NovEMBER 19, 1903] 
INCI CMI 61 
tion, even twenty years ago, was fitly indicated by his 
selection, in April, 1882, to attend Darwin’s funeral 
in Westminster Abbey as the representative of the 
Liverpool scientific societies. On the occasion of the 
last visit of the British Association to Liverpool, in 
1896, Thompson was one of the local secretaries, and 
his colleagues can testify how well he did his share 
of the hard work, and how much the success of that 
large meeting depended upon his admirable business 
arrangements and careful attention to detail. He was 
a fellow of the Linnean Society and a regular and 
active member of Section D at British Association 
meetings. He was one of the founders of the Liver- 
pool Biological Society and the L.M.B.C., and it was 
in connection with the latter, and during the last 
fifteen years, that most of his original scientific work 
was done. 
Isaac Thompson was a good example of the serious 
amateur who does sound systematic work and makes 
lasting contributions to science. His loss will be 
keenly felt, not only in Liverpool, but by the large 
number of scientific men throughout the country who 
were his personal friends. We all admired his sterling, 
upright character and his sympathetic loving nature. 
W. A. H. 
NOTES. 
Pror. J. H. van ’t Horr and Dr. Robert Koch have 
been elected honorary members of the Vienna Academy of 
Sciences. Sir William Ramsay, Prof. G. B. von Neumayer, 
Prof. H. Poincaré, Prof. E. J. Marey, and Prof. K. Golgi 
have been elected foreign correspondents of the same 
Academy. 
Tue death is announced of Prof. Robert H. Thurston, of 
Cornell University, at the age of sixty-four. From 1866 
to 1871 Prof. Thurston occupied the chair of natural philo- 
sophy at the United States Naval Academy. Subsequently 
he became professor of engineering at Stevens Institute, 
where he remained until he proceeded to Cornell, in 1885, 
as professor of mechanical technology. 
Dr. EINaR LONNBERG has been appointed director of the 
zoological department of the Museum of Gothenburg. 
REUTER reports that two earthquake shocks were felt at 
Shuraz, Persia, on the night of November 14. 
Mr. W. J. PaLmer, a graduate of the Ontario Agricultural 
College, has been appointed director of agriculture in the 
Orange River Colony at a salary of 12001. per annum. 
: TuE sixth International Congress of Applied Chemistry 
is to be held at Rome in 1906. Prof. E. Paterno, of Rome, 
has been elected president of the organising committee. 
Ir is stated by La Nature that the body of a Tyrolese 
guide who fell into a crevasse on the glacier of Gross- 
venediger, in the Austrian Alps, thirty years ago, has been 
found in a remarkable state of preservation at the foot of 
the glacier. 
A MONUMENT to the brothers Haiiy was unveiled at their 
birthplace, Saint-Just-en-Chaussée (Oise), on November 8. 
The elder brother, René Just Haiiy, who died in 1822, 
was the eminent mineralogist. The ceremony was presided 
over by M. Edmond Perrier. 
AT a meeting of the Royal Statistical Society held on 
Tuesday, the president, Major P. G. Craigie, C.B., de- 
livered his opening address. Before doing so he presented, 
on behalf of the council and the society, a Guy medal in 
silver to M. Yves Guyot, for his paper on ‘*‘ The Sugar 
NO. 1777, VOL. 69] 
| Industry of the Continent,’’ which was read before the 
society on May 29, 1902. 
Tue Craggs research prize, for the best piece of original 
work done during the current year by present or past 
students of the London School of Tropical Medicine, has 
been awarded to Dr. Aldo Castellani for his researches into 
the etiology of sleeping sickness. Dr, Travers has been 
awarded honourable mention for his paper ‘‘ Beri-Beri.”’ 
ComMMANDER PEARY was, on November 12, in Edinburgh, 
presented with the Royal Scottish Geographical Society’s 
Livingstone gold medal. Previous awards of the medal 
were to Sir Harry Johnston for discoveries in Africa, and 
to Dr. Sven Hedin for exploration in the central region of 
the Ural-Asian continent. 
Mr. M. H. Maw, of Walk House, Barrow-on-Humber, 
states that the radiant point of meteors seen by him in 
the early hours of Monday seemed to be about ten degrees 
south of the zenith. Meteors under the Pole Star seemed 
to move vertically down through 30° in about half a second. 
Taking the altitude of such a meteor to be eighty miles, 
the Jength of the arc described in half a second would be 
forty-two miles if the motion were at right angles to the 
line of sight. 
A Reuter telegram from Rome reports that experi- 
ments made by the Italian naval authorities with a new 
system of radio-telegraphy originated by Prof. Alessandro 
Artom have conclusively proved that the new system 
enables electric waves to be transmitted in a given direction. 
The Minister of Marine has instructed Lieutenant Pullino, 
director of the wireless telegraph station of Monte Mario 
(Rome), to give every assistance in further experiments with 
the Artom system. 
Tue Times reports that the expedition to Tibet, under 
Captain Rawling and Lieutenant Hargreaves, of the Somer- 
set Light Infantry, which left Leh in Ladak last May, 
arrived in Kashmir territory on October 4. Triangulation 
was extended as far as longitude 85° E., the highest latitude 
being 35° 45/, and lowest 32° 45. Many new lakes were 
discovered, the largest having an area of 70 square miles. 
One hundred points were fixed by triangulation, and lati- 
tudes of all the camps by astronomical observations ; 38,000 
square miles of country were surveyed. 
Tue following prizes have been awarded by the council 
of the Royal Society of Edinburgh :—(1) the Keith prize 
for 1899-1901 to Dr. Hugh Marshall for his discovery of 
the persulphates, and for his communications on the proper- 
ties and reactions of these salts, publisned in the Proceedings 
of the Society ; (2) the Makdougall-Brisbane prize for 1900- 
1902 to Dr. Arthur T. Masterman for his paper entitled 
‘“ The Early Development of Cribrella oculata (Forbes), with 
remarks on Echinoderm Development,” printed in vol. xl. 
of the Transactions of the Society. The prizes will be pre- 
sented at the meeting of the Society on December 7. 
A CORRESPONDENT of the Times reports that on November 
12 a balloon belonging to MM. Lebaudy, and called Le 
Jaune, started from Moisson, about 55 kilometres from 
Paris, at 9.10 a.m., arrived at tae Eiffel Tower at 10.50 
a.m., and effected its descent on the Champ de Mars. 
According to M. Juchmés, an aéronaut and one of two 
passengers, the balloon encountered at first a south-south- 
west wind travelling at the rate of six metres a second. 
Almost the whole way he had to keep the point of the 
balloon somewhat to the right of the direction he intended 
to take. The maximum altitude attained was 300 metres, 
but the average was about 100. 
