Marcu 31, 1904| 
NATURE 
y7/ 
NOTES. 
THE annual the British 
Association will commence at Cambridge on Wednesday, 
August 17. The president elect is the Right Hon. A. J. 
seventy-fourth meeting of 
Balfour, and the presidents of the sections will be as | 
Prof. | 
follows :—A, mathematical and physical science, 
Horace Lamb, F.R.S.; B, chemistry, Prof. Sydney Young, 
F.R.S.; C, geology, Mr. Aubrey Strahan, F.R.S.; D, 
zoology, Mr. W. Bateson, F.R.S.; E, geography, Mr. 
Douglas W. Freshfield; F, economic science and statistics, 
Prof. W. Smart; G, engineering, Hon. C. A. Parsons, 
F.R.S.; H, anthropology, Mr. Henry Balfour; I, physi- 
ology, Prof. C. S. Sherrington, F.R.S.; K, botany, Mr. 
Francis Darwin, F.R.S.; L, educational. science, the Lord 
Bishop of Hereford; conference of delegates of correspond- 
ing societies, chairman, Principal E. H. Griffiths, F.R.S. 
On Friday evening, August 19, a discourse on “ Ripple 
Marks and Sand-dunes”’ will be given by Prof. G. H. 
Darwin, F.R.S.; and on Monday, August 22, Prof. H. F. 
Osborn will deliver a lecture on ‘‘ Recent Explorations and 
Researches on Extinct Mammalia.”’ 
Tue King has approved of the award of the Royal Geo- 
graphical Society’s Royal medals for this year to Sir Harry 
Johnston and Commander R. F. Scott, R.N. The award 
to Sir Harry Johnston is made for his explorations of Africa 
and his investigations of African fauna, flora and peoples ; 
that to Commander Scott for the work accomplished by the 
Antarctic expedition during its first year in the Antarctic, 
and for his Antarctic sledge journey when he travelled 
nearly 300 miles farther south than any of his predecessors. 
The Murchison grant of the Royal Geographical Society 
has been awarded to Lieut. Colbeck for his services while 
in command of the Antarctic relief expedition. The Gill 
memorial is to be presented to Captain Irizar, of the Argen- 
tine Navy, for his rescue of the Nordenskjold Antarctic 
expedition. The Cuthbert Peek grant has been awarded to 
Don Juan Villalta for his geographical discoveries to the 
east of the Andes while in command of a Peruvian explor- 
ing expedition; and the Back grant to Dr. M. A. Stein 
for his geographical work in Central Asia, and especially 
for his mapping in the Mustaghata and Kuen Lun ranges. 
REUTER reports that two rather severe shocks of earth- 
quake were felt on Monday afternoon at Temir-khan-shura, 
in the province of Daghestan, in the Caucasus. 
THE twelfth ‘‘ James Forrest ’’ lecture of the Institution 
of Civil Engineers will be delivered by Mr. Dugald Clerk 
on Thursday, April 21, the subject being ‘‘ Internal Com- 
bustion Engines.’’ 
A SEVERE storm was experienced in the island of Réunion 
on March 21 and 22. The barometer fell to nearly 28 inches. 
The damage appears to have been very great. 
Tue British Medical Journal announces that Dr. Percival 
Wright has resigned the chair of botany in Trinity College, 
Dublin, after thirty-six years’ service. He has consented, 
however, to continue to act as keeper of the herbarium. 
GENERAL Bassot has been appointed director of Nice 
Observatory in succession to the late M. Henri Perrotin. 
General Bassot is a member of the Bureau des Longitudes, 
and succeeded the late M. Faye as president of the Inter- 
national Geodetic Association last year. 
Tue following motion was agreed to by the council of 
the Central and Associated Chambers of Commerce at a 
meeting held on Tuesday :—‘‘ That this Chamber would 
welcome a measure to facilitate a more practical system 
of weights and measures than now in use in this country 
NO. 1796, VOL. 69| 
by the introduction of a decimal system, but not by adopting 
the metric system, which has no affinity to any existing 
denomination used in trade or in the United 
Kingdom.”’ 
commerce 
SomE important changes in the constitution and manage- 
ment of the New Zealand Institute were made during the 
last session of the New Zealand House of Representatives. 
Under the New Zealand Institute Act of 1867 the institute 
was controlled by a board of governors consisting chiefly 
of members nominated by the Government, the different 
local institutes (now eight in number) incorporated with the 
institute being represented only by three members chosen 
by the board from nominations made by these eight in- 
corporated institutes, and the director of the Geological 
Survey was by the Act made the permanent manager of 
the institute. This position has been filled for thirty-five 
years by Sir James Hector, under whose editorship the first 
thirty-five volumes of the Transactions of the new institute 
have been published. Shortly after Sir James Hector re- 
tired, at the end of June, 1903, an Act was passed by the 
New Zealand Parliament by which the institute was separ- 
ated from the Geological Survey, the Colonial Museum and 
other Government departments with which it had been 
more or less intimately associated in the past, and at the 
same time the constitution of the board of governors was 
altered, so that it now consists of the governor, the Colonial 
Secretary, four members nominated by the Government, 
two elected by each of the incorporated institutes at Auck- 
land, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, and one by 
each of the institutes at the smaller centres. The whole 
control of the institute and of the publication of its Trans- 
actions is entrusted to this board, which has also the power 
of electing the president of the institute. The first meeting 
of this newly constituted board was held in Wellington in 
January last, when Captain F. W. Hutton, F.R.S., was 
unanimously elected president, and Mr. A. Hamilton, 
curator of the Colonial Museum at Wellington, was made 
editor of the Transactions. The board decided to direct the 
attention of the Government to the urgent necessity of in- 
vestigating the fauna and flora of the outlying islands of 
New Zealand and of preserving them so far as possible from 
destruction. Other matters of more local interest were dealt 
with, and the board showed that it is likely to be a vigorous 
body, and will leave no stone unturned in its efforts to 
advance the interests of science in New Zealand. 
REFERRING to a note in the issue of March 17 comment- 
ing on an article by him in the Field Naturalists’ Quarterly, 
Mr. R. H. Wallace writes to say that the schemes of work 
in connection with spring flowers to which attention was 
directed in our note ‘‘ are schemes that have been actually 
carried out by their authors in the schools they represent.” 
Tue directors of the Cunard Company have decided to 
adopt turbines in the new fast steamers to be built under 
the agreement with the British Government. A committee 
was appointed by the company last September to consider 
the question, and its report has been presented to the 
directors. The work of thé committee has been largely 
experimental. Two series of comparative tests have been 
carried out, one on shore at the Neptune Bank station of 
the Newcastle-on-Tyne Supply Company, the other 
afloat with the steamships Arundel and Brighton, of the 
Newhaven-Dieppe route. The results obtained with the two 
steamships were exactly comparable, as the Arundel and 
The only difference 
and 
Brighton are practically sister vessels. 
is in the machinery, the Brighton having turbine engines 
and the Arundel reciprocating engines. During the whole 
