Fersruary 18, 1897 | 
WAT ORE 
WE are sorry to see the announcement in the Zzmes that Prof. 
Charles Tomlinson, F. R.S., a successful and distinguished teacher 
and writer in bothscience and literature, died on Monday, at his 
residence in Highgate, in his eighty-ninth year. He was elected 
on the Council of the British Association for the Advancement 
of Science in 1864, a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1867, a 
Fellow of the Chemical Society in the same year, and was one 
of the founders of the Physical Society. He was for many 
years Lecturer on Experimental Science at King’s College, 
held the Dante Lectureship at University College, 1878-80, 
and was Examiner in Physics to the Birkbeck Institution. 
In science he was the author of many handy text-books 
on natural philosophy, meteorology, and natural history, 
and contributed numerous papers, the results of original 
research, to the Zravsactéons of the Royal and Chemical 
Societies. In 1854 he edited ‘‘Tomlinson’s Cyclopedia 
of Useful Arts, Mechanical and Chemical, Manufactures, 
Mining, and Engineering.” In biography he wrote the lives 
of Smeeton, Cuvier, and Linnzus, and the notices of scientific 
men in “ The English Cyclopzedia of Biography.” In literature 
he was the author of ‘‘The Inferno of Dante, translated into 
English Tierce Rhyme” ; 
from the German Hexameters of Goethe into English Hex- 
ameters”; ‘‘ Essays, Old and New”; ‘‘The Chess Players’ 
magazines. 
AN announcement, which will arouse a good deal of interest 
among biologists, was made at a recent meeting of the New 
York Academy of Sciences. Mr. Bashford Dean reported that 
he had obtained a fairly complete series of embryos of Ade//o- 
stomum, including upwards of twenty stages from cleavage to 
hatching. Ade//ostoma, as the name is usually written, is a form 
very closely allied to AZyxine, the hag-fish, which is abundant 
off the northern coasts of Europe. Hitherto the develop- 
ment of the Myxinoids, with the exception of one stage of | 
segmentation, has been entirely unknown, though many 
European zoologists have spent much time and labour in 
unsuccessful endeavours to obtain material for its investiga- 
tion. The developing eggs of Sdellostoma, which are quite 
similar to those of JZyxzze, were obtained by Mr. Dean in 
the course of collecting operations carried on at Puget Sound, 
California, by a party of zoologists from Columbia University, 
New York, in the summer of last year. A number of the eggs 
and larvz of a form allied to Chimera were also secured. The 
results of the study of this material will be of the greatest 
interest and importance. After the mystery of the reproduction 
of the eel had been explained by Grassi, there were only two 
well-marked types of vertebrates whose development still baffled 
investigation ; and the difficulties in these two cases appear to 
have been at last overcome. 
THe first number of the second decade of the Kew Budletin 
of Miscellaneous Information is almost entirely devoted to a 
“List of Kew Publications, 1841-1895.” It consists of more 
than eighty pages of titles of independent publications, or of 
very numerous and important contributions to journals, con- 
taining a record of work done either by members of the Kew 
staff, or by others working in the Gardens, the Herbarium, or 
the Jodrell Laboratory. In addition to the Zcones Plantarum, 
Botanical Magazine, and other serials issued from Kew, the 
list includes all the more important Colonial Floras, such as 
Bentham’s of Australia, Hooker’s of New Zealand, Grise- 
bach’s of the British West Indies, Seemann’s of the Fiji 
Islands, Baker’s of Mauritius, Hooker’s of British India, and 
others ; also important monographs, such as Baker’s of the 
Fern-Allies, Bromeliaceze, and Amaryllidez, Massee’s of the 
Myxogastres, many of the orders in Martius'’s “Vora Brasz/iensis, 
NO. 1425, VOL. 55 | 
&c. When to this is added such works of first-class importance 
as Sir W. J. Hooker's ‘{ Genera Filicum,” Hooker and Ben- 
tham’s ‘*‘ Genera Plantarum,” Hooker’s ‘* Himalayan Journals ~ 
and ‘‘ Botany of the Zrebus and Terror,” Bentham’s ‘‘ Hand- 
book of the British Flora,” Hooker's ‘‘Student’s Flora,” 
Hemsley’s ‘‘ Handbook of Hardy Trees, Shrubs, and Herbaceous 
Plants,” and, to crownall, the ‘‘ Index Kewensis,” it will be seen 
that there is some justification for the statement that the list 
“* represents a volume of work which probably is not surpassed 
by that of any other institution in the world.” 
We learn from the February Yournal of the Royal Geo- 
graphical Society that the first gold medal of the American 
Geographical Society of New York, the fund for which was 
given by the late General Cullum, has been awarded to Lieut. 
Peary, and was presented to the explorer at the recent annual 
meeting of the Society. Of Mr. Peary’s many services to the 
geography of the Arctic regions, that which is selected as the 
special ground for the award is his delineation, in 1892, of the 
coast-line of Greenland and the consequent demonstration of its 
insular character. Lieut. Peary, after returning thanks for the 
| a ded is plan for a new expedition, which 
«© Herman and Dorothea, translated | medal, proceeded to unfold his plan for a new exp on, W 
is to aim at reaching the North Pole, a plan which has already 
been endorsed by the New York Society. Having given it as 
en, : pega || his) opint results of recent expeditions serve to show 
Manual,” and many contributions to literary and scientific | Say nvens Une) Nine . P 
that the only feasible route by which to attain the North Pole is 
that by Smith Sound and the north-west coast of Greenland, 
he pointed to the important work to be done in those regions, 
in addition to the reaching of the Pole. He proposes the raising 
of sufficient funds to enable the work of the expedition to be 
continued, if need be, for ten years. It is proposed to go to 
Sherard Osborn Fjord, or further, in a ship manned by a mini- 
mum crew, and—having taken on board ev route several picked 
families of Eskimo—the people and stores would be landed, 
and the ship sent back. During the autumn sledging season he 
would advance supplies north-eastward along the coast by short 
and rapid stages, taking advantage also of the brilliant winter 
moons. The party itself would follow stage by stage, living 
like the Eskimo in snow-houses, so that in early spring it should 
have already reached, with the bulk of its supplies, the northern 
terminus of the North Greenland Archipelago, whence, ice con- 
ditions being favourable, a dash for the Pole would be made- 
with the lightest possible equipment, with picked dogs and two 
of the best Eskimo. Each succeeding summer the ship would 
attempt to reach the base, whence the series of caches already 
formed at each prominent headland would supply a line of com- 
munication with the advanced station. 
Tue Seismological Committee of the British Association has 
just sent out a circular inviting co-operation in an endeavour to 
extend and systematise the observation of earth-movements. 
The cost of an instrument to record such movements, with 
photographic material to last one year, is about 507. The first 
object the Committee has in view is to determine the velocity 
with which motion is propagated round, or possibly ¢/vough,. 
the earth. To attain this, all that is required from a given 
station are the times at which various phases of motion are 
recorded ; for which purpose—for the present, at least—it is 
considered that an instrument recording a single component of 
horizontal motion will be sufficient. Other results which may 
be obtained from the proposed observations are numerous.. 
The foci of submarine disturbances, such, for example, as those 
which from time to time have interfered with telegraph cables, 
may possibly be determined, and new light thrown upon changes 
taking place in ocean beds. The records throw light upon 
certain classes of disturbances now and then noted in magnet- 
ometers, and other instruments susceptible to slight movements 5. 
whilst local changes of level, some of which may have a diurnal 
