160 
NATURE 
[DECEMBER 17, 1896 
treatment of the plague; and the authorities in Bombay are 
urged to request Dr. Yersin to visit their city, and to afford 
him opportunities of practising his serum injections on the 
plague-stricken. The success claimed for the serum in Amoy, 
China, can be readily tested in Bombay. 
REUTER reports that at Laurvik, on the southern coast 
of Norway, near the Swedish frontier, about nine o’clock on 
Monday morning, a wave of earthquake was perceived, taking 
the direction east to west. Several houses shook. At Karlstad 
in the province of Wermland, in Sweden, at 8.30 a.m. on 
Sunday, December 13, there occurred two very strong shocks 
of earthquake following each other in quick succession from 
south-east to north-west, and lasting about twenty seconds. 
Houses trembled, and furniture was thrown down. Seismic 
disturbances were also felt at other places in the province of 
Wermland. The shocks in this district were preceded by loud 
rumblings. 
WE are gratified to know that the year 1896 has not 
been permitted to pass without the formation of a strong 
and representative Committee to promote a national me- 
morial to Dr. Edward Jenner. At a meeting held 
St. George’s Hospital last week, Sir Joseph Lister 
occupying the chair, it was resolved, upon the proposition 
of the Bishop of Rochester: ‘‘ That the present year being the 
centenary of the first successful vaccination is an appropriate 
time to inaugurate a work of national utility in honour of 
Edward Jenner.” The resolution was seconded by Lord Reay, 
and supported by Sir Richard Quain and Dr. Michael Foster. 
Lord Glenesk moved the second resolution : ‘‘ That a subscription 
be set on foot with the view of founding some institution of a 
nature to be hereafter determined in connection with the British 
Institute of Preventive Medicine to be distinguished by Jenner’s 
name.” Dr. Wilks, in supporting the resolution, said that every 
civilised country in the world had accepted this discovery. 
We alone had no great national monument. Prof. Burdon 
Sanderson, Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson, Dr. Bond and Dr. 
Glover also expressed their support, and the resolution was 
passed. Prof. Clifford Allbutt moved: ‘‘ That a public meeting 
be called early in 1897 to consider the resolutions passed at this 
meeting, and to finally decide the form of the memorial.” He 
urged that the memorial should involve means of carrying on 
research. The motion was seconded by Mr. Brudenell Carter, 
and agreed to. A Committee, containing not only the names of 
a number of distinguished men of science, but of other men of 
“light and leading,” was nominated by the meeting ; so we may 
confidently expect to see, at no very distant date, a worthy 
monument erected in recognition of Jenner’s work and merit. 
at 
THE steamer W2/kommen, which arrived at New York from 
Dantzic a few days ago, is reported to have had a novel ex- 
perience. On the morning of November 17, in lat. 48° 10’ N., 
long. 44° E., an immense meteor fell from south-east to north- 
west, and leaving a trail of light which remained visible for 
several minutes, entered the ocean apparently about two miles 
ahead of the steamer. Fifty minutes later a great wave swept 
over the steamer, but there is no evidence that this had any 
connection with the fall of the meteor. 
THE preparation of a flora of Russia is being arranged, ac- 
cording to a Dazly News correspondent, by the Imperial Natural 
History Society of St. Petersburg. An appeal is to be sent to 
all institutions and persons occupied with the study of botany to 
assist in the work. The flora of European Russia will be pub- 
lished first, and followed in time by those of Asiatic Russia and 
the Caucasus, the material being acquired from voluntary 
workers. It is hoped that the undertaking will meet with 
support and encouragement because of its great scientific 
importance. 
NO. 1416, VOL. 55 | 
Pror. G. VICENTINI and Prof. G. Pacher, writing in the 
Atti e Memorte of the Academy of Padua, describe several 
interesting results obtained with the current of a Tesla trans- 
former, the most noteworthy effect being the production of 
shrill musical sounds with a disposition of the apparatus 
which the authors propose to call an ‘‘ electrical syren.” The 
phenomenon in question presents several peculiar features. 
AN apparent proof of the inheritance of acquired character- 
istics was obtained two years ago by Mr. Leonard Hill, in 
experiments upon guinea-pigs, the results being briefly de- 
scribed by him in these columns (vol. 50, p. 617). From a 
note in the current number of the Ayritish Medical Journal, 
upon a recent discussion at the Zoological Society, it appears 
that further experiments has led Mr. Hill to a conclusion 
opposed to that provisionally expressed in his letter to us. 
According to our contemporary, Mr. Hill has been entirely 
unable to confirm the experiments by which Brown-Séquard 
determined the inheritance of acquired characteristics. By 
division of the cervical sympathetic nerve, a permanent droop of 
the upper eyelid can be obtained. This Brown-Séquard stated 
to be inherited by the young. Mr. Hill divided the nerve in six 
guinea-pigs on the left side, but none of the children inherited 
the permanent droop of the eyelid. He again divided the nerve 
in twelve of the children, and interbred them, but none of the 
young inherited the permanent droop. A temporary droop of 
either the right or left upper eyelid, frequently observed in the 
young, was caused by conjunctivitis arising from infection of the 
eye at birth, for the young were never born with the droop. 
With the conjunctivitis disappeared the droop, which was not 
due to paralysis, but to photophobia, and often disappeared on 
sudden excitation of the animals. 
THE actual state of affairs as to the attempt to prevent free 
access to the Giant’s Causeway was described at a recent meet- 
ting of the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club, by the President, 
Mr. Lavens W. Ewart, in the following words :—‘‘ A few 
speculators have banded themselves together to endeavour to 
exclude the public from free access to this truly gigantic creation, 
and they have invoked the Court of Chancery to establish them 
in this undertaking. Three gentlemen, of whom, unfortunately, 
I am one, have been served with writs in respect of so-called 
trespass, and the battle has begun. A committee had already 
been formed to protect the rights of the public, and they are 
defending the action. Owing to the fact that the Causeway 
Syndicate is a public company, they cannot be required to give 
security for costs, and as their capital consists of, I am informed, 
but 77, whether we win or lose, we—that is to say, the Cause- 
way Defence Committee—will have to pay our own costs. Our 
solicitors estimate that the costs may amount to 400/., and this 
sum at least we must raise. We ask for help in the matter of 
collecting subscriptions, and collecting lists will be supplied to 
all who will take them. Large subscriptions, as a rule, are not 
asked for, but small sums given by the many, for it is a matter 
which concerns the many. Evidence is also wanted from those 
who have known of the Causeway as a public resort for forty or 
fifty years or more.” 
THE Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 
has successfully promoted the study of the science of man ever 
since it was founded; and the twenty-five volumes of the 
Journal, now complete, contain abundant evidence of the 
extent to which the Institute has contributed to the progress of 
anthropology in the last quarter of a century. The Council are 
anxious, however, to obtain a greater measure of public support, 
to see a larger attendance of Fellows and their friends at the 
| meetings, to increase the number of papers printed in the 
Journal, and to illustrate them more fully, and to aid in many 
