82 
» 
1875, after a brilliant University career. The thesis 
by which he obtained the doctorate in 1878 was a 
remarkable experimental research into the conditions 
governing the electric spark. This brought him under 
the notice of Clerk Maxwell. In the same year he 
was elected F.R.S. Edinb. In 1885 Dr. MacFarlane 
Was appointed to the chair of physics in the Univer- 
sitv of Texas. About fifteen years ago he took up his 
residence in Canada, where he continued to be actively 
engaged in physical and mathematical research. The 
latest of his many publications was a ‘‘ Bibliography 
of Quaternions,” issued in 1904. 
One of the passengers killed in the disastrous New 
Haven Railway collision, which occurred on the same 
day as that at Aisgill, was Dr. Joseph Benson Mar- 
vin, professor of medicine and neurology at the Uni- 
versity of Louisville. Dr. Marvin was born in Florida 
in 1852. At the age of eighteen he was appointed 
assistant professor of chemistry and physics at the 
Virginia Medical Institute. He then took a medical 
course, and afterwards held professorial posts at the 
Louisville Hospital College of Medicine, the Kentucky 
School of Medicine, and Kentucky University succes- 
sively. Dr. Marvin’s wife and daughter, who had 
been with him on a holiday in Maine, were also victims 
of the disaster. 
CHANGEs in the staff of the Central Research Insti- 
tute at Kasauli are announced. Major W. F. Harvey, 
I.M.S., is taking the place of Sir David Semple as 
head of the institute, and Capt. J. W. McCoy, I.M.S., 
is to join the bacteriological department. 
A BoarD for the study of tropical diseases has been 
established at Ponce, Porto Rico, by the Medical De- 
partment of the United States Army. The first presi- 
dent of the board is to be Major B. K. Ashford. 
AccorpinG to The Times, arrangements are being 
made for an expedition to King Edward the Seventh’s 
Land, in the south polar region, to start in August 
next. The leader is to be Mr. J. Foster Stackhouse, 
who was associated with Capt. Scott in organising 
the voyage of the Terra Nova. The present arrange- 
ments are that the members of the expedition shall 
sail from the Thames about the middle of August in 
the steam yacht Polaris, a ship especially built for ice 
navigation in accordance with designs approved by an 
international committee of explorers, including Char- 
cot, de Gerlache, and Nansen. It is contemplated that 
the expedition will be absent for twenty months or 
more. 
ParTIcULARS of the plans of the Italian expedition 
to the Himalayas, which is to be led by Dr. Filippi 
are given in The Pioneer Mail. According to our 
contemporary the explorers will work in Karakoram 
throughout the summer of 1914, spend the autumn in 
Chinese Turkestan, and leave for Europe by about 
Christmas. It is the object of the leader to carry out 
observations across Chinese Turkestan into Russian 
Turkistan, to winter in Scardo in Baltistan, and early 
in the spring of 1914 to travel by the inner Indus 
valley to Leh. From the latter place the expedition 
will leave for the’ Karakoram district to survey and 
map the unknown portion of the Karakoram range 
NO. 2290, VOL. 92] 
NATURE 
| SEPTEMBER 18, 1913 
which lies between the Karakoram pass and the 
Siachen glacier. The Government of India, which 
has subscribed roool. towards the funds, has appointed 
Major Woods, of the Trigonometrical Survey, to 
accompany the expedition. 
AMONG the communications to be made at the forth- 
coming meeting of German Naturalists and Medical 
Practitioners, at Vienna (September 21-28), we notice 
the following :—An address by Prof. von Behring on 
the prophylaxis of diphtheria, and papers on the de- 
velopment of the light and colour senses in the animal 
kingdom, vision, and the problem of race crossing in 
man by, respectively, Profs. von Hess, O, Lummer, 
and E. Fischer. 
Tue seventeenth annual fungus foray of the British 
Mycological Society, lasting a week, is to begin at 
Haslemere on September 22. The meeting place of 
the party will be the Hutchinson Museum. On Sep- 
tember 24 the presidential address will be delivered 
by Mr. A. D. Cotton, who will take as his subject, 
*“Some Suggestions as to the Study and Critical 
Revision of Certain Genera of Agaricacee.”’ On the 
following day a paper, entitled ‘‘Recent Work on 
Resupinate Theleshorez,” will be read by Miss E. M. 
Wakefield, and on September 26 Mr. J. Ramsbottom 
will read a paper entitled ‘‘Some Notes on the History 
of the Classification of the Discomycetes.”’ 
THE twenty-fourth annual general meeting of the 
Institution of Mining Engineers is to take place at 
Manchester on September 24-26, when the following 
papers will be read, or taken as read:—*A Method 
of Measuring Goaf Temperatures,” T. F. Winmill; 
“The Absorption of Oxygen by Coal,” T. F. Winmill; 
‘“Dust Problems in Mines and their Solution,’ Her- 
mann Belger and A. Owen Jones; ‘Further Re- 
searches in the Microscopical Examination of Coal, 
especially in Relation to Spontaneous Combustion,” 
James Lomax. In addition to the foregoing, the fol- 
lowing papers, which have already appeared in the 
Transactions, will be open for discussion :—‘t Recent 
Methods of the Application of Stone-dust in Mines,” 
Dr. W. E. Garforth; ‘‘ The Reopening of Norton Col- 
liery with Self-contained Breathing-apparatus after an 
Explosion,” J. R. L. Allott; “‘The Slow Oxidation of 
Coal-dust and its Thermal Value,”’ F. E. E. Lam- 
plough and A. Muriel Hill; ‘‘Insulated and Bare 
Copper and Aluminium Cables for the Transmission 
of Electrical Energy, with Special Reference to Mining 
Work,” B. Welbourn. In connection with the meet- 
ing a lecture on explosion experiments at Eskmeals 
will be given on September 25 by Prof. H. B. Dixon, 
F.R.S. 
WE understand that the title of Prof. W. Ostwald’s 
journal, Annalen der Naturphilosophic, has been 
changed to the more comprehensive one of Annalen 
der Natur- und Kulturphilosophie; also that Prof. R. 
Goldscheid is now associated with Prof. Ostwald in 
editing the periodical. 
THE correspondent of The Times at Rome reports 
an interesting discovery made by Mr. Adolfo Cozza 
in excavating at Pompeii with the object of tracing 
the site of the port where, in his opinion, three- 
a a ee 
