January 7, 1904] 
details. The owners are to be congratulated, not only on 
the general character of the exhibition, but likewise on the 
fact that none of the photos have been “‘ touched up.’’ Mr. 
Cherry Kearton specially prides himself on the photo of a 
great crested grebe on her nest, which took seven days’ 
watching before it could be secured. 
Sir Wiiiiam Ramsay, K.C.B., will, we learn from 
Science, give a course of lectures during the summer session 
at the University of California on ‘‘ The Constituents of the 
Atmosphere and the Emanations from Radium.”’ 
Tue year 1905 being the tenth anniversary of Rontgen’s 
discovery of the X-rays, it is proposed to commemorate the 
eceasion by holding in Berlin a Réntgen congress, together 
with a R6ntgen exhibition. Information regarding the 
arrangements will be obtainable from Prof. R. Eberlein or 
Dr. Immelmann, of Berlin. 
A sprciaL meeting of the Berlin Geographical Society 
will be held on January 13 to greet the members of the 
German Antarctic Expedition and receive the report of Prof. 
E. von Drvgalski on the course and results of the expedi- 
tion. An address will be given by Prof. Vanhoffen on the 
fauna of south polar regions. 
On Tuesday next, January 12, Prof. L. C. Miall will 
commence a course of six lectures at the toyal Institution 
‘on the ‘‘ Development and Transformations of Animals.”’ 
On Thursday, January. 14, Mr. G. R. M. Murray will deliver 
the first of three lectures on the ‘‘ Flora of the Ocean,’’ and 
on Saturday, January 16, Mr. J. A. Fuller-Maitland will 
begin a course of three lectures on ‘‘ British Folk-Song.”’ 
The Friday evening discourse on January 15 will be delivered 
iby the Right Hon. Lord Rayleigh, his subject being 
** Shadows ’’; on January 22 by the Rev. W. Sidgreaves, 
on ‘‘ Spectroscopic Studies of Astrophysical Problems at 
Stonyhurst College Observatory ’’; and on January 29 by 
Mr. D. G. Hogarth, on ‘‘ The Marshes of the Nile Delta.”’ 
Caprains S. P. JAMES anp W. GLEN Liston, of the Indian 
Medical Service, write from Simla to point out that the 
third volume of Mr. F. V. Theobald’s work on the Culicidze 
contains reproductions of portions of plates which they have 
prepared for a monograph on Indian Anopheles, and that 
statements are made in a number of cases without reference 
4o the work of the individual observers upon whose results 
they are based. We have referred the matter to Mr. 
Theobald, who writes:—‘ I much regret that the plates 
and information to which they refer should have been pub- 
dished without acknowledgment in my book. The omission 
was due entirely to inadvertence, occasioned by the press 
of matter calling for record in the work. Steps are being 
taken to remedy the error.” 
We learn from Science that the following Bill has been 
introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives and re- 
ferred to the committee on coinage, weights and measures :— 
** Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives 
of the United States of America in Congress assembled, | 
That on and after the first day of January, nineteen hundred 
and five, all the Departments of the Government of the | 
United States, in the transaction of all business requiring 
the use of weight and measurement, except in completing 
the survey of public lands, shall employ and use only the 
weights and measures of the metric system; and on and 
after the first day of January, nineteen hundred and six, 
the weights and measures of the metric system shall be the 
legal standard weights and measures of and in the United | 
States.” 
NO. 1784, VOL. 69] 
NATURE 
22m 
Tue Australian mail has brought the report of the meet- 
ing of the Linnean Society of New South Wales on 
November 25 last, from which we learn that the chairman 
made a preliminary announcement respecting the Macleay 
fellowships endowment—the late Sir William Macleay’s last 
and crowning benefaction to science. Subject to a life- 
interest in the principal on the part of his widow, lately 
deceased, Sir William bequeathed to the Society the sum 
of 35,000l. for the foundation and endowment of research 
fellowships, tenable by graduates in science of the Uni- 
versity of Sydney upon certain conditions specified in the 
testamentary directions. On October 24, 1903, the 
executors paid to the Society the sum of 33,250l., which the 
council has since invested at 4 per cent. per annum. The 
council does not expect to be in a position to make appoint- 
ments to the fellowships before abcut the middle of this 
year. 
Tue Times publishes the following communication from 
its Madrid correspondent :—‘‘ In anticipation of the total 
eclipse of the sun of August, 1905, the papers are beginning 
to urge the Government to include in the mstimates for 1904 
an item providing for a scientific mission of Spanish 
astronomers to be sent abroad, in order to study in foreign 
observatories the latest methods of investigating the pheno- 
menon. For the eclipse of 1900 the Cortes voted 190,000 
pesetas, but the measure was taken so late that the money 
was spent at a loss. It may be mentioned that the zone of 
about 200 kilometres covered by the eclipse of 1905 traverses 
Spain from Galicia and Asturias to Valencia and Castellon. 
The northern coast between Coruna and San Vicente de la 
Barquera, and the eastern from Valencia to the Gulf of 
San Jorge will be included in the zone of total obscurity. 
Observers at Ferrol, Lugo, Oviédo, Gijon, Léon, Palencia, 
Burgos, Soria, Teruel, and Saragossa will have some four 
minutes in which to make their observations. Madrid lies 
| to the south of the zone of total eclipse. It would be well 
if foreign astronomers would lend their sympathy to Spanish 
| students to facilitate the preparations for the most effective 
utilisation of these precious moments.”’ 
Wiru the daily weather report for January 1 the Meteor- 
ological Office issued a small subsidiary chart showing the 
total rainfall in 1903 at those stations which report by tele- 
graph, together with the percentages of the average annual 
fall for the thirty-five years 1866-1900. The chart shows 
very clearly the general distribution of the rainfall of the 
year, so far as it is represented by the stations referred to. 
The greatest fall, 67 inches, occurred at Valencia, 120 per 
cent. of the yearly average. At Stornoway the amount was 
62 inches, 133 per cent. of the average (46-62 inches), this 
latter value being nearly 10 inches less than the normal 
fall at Walencia. The smallest falls occurred on the 
east and south-east coasts of England; at Yarmouth the 
rainfall was only 24-83 inches, 95 per cent. of the average 
(2640 inches). The greatest percentage excess was 
registered in London, the aggregate amount being 38 
| inches, 156 per cent. of the average annual fall, and at 
| Oxford the rainfall amounted to 142 per cent. of the average. 
| Ar Greenwich (not shown on the chart) the rainfall for the 
| year was 35-58 inches, being 11-43 inches above the average 
for sixty years; there were 184 rainy days. The previous 
largest fall there in this period was 34-01 inches in the year 
1852. 
Some of the smaller shell-fish, especially cockles, have 
recently been found to be grossly contaminated with sewage. 
These fish form a staple article of diet among the poorer 
classes, and since they are cooked before consumption, it 
| might be thought that the bacillus of typhoid fever would 
