468 
INA TOLLE: 
[Marcu 17, 1904 
(5) constant attention to collections of water in gardens 
of houses and bungalows. In addition the segregation 
of Europeans was carried out to a limited degree, re- 
moving them from the vicinity of infected natives, 
treatment of all infected persons with quinine and the 
prophylactic use of quinine, the troops being paraded 
twice a week for this purpose. The results obtained 
were a distinct but not great diminution in the number 
of Anopheles present in the houses, and a diminu- 
tion in the admission rate for ague to 269 per 1000, 
the lowest rate on record (1902 happened to be, how- 
ever, an exceptionally healthy year). Captain James 
concludes that mosquito destruction, even though not 
obviously reducing the number of Anopheles, brings 
about a decrease in the amount of malaria, but is 
difficult to carry out and is expensive; apparently the 
campaign against the mosquitoes at Mian-Mir was 
not nearly so successful as that in Lagos. He 
attributes great value to the other measures, viz. the 
continued and systematic treatment with quinine of 
the native children, who are undoubtedly the chief 
source of infection, and the prophylactic use of quinine. 
R. T. HEWLETT. 
M. HENRY PERROTIN. 
“T“HE cause of astronomical science in France has 
been deprived of another of its ablest advocates 
by the lamented death of M. Perrotin, the director of 
the observatory at Nice. For more than twenty years 
M. Perrotin has watched over the growth and directed 
the energies of that institution. It was his good 
fortune, through the munificence of M. Bischoffsheim, 
to be able to erect and arrange a well equipped observ- 
atory to his own design, unhampered by legacies from 
former benefactors or directors. How the work grew 
under his hand astronomers have long since recog- 
nised and appreciated. As each instrument was com- 
pleted it was immediately devoted to some special pur- 
pose. The meridian instrument was employed to 
determine the difference of longitude between Paris and 
the observatory, and to complete the chain Paris-Nice- 
Milan long before the observatory was in working 
order as a whole. The fifteen-inch equatorial was at 
work on double stars, planetary markings, comets, 
&c., before the large instrument of thirty inches aper- 
ture, under the mammoth “‘ floating dome,’’ could be 
devoted to the more rigorous scrutiny of faint and 
difficult objects. 
It is scarcely necessary here to direct attention to 
the industry that marked the career of the first director 
of the Nice Observatory, or to the value of the re- 
searches produced by the staff under his guidance and 
encouragement. The work of M. Thollon on the solar 
spectrum may serve as a specimen in the department 
of spectroscopy. The discovery of many minor planets 
shows the care with which the photographic plates 
were taken and scrutinised. More particularly as the 
work of M. Perrotin, personally, should be mentioned 
his discussion of the inequalities in the orbit of Vesta, 
a research to which he devoted much time, interrupted 
as it must frequently have been by the care of the 
establishment under his charge. As an observer he 
was indefatigable, and devoted much time to the study 
of the faint markings on Venus, on Mars, and on 
Uranus. Aware that he was working at the extreme 
limit of visibility, and knowing the tendency for self- 
deception to creep in and impair the value of such 
delicate observations, he sought opportunities of 
making similar measures and records with different 
instruments, and under varied conditions, in order to 
remove, so far as possible, the evils of bias and 
partiality from the results of his researches. Excessive 
NO. 1794, VOL. 69] 
and painstaking care marked his efforts to secure 
rigorous accuracy. : 
Apart from his astronomical work, properly so 
called, in the department of physics, he added another 
determination to those that have been made on the 
velocity of light, which we recall here mainly to show 
the varied character of his researches and the energy 
which he displayed in whatever he undertook. His life 
was a busy one, and he did not spare himself. The 
great monument that he has left behind is the magnifi- 
cent observatory at Mont Gros, and his greatest service 
to science is perhaps the activity which he inspired in 
those by whom he was surrounded. At the com- 
paratively early age of fifty-eight he has succumbed, but 
he leaves behind him a memory that will be long 
treasured by all those whose fortune it has been to 
assist him in earning the reputation that the young 
observatory at Nice has already won. 
‘NOTES. 
Tue Croonian lecture of the Royal Society will be delivered 
on March 24, the subject being ‘‘ The Chemical Regulation 
of the Secretory Process,’’ by Prof. E. H. Starling, F-R.S., 
and Dr. W. M. Bayliss, F.R.S. The Bakerian lecture will 
be delivered during May by Prof. E. Rutherford, F.R.S., 
of Montreal, on ‘‘ The Succession of Changes in Radio- 
active Substances.”’ 
THE annual inspection of the National Physical Labor- 
atory by the General Board will be held to-morrow, 
March 18. 
Pror. Ostwatp will deliver the Faraday lecture of the 
Chemical Society on April 19 in the theatre of the Royal 
Institution. 
Pror. Acassiz has been elected a foreign associate of the 
Paris Academy of Sciences in succession to Sir George 
Stokes; and Prof. E. Warming, Copenhagen, has been 
elected a correspondant of the academy. 
Sir Arruur Rtcker will deliver the academic address at 
the close of the present session at the University College of 
North Wales, Bangor. 
Dr. Ropert LurHer has been appointed professor of 
physical chemistry at the University of Leipzig. 
Tue deaths are announced of Dr. Wilhelm Schnell, pro- 
fessor of mechanics and synthetic geometry at the Technical 
School of Carlsruhe, and of Dr. von Pallich, assistant in 
physics and director of the meteorological station at the 
University of Graz. 
Tue Belgian Royal Academy has awarded its gold medal 
of 1000 francs to M. Mare de Selys-Longchamps for his 
memoir on the development of a Phoronis. The Théophile 
Gluge prize for physiology has been awarded to Dr. P. Nolf, 
of the University of Liége. 
Tue following have been elected associates of the Belgian 
Royal Academy (Classe des Sciences) :—Profs. George 
Howard Darwin (England), Corrado Segre (Turin), Wilhelm 
Roux (Halle-sur-Saale), and M. Michel Lévy, of the French 
Geological Survey. 
Tue foundation of Schnyder von Wartensee offers, says 
Science, its prize of about 14ol. for an essay on the climate 
of Switzerland during the last thirty-seven years. Essays, 
which may be in English, should be sent before September 
30, 1906, to the library at Zurich. 
A Reuter message from Rome reports that at 5.30 a.m. 
on March 10 a very violent earthquake shock, followed by 
four others, was felt at Magliano di Marsi, On the same 
