Perrot, M. Georges Picot, and Prof. C. H. Sale- 

 mann. Sir Richard Jebb read a paper on Bacchylides, 

 dealing chiefly with three topics— the illustrations of his 

 mythology supplied by ancient art, the traces of earlier or 

 contemporary literature in his poems, and his relation to 

 Pindar. 



A BANQUET was given to Mr. Chamberlain on June 30 by 

 the Royal Institute of Public Health, in recognition of his 

 services to preventive and tropical medicine. In acknow- 

 ledging the honour, Mr. Chamberlain referred to the 

 progress made in recent years in medicine and surgery. 

 He remarked in the course of his speech that the light 

 which had been thrown on the origin of disease justified 

 the belief that " we are on the eve of great discoveries 

 which will relieve the human race from some of the greatest 

 scourges which have affected it. Now, at any rate, the 

 importance of securing healthy conditions of life is recog- 

 nised by everybody who cares for the welfare of his fellow- 

 creatures. Preventable disease, at this moment, is, as we 

 NO. 1810, VOL. 70] 



all know, a great agent for filling our workhouses, for 

 raising our taxes, for weakening the fibre of the people, for 

 preventing us from competing successfully in that eternal 

 struggle for existence which must go on as long as the 

 world shall last. In peace it is of the utmost importance, 

 in war the same cause destroys more of our soldiers than 

 the bullets or the swords of the enemy, and meanwhile the 

 administration of the Army is lessened in efficiency by the 

 preventable disease to which the agents of the Empire are 

 constantly subject. It is to the efforts of men like Sir 

 Patrick Manson, Major Ross, Prof. Haffkine, and others 

 who have been devoting their time and atention to tropical 

 medicine, to research into the causes of tropical disease, 

 with the remedies for those diseases — it is to that branch of 

 the science that my attention is chiefly directed." 



During a recent expedition under the auspices of the 

 Geographical Society of Baltimore for the purpose of making 

 scientific researches in the Bahamas, Mr. O. L. Fassig 

 made some interesting experiments with kites at Nassau, 

 one of which was made from a steamer hired for the 

 purpose. The ascents were made in the early part of July, 

 1903, and the results are published, with diagrams, in the 

 Monthly Weather Review for December last. From an 

 average of four ascents and seventy observations, there 

 was a decrease of 1° F. for each 100 feet of elevation up 

 to an altitude of 500 feet ; from 500 feet to 1000 feet the 

 decrease was 1° in 143 feet; from 1000 feet to 1500 feet 1° 

 in 167 feet ; between 1500 feet and 4000 feet the average 

 decrease was i° for each 191 feet of elevation. As regards 

 relative humidity, there was a steady increase from the 

 surface (73 per cent.) up to 4000 feet (96 per cent.), with 

 the exception of a small drop near the 3000-feet level ; this 

 drop was probably due to an excessive value caused by 

 the kite passing through clouds just below the 2500-feet 

 level on several occasions. 



We have received from Mr. H. .\rcto\vski, a member of 

 the Belgian Antarctic Expedition, a summary of the meteor- 

 ological results made on board the Belgica during its deten- 

 tion in the pack-ice. The paper in question is an excerpt 

 from the Annuaire mStiorologiqiie of the Brussels Observ- 

 atory for 1904 ; the volume containing the hourly meteor- 

 ological observations is now in the press ; five memoirs 

 dealing with other special matters have already been pub- 

 lished. The Belgica entered the " pack " on February 28, 



1898, and left it on March 14, 1S99 ; during this period the 

 ship was drifting over an area about the size of the Kara 

 Sea. The author has discussed the daily and monthly 

 means of the observations during a year, as if they were 

 made at one fi.Ked point ; the results, therefore, can only 

 be taken as approximately correct. The mean temperature 

 of the year was i4°-7 F., maximum 36°-5 on December 27, 

 minimum — 45°-6 on September S. The diurnal variation 

 was notably different in the several months ; grouping the 

 three summer months together (December to February), the 

 amplitude of the variation was 3°-8, while in winter (June 

 to August) it was only i°-i ; in November it amounted to 

 8°-5. The amount of precipitation is not given ; snow fell 

 on 260 days and rain on 20 days. Between March and 

 September aurone were observed on 61 occasions ; the 

 phenomenon was last seen during the night of March 12-13, 



1899. Fog or mist was observed on 261 days. 



We have received two important papers dealing with 

 extensions of the theory of Bessel's functions. One is by 

 Prof. C. Cailler, in the Memoires of the Geneva Physical 

 and Natural History Society (xxxiv., 4), and contains 

 an application of the operation designated by M. 

 Schlesinger as Laplace's transformation ; the other is a con- 



