NoveMBER 5, 1896] 
NATURE 
iat: 
A MEETING of the executive committee which has been 
formed in connection with the submarine telegraph memorial, 
was held on Friday last. Two resolutions were adopted as 
follows :—‘* That it is desirable to establish a memorial to the 
late Sir John Pender, G.C.M.G., to commemorate the leading 
part he took in the establishment and development of submarine 
telegraphy, and in its extension throughout the world.” ‘* That 
measures be taken for promoting in the year Igor a general 
international memorial recording the jubilee of international 
submarine telegraphy.” A meeting of the general committee 
will be held in about a fortnight, when the decision arrived at 
will be submitted for confirmation. 
CuRIstTMAS lectures specially adapted for children will this 
year be given at the Royal Institution by Prof. Silvanus P. 
Thompson, F.R.S., his subject being ‘‘ Visible and Invisible 
Light.” Prof. Augustus D. Waller, F.R.S., has been appointed 
Fullerian Professor of Physiology for three years, the appoint- 
ment to date from January 13, 1897; and Dr. Alexander Scott 
has been made the Superintendent of the Davy Faraday 
Research Laboratory of the Royal Institution, the Directors 
being Lord Rayleigh and Prof. Dewar. 
Mr. R. ETHERIDGE, late of the Geological Department of 
the British Museum, has been awarded by the Royal Geological 
Society of Cornwall its first Bolitho gold medal, in consideration 
of his services to Palzeontological science. 
THE objects exhibited in the ethnographical section of the 
Millennial Exhibition at Budapest are to be used as the nucleus of 
an ethnographical museum. The collection of machines in the 
special exhibition of the means of transport are to form a rail- 
Way museum, and the bulk of the exhibits in the agricultural 
section will be used for the foundation of an agricultural 
museum, 
A REUTER correspondent at St. John’s reports further mineral 
discoveries in Newfoundland. An immense deposit of silver and 
lead ore has been discovered at Lawn, on Placentia Bay. The 
lode is said to be one mile long and 18 feet deep, and is described 
as very rich. An offer of £50,000 for the mining rights is 
reported to have already been made. Rich gold-bearing quartz 
reefs have been found at Ming’s Bight, 200 miles north of St. 
John’s. 
SCIENCE has just lost an eminent investigator and teacher by 
the death of Dr. H. Newell Martin, F.R.S., late professor of 
biology in the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, U.S.A. In 
conjunction with Huxley, Prof. Martin wrote a manual of 
“* Practical Instruction in Elementary Biology,” which was pub- 
lished in 1875. He was also the author of a number of text- 
books of physiology ; and the seventh edition of his admirable 
volume on the structures and activities of ‘‘ The Human Body” 
reached us only a few days ago. Prof. Martin was in his 
forty-eighth year. 
Ir is reported in Sczence, upon the authority of the Honolulu 
correspondent of the United Associated Presses, that Mr. C. R. 
Bishop has authorised the Trustees of the Bishop Museum to 
expend 750,000 dols. in building an aquarium and marine bio- 
jogical station at Honolulu, for the scientific study of marine life 
in the Pacific. Prof. W. T. Brigham has just returned from 
visiting European aquariums, and is prepared to complete the 
plans. A body of professors and investigators will be maintained, 
and students will doubtless be attracted from Europe and 
America, 
WE regret to announce the death of Dr. Moritz Schiff, pro- 
fessor of physiology in the University of Geneva, at the age of 
seventy-six ; of Dr. Julius T. Wolff, the director of the private 
observatory—Photometrisches Observatorium—at Bonn, and 
NO. [410, VOL. 55] 
the last of Argelander’s pupils, at the age of seventy-six; of 
Prof. Dr. Eugen Sell, honorary professor of chemistry in 
Berlin University, at the age of fifty-four ; and of Prof. Gustav 
Kieseritski, professor of mathematics at the Polytechnic Institute 
in Riga. 
THE death is announced of M. Lucien Trécul, an eminent 
botanist, and member of the Paris Academy of Sciences. The 
Paris correspondent of the Chemzst and Druggist gives the 
following particulars as to Trécul’s life: —‘‘ He was seventy-eight 
years of age, having been born at Mondoubleau (Loir and Cher) 
in 1818. He studied pharmacy in Paris, and became a hospital 
pharmacist in 1841, his best-known contemporaries being MM. 
Chatin, a former director of the Paris School of Pharmacy, and 
Georges Ville, professor of agriculture at the Museum. About 
this time Trécul was attracted by the study of botany, and soon 
afterwards devoted himself entirely to it. Early in 1848, he was 
asked by the Minister of Agriculture and the Paris Natural 
History Museum to go to the United States to study the feculent 
roots used for alimentary purposes by the Indian tribes of North 
America. He left France early in the same year, and for a long 
time followed an Indian tribe in its wanderings over the prairies 
near the Rocky Mountains. He got together a superb collection 
of plants and animals. The ship carrying them to France was, 
however, lost in a storm during her voyage. M. Treécul, not 
discouraged, recommenced his work. He proceeded to Texas 
and Mexico, from whence he sent valuable collections to the 
Paris Museum.” He was a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, 
and became a member of the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1856. 
For the past forty years, or more, he lived a very secluded life, 
and was only heard of by occasional communications to the Paris 
Academy, and through his written works. 
NANSEN’S narrative, the forthcoming publication of which, in 
a newspaper, was warmly referred to in a note last week, 
appeared in the Daély Chronztcle of Monday, Tuesday, and 
Wednesday. Never before, in our knowledge, has such a 
stirring story been told of life amidst the ice and snow of the 
frozen north, and certainly never has the pages of a daily paper 
been embellished with such brilliant illustrations as those which 
accompany Nansen’s articles. Naturally the account deals 
almost entirely with the adventurous aspect of the expedition ; 
and as this was summarised (from telegrams communicated by 
Nansen to the Dazly Chronicle) in our issues of August 20 and 
September 3, no useful purpose would be served by repeating 
the descriptions then given. The geographical results of the 
expedition, so far as they have yet been made known, were 
brought together by Dr. Mill in an article which appeared in 
these columns on August 27. In his three articles in the 
Chronicle, Dr. Nansen carefully avoids going into any scientific 
details, and he is probably reserving these for the paper he will 
read before the Royal Geographical Society early next year. 
One or two natural history observations are, however, mentioned 
in the course of the narrative. In the neighbourhood of four 
islands in latitude 81° 38’ N. and longitude 63° E., in August 
1895, large numbers of the rare Ross’s gull (Ahodostethia rosea) 
were seen. We read: ‘‘ This, the most markedly polar of all 
bird forms, is easily recognisable from other species of gull by 
its beautiful rose-coloured breast, its wedge-shaped tail, and airy 
flight. It is without comparison the most beautiful of all the 
animal forms of the frozen regions. Hitherto it has only been 
seen by chance on the utmost confines of the unknown Polar 
Sea, and no one knew whence it came or whither it went; but 
here we had unexpectedly come upon its native haunt, and. 
although it was too late in the year to find its nests, there could 
be no doubt about its breeding in this region.” From November 
1895 to March 1896, no bears were seen, but foxes, both of the 
white variety and of the valuable dark-furred kind, constantly 
