NovEMBER 12, 1896] 
NATURE 
9 
a 
John Kirk when he was Consul General there, and since inter- 
rupted, may be continued. 
AT a meeting of the Royal College of Physicians held on 
Friday last, a Committee was appointed to consider and report 
to the college on the desirability of including the subject of 
bacteriology in the course of study and examination for the 
college licence. The members of the Committee are—Dr. Pavy, 
Dr. Church, Sir Dyce Duckworth, Dr. Ord, Dr. Poore, and Dr. 
Washbourn. At the same meeting, Sir William Roberts was 
announced as the Harveian Orator for 18G7 ; and it was decided 
that the sum of 1000/., presented by Captain E. Wilmot Williams, 
with the object of perpetuating the memory of the late Dr. Bisset- 
Hawkins in connection with the college, be utilised for the 
purpose of establishing a gold medal to be presented by the 
college. The medal will be awarded triennially to some duly- 
qualified medical practitioner who is a British subject, and who 
has during the preceding ten years done such work in advancing 
sanitary science, or in promoting public health, as in the opinion 
of the college deserves special recognition. 
A PRIZE of £50, to be called the Welby Prize, is offered for 
the best treatise upon the following subject: ‘‘The causes of 
the present obscurity and confusion in psychological and _philo- 
sophical terminology, and the directions in which we may hope 
for efficient practical remedy.” Competition is open to those 
who, previously to October 1, 1896, have passed the examina- 
tions qualifying for a degree at some European or American 
university. The Committee of Award will consider the prac- 
tical utility of the work submitted to them as of primary 
importance. The essays, which may be written in English, 
French, or German, must be type-written, and extend to at 
least 25,000 words. They should be headed by a motto, and 
accompanied by a sealed envelope containing the name of the 
writer. Manuscript from America should be sent to Prof. 
E. B. Titchener, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and must 
reach its address not later than October 1, 1897. 
Mr. FRANCIS GALTON traces, in the Fortnightly Review, a 
hypothetical discovery of a system of signalling from the planet 
Mars, and shows how a succession of signals, divided into dots, 
dashes, and lines of light according to their duration, might be 
interpreted. Savages can communicate with one another by 
gestures, deaf mutes by the movements of the lips, and criminals 
by alphabetical tappings upon the walls of their cells. Mr. 
Galton shows how, by a kind of Morse code, the Martians 
could first signal to us the summation of numbers, such as 
2+3=5, 3 + 3 =6, and also the results of multiplication and 
division. He does not consider the view of the fourth dimen- 
sionists, that possibly there are worlds where 2 + 2 = 3. After 
the arithmetical rules had been signalled, the supposition is that 
the relative distances of the planets from the sun were flashed 
to the earth ; then the relation between the circumference and 
diameter (7); then the area of the circle (77) ; then the names 
of a number of regular polygons, with the number of sides and 
area of each. Granting that the Martians were able to make 
themselves clear so far, they could develop a system of picture- 
writing. With three varieties of signal, twenty-seven com- 
binations would be possible, and each could represent a par- 
ticular word or sign. Each side of a polygon with twenty-four 
sides could, therefore, have a name of its own, and each one 
would have a definite bearing or direction with reference to the 
others. 
symbols of a number of sides, and, as each is received, a line is 
All is now plain sailing. The Martians signal the \ Nrawesnieni6. 
drawn in a particular direction. From the formula thus obtained, | 
a picture can be reproduced, as Mr. Galton showed at a Royal 
Institution lecture in 1893 (see NATURE, vol. xlvii. p. 342). 
‘The conclusion is that intelligible messages are possible between 
planets sufficiently near together for signalling purposes. 
NO, B4TiAVvOL. 55\| 
IN our last issue appeared an abstract of the presidential 
address delivered by Mr. J. Wolfe Barry, C.B., F.R.S., to the 
Institution of Civil Engineers, which now numbers nearly 7000 
members of all classes. Under the altered by-laws the session 
of the Civil Engineers commences on the first Tuesday in 
November, and lasts exactly six months, ending on the last 
Tuesday in April. By a supplemental Charter, obtained in 
March last, the number of the Council has been extended 
in order that all engineering interests, both at home and 
in the colonies and India, may be fully represented on 
that body, while corporate members have been given the 
power of voting for the election of the Council without 
the necessity of being present at the annual general meetings, 
a condition which had practically debarred the majority 
of the members from voting at all. During the past year 
some important changes in the staff of the Institution have 
taken place. Mr. James Forrest, who has been connected with 
the society for fifty-four years, has retired from the post of 
Secretary, his successor being Dr. Tudsbery. Mr. Forrest has 
been appointed Honorary Secretary ; while the retiring Honorary 
Secretary, Dr. W. Pole, F.R.S., has been, by a special vote of 
the Institution, enrolled in the distinguished list of Honorary 
Members. The following medals and premiums have been 
awarded by the Council to the authors of papers dealt with 
during the session 1895-96 :—Telford medals and premiums to 
H. Riall Sankey, late Captain R.E.; Prof. J. A. Ewing, 
F.R.S., J. O. Arnold, G. H. Hill, and F. E. Duckham ; Tel- 
ford medal and Manby premium to the Hon. R. C. Parsons ; 
Watt medals and Telford premiums to Jeremiah Head, Dr. E. 
L. Corthell, and C. F. Jenkin; George Stephenson medals 
and Telford premiums to G, F. Deacon, W. Adams, and W. 
F. Pettigrew ; Telford premiums to John Dewrance and A. F. 
Bruce ; Manby premiums to B. Donkin and Alan Brebner ; 
Crampton prizes to Hammersley Heenan, W. Gilbert, aq. 
Wrightson, H. F. Parshall, and D. T. Jarintzoff, Imperial 
Russian Navy; Trevithick premiums to 4. W. Szlumper and C. 
A. Rowlandson ; and Miller prizes to W. O. Leitch, jun., A. 
S. Butterworth, E. S. McDonald, S. Thow, J. Scott, J. 
Andrew, and M. De Ville. 
Mr. SHELDON JACKSON has filed, at Washington, a report of 
the condition of affairs in Alaska. Among items of interest 
are the statement that the Government herd of reindeer has 
increased in number to 1091; of which 337 are young of the 
present year, that have not attained sufficient maturity to enable 
them to endure the rigors of winter. The weather last winter 
was exceptionally severe, a temperature of —87° having been 
noted at one point, and — 20° having been sustained for a period 
of several weeks. 
NumBErs of swallows were seen skimming over the river Test, 
at Mottisfont, Hampshire, on Monday, November 2. Mr. W.C. 
Worsdell, who imparts this information, says they sometimes 
rose forty or fifty feet in the air, but for the most part they re- 
mained near the surface of the water. Probably this behaviour 
at a late season induced the old naturalists to think that swallows 
hibernated beneath the water. On October 27, Mr. Worsdell 
observed house-martins flying to and fro over Kew Gardens ; 
and on November 1, they were seen flying high in air above the 
New Forest. Mr. S. Stainer, writing from Southampton, says 
he saw five swallows briskly flying a little before sunset on 
A RAPID photographic printing machine was shown by Mr. 
Friese Greene at the Royal Society Conversazione in May last 
(see NATURE, vol. liv. p. 37). A roll of rapid bromide paper 
was fed in at one end of the machine, and finished prints were 
turned out at the other end at the rate of two or three thousand 
