328 



NATURE 



[August 4, 1904 



contribution to tlie discussion of the struggle for life 

 among a single species on a small island. 



Three years ago Mr. Evans was stricken down by 

 what with most men would have been a fatal illness. 

 But his strength of constitution and marvellous deter- 

 mination of character enabled him to recover suf- 

 ficiently to be once more able to resume his voyaging in 

 the Aster. Deer-stalking, however, with all its joys 

 among the corries of Jura was no longer possible for 

 him. Accordingly he gave up his deer-forest and pur- 

 chased the beautiful estate of Ascog, in Bute, which he 

 immediately set about to alter and improve. At the 

 end of June last he started with a few friends on what 

 proved to be his longest and last cruise. Under 

 pleasant conditions of weather he visited all his 

 favourite haunts— the cliffs of Mingulay and Barra 

 Head, the sea-lochs of the chain of the Outer Hebrides, 

 the precipices of .St. Kilda with their vast swarms of 

 sea-fowl, the fjords of western Sutherland, the cliffs 

 and inlets of Orkney, and the voes and furthest islets 

 of Shetland. In many of these places the Aster was 

 a familiar visitor, and was received with blowing of 

 horns and other signs of welcome. At St. Kilda the 

 villagers ran up their flag, and half the popula- 

 tion came out in a couple of boats to see their 

 old friend and benefactor, who never failed to 

 bring them some token of his thoughtful interest 

 in their welfare. The cruise was successfully 

 completed by the return of the yacht to Oban, but be- 

 fore the final day, which was to include the rounding 

 of the Mull of Cantyre and the passage up the Firth of 

 Clyde to Bute, it was resolved to anchor opposite the 

 old Jura home and to spend there the following Sunday 

 (July 24). Mr. Evans had been remarkablv well all 

 the voyage, and was delighted to have successfully 

 accomplished all that he had wished to do. On reach- 

 ing Jura he went ashore for a short walk along the 

 coast-road. He had hardly landed, however, and was 

 in the act of conversing with an old gamekeeper who 

 had come down to greet him when he dropped dead as 

 he sat. His retiring modesty kept him from making 

 many friends, but his frank and kindly nature and hi's 

 vein of quaint humour endeared him to the restricted 

 circle that was privileged with his friendship. He will 

 be mourned by many a lowly family in the west of 

 Scotland that has good reason to remember his cheery 

 greeting and his generous help. He has left a benefac- 

 tion to the museum of Cambridge University, which 

 has already been enriched by valuable contributions 

 from him in his life-time. A. G. 



NOTES. 



Captain Arthur Mostvn Field, R.N., has been appointed 

 successor to Rear-.Adniiral .Sir W. J. L. Wharton, K.C.B., 

 F.R.S., as hydrographer to the Navy, the retirement of Sir 

 William Wharton having taken place on Monday last. 



The next annual meeting of the British Medical Associ- 

 ation will take place in Leicester, the president-elect being 

 Mr. G. C. Franklin, senior surgeon to the Leicester 

 Infirmary. The council of the association will recommend 

 that the meeting in 1906 be held in Toronto. 



Till-: next session of the American Medical Association 

 will take place from July 11 to 14, 1905, at Portland, Oregon, 

 under the presidency of Dr. Louis S. McMurtry, of Louis- 

 ville, Kentucky. 



The Board of Estimate of the City of New York has 

 voted the sum of 2000/. towards an investigation by a com- 

 NO. 1814, VOL. 70] 



mission of medical experts as to the contagious nature or 

 otherwise of pneumonia. 



The FifzPatrIck lectures at the Royal College of 

 Physicians for the present year will be delivered bv Dr. 

 J. Frank Payne on November 8 and 11, the titles being 

 respectively " Gilbertus Angllcus and Medicine In the .Anglo- 

 Norman Period," and " Ricardus Anglicus and the History 

 of Anatomy in the Middle Ages." The Bradshaw lecture 

 will be delivered on November 15, the lecturer — Dr. V. F. 

 Caiger — talcing as his subject " The Treatment of Enteric 

 Fever." 



The following lecture arrangements for 1905 have been 

 made in connection with the Royal College of Physicians : — 

 The Goulstonian lecturer will be Dr. W. C. Bosanquet ; the 

 Ml'lroy, Dr. T. M. Legge ; the Lumleian, Dr. W. H. 

 Allchin ; the Oliver Sharpey, Dr. L. E. Mill; the Fitz- 

 Patrick, Dr. Norjnan Moore 



An American Society of Tropical Medicine has been started 

 in Philadelphia. Dr. T. H. Fenton Is the first president, 

 and a number of men of science who have made researches 

 In the prevention of tropical diseases have been elected 

 honorary members. Among the latter we notice the names 

 of Sir I'atrick Manson, F.R.S., Dr. C. J. Martin, F.R.S., 

 and Prof. R. Koch. 



Johns Hopkins University is. It is reported, about to 

 undertake systematic work on the subject of tuberculosis. 

 Mr. Henry Phipps, of Pittsburg, has given the sum of 

 4000/., by the help of which a dispensary building is to be 

 erected so arranged that the treatment of patients may be 

 attended to and the disease investigated. 



.A Reuter telegram published in the Times states that 

 according to a private telegram published by the VerJcns 

 Gang from Finaes, in Finland, the captain of a vessel from 

 Tromso reports having found a bottle containing a letter 

 sent off from M. Andr^e's Polar balloon expedition. The 

 bottle, which was picked up on a small island north of .Spits- 

 bergen, contains a letter bearing a date in 1898. Particulars 

 as to the contents of the letter will not be available for 

 another month. A private telegram from Finaes published 

 by the Landsblad says that the bottle was found on the 

 island of Moffen, to the north of Spitsbergen. 



.\ Bo.\RD of Agriculture has recently been established in 

 the Bahamas, and a botanic station is to be started in con- 

 nection with it for which a curator will be required. 

 .Applications for the post should be made in the first Instance 

 to the Imperial Commissioner of .\grlculture for the West 

 Indies, Barbados. 



The Barker anatomical prize of thirty guineas has been 

 awarded to Mr. Charles Cooper, a student in the Royal 

 College of Surgeons, Dublin. The prize is offered annually, 

 and is open to all students in anv medical school In the 

 United Kingdom. This is the fifth successive year the prize 

 has been conferred on a student of a Dublin college. 



The St. Bartholomew's Hospital testimonial to Mr. .Alfred 

 Wlllett will, says the Lancet, take the form of a silver medal 

 to be known as the " Willett medal," which will be awarded 

 each year to the candidate obtaining the highest marks in 

 operative surgery in the Brackenbury surgical scholarship. 

 A gold medal of the same design will be presented to Mr. 

 Willett. 



The death is announced of Prof. SImonds, formerly 

 principal of the Royal \'ftprinary College, and consulting 



