DeEcEMBER 31, 1896] 
NATURE 
205 
A Boranicat Institute has recently been opened in connec- 
vtion with the Botanical Garden at Miinster, in Westphalia. 
In deference to public demand, the new aquarium of New 
York City will be open to visitors on Sunday after January 1. 
THE report that M. Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, has 
bequeathed his property, estimated at fifty million francs, to the 
University of Stockholm, is contradicted. 
A PLAN is proposed in the American botanical journals for 
the establishment of an American tropical botanical labora- 
tory on the plan of that at Buitenzorg, either on the east coast of 
Mexico, or on one of the islands near the Caribbean Sea. 
Tue 4otanical Gazette states that a notable cactus-garden 
has been established at the University of Arizona. It is the 
purpose to bring together eventually all the Cactaceze indigenous 
to the United States; already more than one hundred species 
are represented. 
PLANS have been prepared for the buildings in the Botanical 
Garden of New York City. The buildings, with their approaches, 
will occupy twenty-five acres of ground. They will be dis- 
persed in different parts of the grounds, throughout the garden, 
and not grouped together. es 
WE regret to announce the deaths of Mr. G. F. Schacht, 
treasurer of University College, Bristol, and formerly vice- 
president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain ; Dr. 
L. J. Sanford, formerly professor of anatomy and _ physiology 
in Yale University; and Dr. Emil Wolff, of Stuttgart, well 
known for his works in agricultural chemistry. 
A very remarkable landslip occurred early on Monday 
morning, at Kathmore, about twenty miles to the east. of 
Killarney, and on the confines of the county Cork. As a result, 
possibly, of the almost incessantj heavy rains of the~past few 
weeks, a considerable portion of bog land slipped from its posi- 
tion, and, taking a southerly direction, swept everything in its 
-course for a mile or two. Asa result of the slip a considerable 
tract of country has been submerged, and the rivers in the 
neighbourhood are flooded with peaty water. 
THe Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia has 
-decided to confer the Hayden Memorial Award for 1896 upon 
Prof. Giovanni Capellini, of Bologna. Capellini was born in 
Spezia, August 23, 1833. While yet a student he had made 
important paleontological discoveries and was in correspond- 
-ence with illustrious investigators, both Italian and foreign. In 
September 1859 he was appointed Professor of Natural History 
in the National College of Genoa, and in the following year he 
became Professor of Geology and Palzeontology in the University 
of Bologna. The rich collections made by him in Nebraska 
_and elsewhere, while on a visit to North America in 1863, are 
now in the Geological Institute of Bologna. In 1864 he made 
interesting scientific discoveries in the petroleum lands of 
Wallachia. As President of the Second Extraordinary Reunion 
of the Italian Naturalists in Spezia in 1865, he founded the 
International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Arche- 
ology. He was made Vice-President of the First International 
Geological Congress in Paris in 1878, and obtained its assent 
that the second meeting should take place in Bologna in 1881. 
Elected actual President (in conjunction with Quintino Sella as 
honorary President) of this Congress, he inaugurated the com- 
mission for the unification of geological nomenclature and a 
commission for the production of a geological map of Europe, 
-outlined at Berlin. Together with Sella he founded, on that 
-occasion, the Italian Geological Society. In 1885 he directed, 
in great part, the third International Geological Congress in 
Berlin, and contributed not a little to its success, as also to that 
-of the fourth session in London in 1888. He had now published 
140 scientific communications. Having served as Rector of the 
University of Bologna at intervals from 1874 to 1888, in. the 
NO. 1418, VOL. 55] 
latter year he organised and directed a celebration of its eighth 
century, for which he received letters of congratulation from all 
the universities of the world. He has been decorated by the 
Emperor of Germany and other Sovereigns. The University of 
Edinburgh conferred upon him through its Rector the diploma 
of Doctor ‘* Honoris Causa.” The University of Moscow 
nominated him honorary Professor. Seventy of the principal 
academies of Europe and America have registered his name 
among their members. He was elected a Correspondent of the 
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in 1863. 
THE American naturalists continue their researches into the 
variations and distributions of the multitudinous small mammals 
of North America with great industry. Besides the labours of 
Dr. Hart Merriam, to some of whose remarkable memoirs we 
have lately called attention, we have recently received copies: of 
papers by Mr. G. S. Miller, jun., on the ‘‘ Beach Mouse of 
Muskeget Island”’ (MWécrotus brewert), and by Mr. C. F. 
Batchelder on the distribution of* various rodents in New 
England and Northern New York. 
THE first part of vol. xviii. of Dr. Jentink’s ‘t Notes from the 
Leyden Museum,” which we have lately received, contains 
mostly papers on entomologica!l subjects. There are besides 
these, three communications from Dr. J. Biittikofer on birds, 
including the description of a new duck from the island of 
Sumba (Anas salvadorzz), which presents rather anomalous 
characters. It is curious that many of the contributors to this 
Dutch periodical write in English (which is likewise the language 
of the title-page), though others use French and German. 
Some American naturalists have taken to give not only the 
year and month, but even the day and hour of the “ distribu- 
tion”’ of their ‘‘advance sheets.” Tosuch an excess is the rush 
for ‘* priority” now carried! Mr. Outram Bangs has lately 
made out that the reindeer of Newfoundland (known to be 
abundant there since the discovery of the island) possesses 
certain differential characters from the continental forms, and 
names it Langtfer terre-nove, dating the -notification of this 
important event on ‘* Wednesday, November 11, 1896, at 
5 o'clock p.m.” We trust that no British naturalist has yet made 
the same discovery, or grave international complications may 
arise. 
THE distribution in time of the after-shocks of earthquakes 
was successfully investigated two or three years ago by Prof 
Omori, of Tokyo (see NATURE, vol. li. p. 423). In an interest- 
ing supplement to his valuable memoir, Prof. Omori discusses 
the after-shocks of the great Japanese earthquake of November 
4, 1854, and shows that their decline in frequency obeys the 
same law as those of the more recent cases examined. The 
monthly number (y) of after-shocks at Tosa until the end of 
1855 is found to be given very nearly by the equation 
y = 225°2/(x + 1°098), where x is the time expressed in months, 
since December 1854. For the whole year 1895, this equation 
would give between five and six shocks, while, during the years 
1885-91, the mean annual number of shocks actually recorded 
at Tosa was 4°3. The agreement is so close that Prof. Omori 
seems justified in regarding it as not accidental. 
THE Boletin de la Soctedad Geogrifica de Madrid contains a 
paper by D. Emilio Bonelli, describing recent explorations in 
the island of Fernando Po. The coast of this island has long 
been fully known, but the forest regions surrounding the Peak 
of S. Joaquin have not hitherto been penetrated. On an 
excursion round the Bay of Concepcion, Father J. Juanola, a 
missionary, found himself at the edge of a funnel-shaped chasm 
some 300 metres in depth. At the bottom of this funnel, 
probably the crater of an extinct voleano, was a lake about 
1200 metres long and 800 metres wide at its broadest part, to 
which the name. Lago Loreto was given. So far as appeared, 
