August i6, 1883] 



NATURE 



375 



seismic disturbance. While the above-mentioned phe- 

 nomena were occurring in Ischia, without their b:ing 

 communicated to Rome, or even, for want of means, 

 properly noted on the spot, the existence of unusual sub- 

 terranean activity was simultaneously marked by the 

 instruments in all the observatories on the mainland. 

 That activity, though varying in intensity in different 

 places, manifested a general and regularly progressive 

 augmentation. Slight shocks of earthquake were felt at 

 various points. On July 25 the Solfatara of Albano, on 

 the extinct Latin volcanoes on the southern side of the 

 Roman Campagna, sent forth sounds never before re- 

 marked. On the same day a widely extended earth- 

 quake, reaching from Cosenza to Catanzaro, occurred in 

 Calabria. On Friday, the 27th, the hissing noises from 

 the Solfatara of Albano were so acute that the people did 

 not dare to draw the sulphur water for those who needed 

 it, and simultaneously the seismic instruments at Pe- 

 saro registtred severe oscillations. At Vesuvius on 

 the evening of Friday, the 27th, shocks were felt, 

 with an augmentation of activity. There were shocks at 

 Latera, upon the Ciminian volcanoes, and shocks at 

 Perugia. On the afternoon of the 28th renewed activity 

 was manifested at Pesaro and at Fermo ; and in short 

 the observations during that afternoon of general calm 

 throughout the peninsula gave indications of a vast 

 subterranean disturbance, extending as far as all Umbria, 

 the district of Viterbo, and the Marches. 



" The direction of these extended movements was every- 

 where identical with those at Casamicciola — namely, from 

 north to south, and from east to west. At the same time 

 also, on the morning of the 28th, the flow from the prin- 

 cipal source of the sulphur streams, near Tivoli, showed 

 a considerable diminution ; while simultaneously an in- 

 creased quantity of carbonic acid gas was given forth. 

 The regular observations at Bologna, at Pisanello, near 

 Piacenza, and at Rome, showed that there was a distinct 

 lowering in the levels of the wells before July 28, and as 

 marked a rise after that date. These frets confer in- 

 creased credibility on the imperfect evidence of there 

 having been a deficiency of water in the wells at Casa- 

 micciola. Moreover, on the morning of Sunday, the 

 29th, the usually very cold waters of the Solfatara of 

 Albano were in a boiling state. The intimate connection 

 between these phenomena on the peninsula and the 

 catastrophe in Ischia is more than evident, and iheir 

 distinct dynamic and volcanic character absolutely ex- 

 cludes the idea of a mere local sinking in the level.'' 



NOTES 



Telegrams from Drontheim to Vienna announce that the 

 members of the Austrian expedition to Jan Mayen have arrived 

 there safe and well, after an absence of six months. This « as 

 one of the circumpolar observing parties, and during the year's 

 residence on Jan Mayen neither officers nor men suffered from 

 scurvy or other disease. The chief of the expedition telegraphs 

 to the Geographical Society of Vienna that they have made 

 " perfect observations, rich collections and taken geodetic and 

 phutograpbic views of the island." 



During the coming year, we learn hom Science, experiments 

 will he made at the physical laboratory of Johns Hopkins Uni- 

 versity with a view to aid in establishing an in eruational ui.it of 

 electrical resistance. The experiments will be carried on under 

 the direction of Prof. Rowland, with an appropriation from the 

 Government of the United States. The results will be commu- 

 nicated to the International Commission of Electricians meeting 

 in Paris. 



Dr. Robert Moffat, the famous African missionary, has 

 died at the advanced age of eighty-seven years. He was among 

 the first to show the way to Central South Africa, and added 

 not a little to our knowledge of the Bechuanas and other tribes 



south of the Zambesi. He was Livingstone's father-in-law, and 

 the special direction of the great missionary-traveller's African 

 work was to a considerable extent due to Moffat's example anil 

 advice. 



The Ninth Annual Conference of the Cryptogamic Society of 

 Scotland will be held at Dumfries on September 11, 12, and 

 13. Fellows who purpose attending the Conference are 

 requested to communicate with the local Secretary, Mr. J. 

 Rutherford, Jardington, Dumfries. 



The statue of the brothers Montgolfier was unveiled at 

 Annonay on Monday, as part of the ceremonies commemorative 

 of the centenary of the inventors of balloon-'. M. de Fonvielle 

 writes to us from Annonay, August 12: "This celebration has 

 been organised merely by private exertions in continuation of the 

 banquet given by the Aeademie d' Aerostation of Paris on 

 November, 1SS2, to commemorate the centenary of the first 

 private experiment tried by Joseph Montgolfier at Avignon in his 

 rooms. A local committee was formed in Annonay under the 

 presidency of M. Seguin, the eldest son of Marc Seguin, 

 Member of the Institute, a nephew of the Montgolfier to whom 

 is attributed the creation in France of tubular boilers and metallic 

 bridges. M. Henry Vidon of Annonay was appointed general 

 secretary. The exertions of the Committee were very successful, 

 and about 40^0/. were collected, principally in the immediate 

 vicinity of Annonay and at Paris ; foreign subscriptions were 

 very few. It was decided to erect on the Place des Cordeliers, 

 where the first experiment took place on June 5, 1783, a statue 

 representing the two brothers inventing the 'Montgolfiere.' The 

 plaster cast has been executed, and will be inaugurated to- 

 morrow before a large audience. The ceremony will begin at 

 two o'clock with a speech delivered by M. Seguin, after which a 

 small Montgolfiere will be sent up from the exact spot where the 

 first experiment took place. On Saturday an aeronautical 

 ascent was made from the Champs de Mars with a small bal- 

 loon of 3000 cubic feet, the largest that the gas establishment could 

 fill without inconvenience." 



In the just published parts 4 and 5 of his " Abbildungen von 

 Vogelskelettes," Dr. Meyer, of Dresden, proves-that the Notornis 

 from the South Island of New Zealand belongs to a differe t 

 species from that from the North Island — Notornis mantelli — 

 and he names the former N. hochstetteri. It is known that Prof. 

 Owen founded on some fragments of the skull and the bones 

 from the North I land in the year 1S48 the genus Notornis, and 

 that he called the species, without then knowing a skin, .V. 

 mantelli, after the discoverer. The two skins, which were 

 figured by John Gould in the years iS50ani 1S69, and which no w 

 adorn the galleries of the British Museum, came from the South 

 Island, and were identified with thi bones from the North Island. 

 The Dresden Museum having acquired the skin and skeleton of 

 a specimen of Notornis hunted in the year 1879 on the South 

 Island — all three specimens were procured from within a range 

 of ninety miles— Dr. -Meyer compared bis >keleton with Prof. 

 Owen's life-size figures in the Transactions of the Zoological 

 Society, and found them to be different, which fact is not to be 

 wondered at, as New Zealand has proved to be very rich in 

 species of flightless birds, and as the Notornis fragments came 

 from another island than the three skins and the skeleton, per- 

 haps Notornis became extinct on the North Island, whereas it still 

 survives in certain parts of the South Is'and. Dr. Meyer is of 

 opinion that if the bones and the skull had been taken out of the 

 skii.s preserved in the British Museum, ene would have known 

 already in the year 1850, or at least in 1869, that they differed from 

 the Notornis mantelli fragments of the North Island. The name 

 of those skins, therefore, must be altered, according to Dr. 

 Meyer to N. hochstetteri. Dr. Meyer has figured the skeleton of 

 N. mantelli in plates 34-37 of his work. 



