58 



NA TURE 



[November i6, 1905 



buch der Astronomie " on stellar photometry, spectro- 

 scopy, and chronology, he published a treatise on the 

 determination of geographical positions for the use 

 of travellers and explorers which was favourably re- 

 ceived. His periodical compilation on the current 

 history of astronomy has proved itself so useful and 

 important that it is to be hoped it will be continued 

 by some other hand. As a teacher of astronomy he 

 is acknowledged to have been very successful. His 

 presentation of the most recondite subjects was 

 masterly and edifying, arresting and retaining the 

 attention of his class. 



NOTES. 



The list of honours conferred by the King on the 

 •occasion of His Majesty's birthday, November 9, includes 

 the name of Prof. G. H. Darwin, F.R.S., who has been 

 appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath 

 (K.C.B.). Dr. W. Saunders, director of the experimental 

 farms of the Canadian Department of Agriculture, and 

 Dr. M. A. Ruffer, president of the Egyptian Sanitary 

 Board, have been made Companions of the Order of St. 

 Michael and St. George (C.M.G.). Sir Felix Semon has 

 been appointed Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian 

 Order, and the honour of knighthood has been conferred 

 on Mr. Arthur Chance, president of the Royal College of 

 Surgeons in Ireland, and Prof. McFadyean, principal of 

 the Royal Veterinary College, Camden Town. 



The death of Prof. Albert von Kolliker on November 2, 

 at eighty-eight years of age, has deprived the scientific 

 world of one of the founders of modern systematic 

 histology, and the eldest of the illustrious teachers and 

 investigators in the realms of embryology and comparative 

 anatomy. An outline of his scientific work was given in 

 Nature of May 5, 1898 (vol. lviii. p. 1), as a contribution 

 to our series of Scientific Worthies ; but his memoirs and 

 other writings are so numerous that no adequate descrip- 

 tion of them can be contained within the limits of a short 

 article. In the course of that appreciative notice, it 

 was pointed out that von Kolliker was one of the first to 

 realise that the complete justification of the cell-theory 

 must be accomplished by a study of the whole history of 

 animal tissues, from the fertilised egg onwards ; and his 

 papers on the development of Cephalopods (1844) and of 

 Amphibia (1841:1-7) represent the first results of this con- 

 viction. Von Kolliker went to Wiirzburg in 1847 as pro- 

 fessor of human anatomy, and almost immediately joined 

 von Siebold in founding the Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche 

 Zoologie, to the early numbers of which he contributed a 

 series of important papers. In the article already referred 

 to mention was made of the considerable series of embry- 

 ological and other papers, and of the masterly text-books, 

 of which he was the author. In 1896, as a recognition of 

 his brilliant scientific services, he was nominated a Knight 

 of the order pour le mirite. He was elected a foreign 

 member of the Royal Society in i860, and received the 

 Copley medal of the society. 



Dr. Charles Waldstein has been created by the King 

 of Denmark a Knight of the Royal Danish Order the 

 Danebrog. 



I 111, Athenaeum announces the death, in his seventy-fifth 

 year, of Dr. Johann Meidinger, professor of physics at the 

 le, I1nir.1l Institute in Karlsruhe, and author of a number 

 of works dealing with the practical side of his subject. 



The superintendent of Commercial Agencies in Canada 

 has expressed his conviction, says the journal of the 

 Society of Arts, that the establishment of a service of 



no. 1 88 1, vol. 7 3 



commercial agents to reside in British possessions for the 

 purpose of reporting to the Commercial Intelligence Branch 

 of the Board of Trade in London would be of immense 

 benefit to the Empire at large. Such agents should report 

 on all matters concerning the resources, growth, local 

 enterprises, public contracts, openings for trade, and the 

 investments for capital, as is done by His Majesty's con- 

 sular officers and commercial attaches in regard to foreign 

 countries. The superintendent adds that there is not in 

 the whole of Canada a British official who can answer 

 questions of the British exporter concerning Canada, while 

 the Americans " have in the neighbourhood 190 officials." 



At a meeting of the Incorporated Society of Medical 

 Officers of Health on November 10, Dr. Christopher Childs 

 read a paper on a comparative study of the Lincoln, Maid- 

 stone, and Worthing epidemics of tvphoid fever. After dis- 

 cussing the features presented by these epidemics. Dr. 

 Childs advocated the retention of a staff of experts specially 

 to investigate, at the earliest opportunity, similar outbreaks 

 in the future, such a staff to consist of specially trained 

 medical officers, bacteriologist, chemist, and sanitary in- 

 spectors, and organised by an epidemiologist of repute. 

 Moreover, Dr. Childs advocated that in cases where water 

 authorities refuse to listen to the repeated warnings of the 

 medical officer of health with regard to the dangerous 

 character of a water supply, the Local Government Board 

 should take action to cause those authorities to take the 

 best practicable means for removing the dangers to which 

 attention has been directed. 



At the opening meeting of the new session of the Insti- 

 tution of Civil Engineers on November 9, the new presi- 

 dent, Mr. John Gavey, C.B., gave an address in which he 

 reviewed the progress of the telegraph and telephone in- 

 dustries during recent vears. As illustrating the growth of 

 telegraph and telephone accommodation provided by the 

 Post Office, Mr. Gavey remarked that the telegraph wire 

 mileage increased from 114,242 at March 31, 1880, to 

 338,120 at March 31, 1905. The telephone wire mileage 

 rose during the same period from 40 to 253,521. There 

 appears to be little prospect of serious competition 

 between telephony and telegraphy after a certain critical 

 distance has been reached. The determination of the dis- 

 tance over which telephonic speech is possible on various 

 types of telephone circuit is a question of the greatest 

 theoretical and practical interest. Telephone administra- 

 tions have carefully considered what are the extreme limits 

 of effective commercial speech, taking all the facts into 

 consideration, and allowing a large margin of safety, and 

 it is generally considered that from 42 to 46 miles of the 

 English standard cable is the effective commercial limit. 

 As to wireless telegraphy, the opinion was expressed that 

 it is not likely to supplant, or even to compete seriously 

 with, inland methods of communication ; nor does it appear 

 probable that it will, at least in the near future, actively 

 compete with highly developed cable communication, 

 although it may supplement that service. In submarine 

 cable work the same progress may be noted as in other 

 branches of telegraphy, the mileage of cable having in- 

 creased from 87 nautical miles in 1852 to 212,804 miles in 

 1902, while it is still increasing. The problem of devising 

 submarine cables for long-distance telephones has yet to 

 be solved. 



An official guide to the Victoria Falls, compiled by Mr. 

 F. W. Sykes, the conservator, has been published by the 

 Argus Publishing Co., Ltd., of Bulawayo, at is. The 

 guide has been compiled for the use of visitors, and is 

 interesting throughout. On November 17, 1855, that is, 



