June 12, 1 8 84 J 



NA TURE 



153 



The death is announced of the celebrated Danish entomologist, 

 Prof. J. C. Schiodte, at the age of sixty-nine. 



The St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences intends to publish 

 the valuable documents which came into its possession from the 

 great expeditions of the last century, of Krasheninnikoff, Muller, 

 Pallas, and Messerschmidt ; they are still unknown, as also the 

 correspondence of the great explorers of Russia and Siberia. 



A new scheme of a Polar expedition has been recently sub- 

 mitted by several officers of the Russian Navy to the Minister, 

 Admiral Shestakoff. Starting from the idea that it is impossible 

 to reach the North Pole by sea on account of the archipelagos 

 that cover the circumpolar region, the Russian officers propose 

 to start an expedition on sledges from the New Siberia Islands, 

 which are 900 nautical miles distant from the Pole. This space 

 is to be covered by sledge parties, who would make depots of 

 provisions on the newly-discovered islands, and thus slowly but 

 surely advance towards the north, securing at the same time the 

 return journey of the expedition. When elaborated, the scheme 

 will be submitted to the learned Societies, and the necessary 

 money raised by subscriptions. 



We understand that the Commissioners under the new Uni- 

 versities (Scotland) Bill, if passed as it stands at present, will 

 have power to establish, if they fjnd it expedient, a Science 

 Faculty in the Universities or in some of them, and to make 

 provision for a curriculum or course of study in such Faculty which 

 shall be coordinate with the curriculum or course of study in the 

 Faculty of Arts. The Bill has the approval of the Senatus Aca- 

 demicus University of Edinburgh. 



Mr. James Jackson, the librarian of the Paris Geographical 

 Society, has drawn up a useful table showing the extent to which 

 the metrical system is used. In the following countries the 

 system is legally obligatory : — 

 Population 

 Argentine Republic 2,830,000 

 Austria-Hungary... 37,786,346 



Belgium 5,520,009 



Bolivia 1,957,352 



Brazil 9,883,622 



Chili 2,199,180 



Colombia 4,000,000 



Denmark 1,969,039 



Equador - 946,033 



France & Colonies 46,843,000 



Germany 45,234,061 



Greece 1, 979, 305 



241,973,011 



In the following countries the metrical system is optional : — 

 Canada, 4,324,810; United States, 50,419,933; Great Britain 

 and Ireland, 35,241,482; Persia, 7,653,600; total, 97,639,825. 

 In the following countries the system is often used without its 

 having legal value : — 



Popula 



Italy 28,459,451 



Mexico 



Netherlands 

 Norway . . . 

 Paraguay ... 



Peru 



Portugal . . . 

 Roumania... 



Spain 



Sweden 

 Switzerland 



10,046,872 

 4,172,971 

 1,806,900 

 346,048 

 2,699,945 

 4,160,315 

 5,073,000 



16,634,345 



4,579,"5 

 2,846,102 



The ^Duke of Norfolk has indicated his intention of con- 

 tributing 3000/. towards the technical department of the Firth 

 College, Sheffield. 



The East of Scotland Naturalists' Union held a very success- 

 ful meeting in Dundee on Friday and Saturday last. Dr. 

 Buchanan White gave an instructive and interesting address ; 

 various reports were given in, papers read, and a largely- 

 attended conversazione held in the evening. On the Saturday a 

 dredging excursion was made to the Bell Rock. 



The Manchester Field Naturalists have been spending the 

 Whitsuntide holiday in Sherwood Forest. On the way to 



Mansfield, which was chosen as the head-quarters of the party, 

 a short stay was made in the mountain limestone region of 

 Derbyshire, to examine the geology of Brick Cliff. An interest- 

 ing feature of the programme was the visit made to the Cres- 

 well Caves (in a pretty ravine of the magnesian limestone) under 

 the guidance of the Rev. J. Magens Mello, one of the principal 

 explorers of the caves, from which, it will be remembered, im- 

 portant remains of the post-Pleiocene Mammalia and Neolithic 

 instruments have been obtained. The weather was very pro- 

 pitious, and the visit very enjoyable. 



The seventh annual meeting and conversazione of the Mid- 

 land Union of Natural History Societies will be held at Peter- 

 borough on Wednesday, June 25. Excursions will be made to 

 Stibbington Hall, Bedford Purlieus, and the Decoy in Borough 

 Fen and Croyland on Thursday, June 26. The annual meeting 

 will be held in the Fitzwilliam Hall, Peterborough, on Wednes- 

 day, June 25, at three o'clock, the President of the Union (the 

 Very Rev. the Dean of Peterborough) in the chair. The business 

 of the meeting will be to receive the Report of the Council and 

 the Treasurer's accounts ; to fix the place of the next annual 

 meeting in 1885 ; to award the Darwin Medal for the year 1884;. 

 to consider any suggest ions that members may offer ; to discuss 

 the work of the Union during the coming year ; and to transact 

 all necessary business. The President will open the meeting 

 with an address. 



Mr. F. W. Eastlake of Tokio informs us that the well- 

 known Devonian Brachiopod, Spirifer disjunctus, in common 

 with several other Devonian genera such as Rhynconella, Comit- 

 ates, Spirorbis, and the like, is called by the Chinese shi-yln or 

 " Stone Swallow," and that the powdered shell is largely sold 

 by the native druggists as a specific in urinary and renal dis- 

 orders. He has obtained a specimen of the shell from South 

 Formosa, which he regards as indicating a prolongation of that 

 Devonian formation which, commencing with Hainan and 

 Southern China, is traceable throughout the Loochoos and the 

 southern provinces of Japan. Spirifer disjunctus is not un- 

 common in the Mikado's Empire, but as it is highly prized on 

 account of its supposititious medicinal virtues, it is possible, 

 if not probable, that the fine specimens obtained from the Japanese 

 were originally brought from China. The very fact that Spirifer 

 disjunctus is one of the ornaments of the Eastern Asiatic pharma- 

 copoeia renders it unusually difficult to trace the locality whence 

 the Brachiopod may have been brought. 



The new Scandinavian mathematical journal, Acta Mathe- 

 matica, has already gained such a reputation that the French 

 Government has decided to subscribe for fifteen copies for the 

 Facultes des Sciences. In his note to the Swedish Ambassador 

 in Paris on this subject M. Jules Ferry points out that it is the 

 first time his Government has supported a foreign publication, 

 which he trusts will be an acknowledgment of the high inter- 

 national position the Acta Maliematica has gained and of the 

 value it has become to French science. This journal is also 

 supported by the three Scandinavian Governments. 



With the brig Lueinde, which has just left Copenhagen, Lieut. 

 Jensen of the Danish Navy, Dr. Lorentzen, and the painter Ris- 

 Carstensen, left for Greenland for the purpose of measuring, and 

 exploring geologically and geographically, the country between 

 Holstensborg and Sukkertoppen, the shore of which is very 

 broad — it is estimated about sixty miles. As this part of Green- 

 land has never been visited by Europeans, our knowledge of its 

 natural condition is limited. The natives state that there are 

 deep fjords here, and great high plateaux partly covered with 

 glaciers. 



On May 14, at 12.30 a.m., a remarkable phenomenon was 

 observed at Nykoping in Sweden. The weather was dull and 



