420 



NA TURE 



[March i, 1906 



Society. (.;) The establishment of a ' Perkin Research 

 Fund ' for the promotion of chemical research to be 

 administered through the Chemical Society." This resolu- 

 tion, which was also adopted, was seconded by Sir William 

 Ramsay, and supported by Sir Henry Roscoe and Mr. 

 David Howard. It is unnecessary here to detail the 

 steps in the growth of the German coal-tar colour 

 industry which is the commercial outcome of Dr. 

 Perkin's discovery — an industrial development by which 

 this country might have been expected to benefit. But, as 

 a correspondent writes in the Times of February 24 : — 

 " Although in this country there have never been wanting 

 capable chemists able to carry on and extend the manu- 

 facture of colouring matters, there has been complete lack 

 of understanding on the commercial side of the complex 

 requirements of the industry and complete lack of sympathy 

 between the capitalist and the scientific worker. The 

 failure must be credited to our universities and to our 

 faulty system of higher education— to our inbred Philis- 

 tinism. Little, if anything, has been done either in school 

 or university to evoke in the ..immunity even an elementary 

 understanding of the principles of science and of their 

 application to commerce and industry. We are now pay- 

 ing the penalty of our neglect." To secure that the nation 

 shall derive full industrial value from scientific discoveries 

 will be possible only when we have developed a system 

 of secondary and higher education in which modern needs 

 and modern methods are recognised ; for not until then 

 will there be among us a generation of employers and 

 capitalists able to understand expert opinions and with 

 scientific imagination enough to read the signs of the 

 times. 



The encroachments of the sea on parts of our coasts, 

 and the question of national responsibility for the protec- 

 tion of the seaboard against such erosion, was raised in 

 the House of Commons on Monday in an amendment to 

 the Address. Several members urged that the Government 

 should give financial assistance for the construction of 

 works for coast protection and afford facilities to local 

 authorities for obtaining loans on easy terms for the 

 defence ol the sea coast. The President of the Board of 

 Trade stated that the Government has decided to have an 

 inquiry in the form of a Royal Commission, which will 

 extend not merely to coast defence, but to two or three 

 other kindred subjects, such as waste lands and probably 

 afforestation. A Commission will be appointed at an early 

 date to inquire into the matter. Some objections to the 

 expenditure of Imperial funds upon the protection of 

 private property at sea-side resorts and other localities 

 were staled in an article in Nature of February 15 

 (P- 3°9)- 



Several years ago a commission was appointed by the 

 Imperial Academy of Sciences of Vienna to collect phono- 

 graphic records to be preserved for scientific study. Some 

 ol the results obtained by expeditions to Kroatia, Slavonia, 

 and Lesbos were described in Nature of January 29, 1903 

 (vol. Ixvii., p. 301). The Vienna correspondent of the 

 I'ull Mall (iazelte now states that from North Tyrol and 

 Vorarlberg fifty-seven specimens of German dialects have 

 been obtained for the archives, and another forty-seven from 

 Carinthia. From New luiinea have been sent thirty-two 

 phon. graphs recording the language and music of the 

 natives, with especially interesting war songs and the 

 accompanying drum music. From India have been received 

 valuable records of old Sanskrit songs. An expedition 

 which was sent out to Australia is now on its way back, 

 and another party is about to start for Greenland. 

 NO. 1896, VOL. 73 J 



It is stated that the new director of the Vatican Observ- 

 atory will be Father J. G. Hagan, S.J., professor of 

 astronomy in Georgetown University, U.S.A., and director 

 of the observatory there. 



In connection with the indication by the London County 

 Council of houses in London which have been the resi- 

 dences of distinguished individuals, a memorial tablet was 

 erected on Monday on No. no Gower Street, where Charles 

 Darwin resided from 1839 to 1842. 



Mr. E. T. Wiiittaker, F.R.S., has been appointed 

 Andrews professor of astronomy in the University of 

 Dublin, in succession to the late Prof. C. J. Joly, F.R.S. 

 'l'he appointment carries with it the office of Royal 

 Astronomer of Ireland. 



A Reuter message from Paris states that the com- 

 mittee of the Alliance Francaise-Britannique received at 

 the Sorbonne on Monday the delegates of the London 

 branch of the Alliance, headed by Sir Archibald 1 ieikie, 

 F.R.3., the chairman. M. Liard, Vice-Rector of Paris 

 University, and M. Leyasseur, director of the College de 

 F'rance, and honorary president of the Alliance Francaise, 

 welcomed the British delegates. After Sir Archibald Geikie 

 had delivered an address on geology, the British guests 

 visited the laboratory and the large amphitheatre of the 

 Sorbonne. In the evening they were present at a banquet 

 given in their honour, the Minister of Public Instruction 

 being in the chair. 



We learn from the British Medical Journal that the next 

 meeting of the Congress of Experimental Psychology will 

 be held at Wiirzburg, April 18-21. Among the communi- 

 cations promised are the following : — Dr. F. Kruger, on the 

 relations between experimental phonetics and psychology; 

 Prof. O. Kulpe, on the present position of experimental 

 aesthetics ; Dr. F. Schumann, on the psychology of read- 

 ing ; Prof. R. Sommer, on psychiatry and the psychology 

 of the individual ; Dr. W. Weygandt, on the psychological 

 investigation of congenital feeble-mi ndedness. Communi- 

 cations relative to the congress should be addressed to Prof. 

 O. Kiilpe, Wiirzburg. 



About two years ago steps were taken to erect a fitting 

 memorial to James Walt at his birthplace. This is to 

 take the form of a commemorative public building and 

 statue at Greenock. In the Engineer of February 23 dis- 

 appointment is expressed that an object so obviously 

 worthy, and an appeal so influentially prosecuted, should 

 not have had greater success. Only 700/. has been sub- 

 scribed in Great Britain and 190/. in America. Influential 

 canvass, nevertheless, was made by Mr. Carnegie in the 

 United States, while in Great Britain Dr. Robert Caird 

 sent out 10,000 circulars inviting subscriptions. The 

 balance required, 9300/., has been contributed by Mr. 

 Carnegie. 



Ornithology has lost its oldest votary by the death, on 

 February 20, of Prof. Jean Louis Cabanis, for many years 

 in charge of the collection of birds in the Museum of 

 Berlin. Born in 1816, his earliest work of importance 

 seems to have been the ornithology of Tschudi's " Fauna 

 Peruana" in 1845 and 1846. He afterwards did the same 

 service for Sir Richard Schomburgk's " Reisen im 

 Britisch-Guiana " ; but the " Ornithologische Noli/en" 

 in the Archiv fur Naturgeschichte for 1847 almost marked 

 a new epoch in the progress of the science, for th. \ were 

 written in conjunction, it may be said, with Johannes 

 Midler, and practically applied the principles of taxonomy 

 laid down by that great anatomist, in his contributions 

 to the Academy of Sciences in Berlin in 1845 and 1846, 

 On certain variations in the vocal organs of the Passeres — 



