Sept. I, 1881] 



NA TURE 



427 



out intense lieat, accompanied by a strong breeze from the east, 

 causing much alarm. These phenomena, however, subsided 

 immediately. On the 24th inst. the entire island was enveloped 

 in smoke, clouds from the west-south-west obscuring the sea 

 from noon until dusk. Masses of calcined leaves also fell 

 throughout the island. 



A SEVERE shock of earthquake is reported to have been expe- 

 rienced in the mining district of Teversal, in Nottinghamshire, 

 about noon on Friday last. In one of the pits belonging to the 

 Stanton Ironworks Company the miners were so alarmed at the 

 shock and the accompanying noise, that, thinking an explosion 

 had occuned, they rushed to the mouth of the pit. In the Pear 

 Tree Inn, Fackley, bricks were removed from the chimney, and the 

 same thing was noticed in a house at Teversal. The station-master 

 at the latter village, while sitting in his house, was thrown from 

 his seat by the shock, and a quantity of plaster was detached 

 from the ceding. There was no explosion in the mines or other 

 chcuaistance to account for the phenomena, and an upheaval of 

 the floor of one of the pits indicated that the cause of disturbance 

 was below the workings. One of the pits is 430 yards deep. 

 The shock travelled in a north-west direction. 



The programme of the Congress of German Antiquarians, 

 which will meet at Frankfort on September 11-15, ^^^ "°^ 

 been published. On the nth the twenty-five years jubilee of 

 the Frankfort Antiquarian Society will be celebrated. 



The professorship of Natural History and Geology at the 

 Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, vacant by the resigna- 

 tion of Prof. M. G. Stuart, has been filled by the appointment 

 of Mr. Allen Harker, late of the Zoological Station, Naples. 



One of the exhibits at the International Medical and Sanitary 

 Exhibition was a "Compact School Collection for Use in 

 Teaching the Chemistry of Foods," suggested by W. Stephen 

 Mitchell, M.A. This form of case has been arranged for the 

 purpose of affording, at a low cost, help to teachers in giving 

 demonstratiojs on the chemistry of foods. The leading idea is 

 that the teachers will be able to have on the walls of their 

 schoolrooms the actual objects they are talking about, and the 

 children will be familiarised by having always before them, not 

 simply words or diagrams, but samples of the things tliemselves. 

 Mr. Mitchell believes, as he stated in a paper read before the 

 Society of Arts and the Domestic Economy Congress Ireld at 

 Birmingham, that with such diagrams as he showed, having 

 lines of different lengths to represent quantities, greater accu. 

 racy of the knowledge of quantities can be conveyed than by 

 showing the measured quantities in heaps as is the plan adopted 

 at Bethnal Green. This does not get over the difficulty of show- 

 ing the gaies. Teachers must learn how to prepare these to 

 show to their classes. The apparatus and materials for doing 

 this are not costly, and are described in the " Shilling Chemistry 

 Primer" published by Macmillan and Co. The cases are 

 arranged with a sliding panel in front, so that the bottles can 

 be taken out. 



At Castrop (Westphalia) a meteor was observed in the north- 

 east sky on July 30 at 8.15 p.m. It moved in the direction 

 from north-west to south-south-east. A meteoric stone weigh- 

 ing about 5 lb>. fell in the immediate vicinity of a field labourer, 

 and penetrated into the ground to the depth of I metre. It was 

 intensely hot, and was afterwards forwarded to Herr Oberberg- 

 rath Kunge at Dortmund, in whose possession it now is. 



On August 15 the well-known Professor of Ph)slcs, Dr. 

 Wilhelm Weber of Gottingen University, celebrated the day 

 when, fifty years ago, he was called to that Univer-ity from Halle. 

 He is now seventy-seven years of age, and lectured until a few 

 years a^o. 



A TERRIBLE catastrophe happened on August 16 at Remscheid 

 (lihenish Prussia). Suddenly the so-called ISrennende Berg 

 opened to the extent of some sixty to one hundred square metres 

 and threw up gigantic flames. A house standing near sank into 

 the burning gulf, and its inmates unfortunately perished. It is 

 believed that the disaster was caused by the ignition of petroleum 

 gas rising from a petroleum vein in the depth of the mountain. 



Apropos of the forthcoming erection of a monument to Sauvage 

 at Boulogne-sur-Mer, it may be mentioned that a rival claim to 

 the invention of the screw propeller has been set up on behalf of 

 a persjn named Dallery, also a Frenchman, whose grand- 

 daughter, it is alleged, has submitted certain evidence to the 

 Academic des Sciences, showing that her grandfather, who died 

 in 1835, took out a patent as long ago as 1813 for certain con- 

 trivances, including a screw propeller and a tubular boiler. M. 

 de Lesseps is of opinion that although Dallery, like Pauchon, 

 had long ago conceived the idea of the screw, yet it is to 

 Sauvage that the credit is due of having been the first to apply 

 it to practical purposes. 



The following candidates have been successful in obtaining 

 Royal Exhibitions of 50/. per annum each for three years, and 

 free admission to the course of instruction at the following 

 institution-; :— I. The Normal School of Science and Royal 

 School of Mines, South Kensington and Jermyn Street, Lon- 

 don — Thomas Mather, aged twenty-four, pattern maker, Man- 

 chester ; Alfred Sutton, twenty-one, engine-fitter, Brighton ; 

 William II. Littleton, seventeen, student, Bristol. 2. The 

 Royal College of .Science, Dublin — Arthur Whilwell, nineteen 

 ex-pupil teacher, Nottingham ; Frederick J. Willis, eighteen, 

 student Bristol ; Christopher J. Whittaker, twenty-one, pattern 

 maker, Accrington. 



Mr. E. B. Tylor requests us to mention that the porli'ait of 

 Andaman Islanders in his " Anthropology," p. 88, which was 

 reproduced in Mr. Wallace's review in Nature, vol. xxiv. 

 p. 242, is from one of the admirable series of photographs taken 

 in 1872 by Dr. G. E. Dobson, now of the Army Medical .School, 

 Netley Hospital. By inadvertence, the cut in question was 

 printed in the " Anthropology ' without reference to Dr. 

 Dobson. His paper " On the Andanaans and Andanianese" in 

 vol. iv. oi X\\t yournal oi the Anthropological Institute, which 

 gives an account of his visit to the natives in their forest-home, 

 is illustrated with a set of three portrait-groups, which show 

 perfectly their peculiar and homogeneous race-type. 



Messrs. Cassell a.nd Co. have issued the first part oi 

 " an entirely new and revised edition " of Dr. Robert Brown's 

 "Races of Mankind," under the title of " The Peoples of the 

 World." 



Phylloxera has male its appearance in Hungarian vine- 

 yards. Its occurrence in the district of Szolo; L'rdo (Torda 

 Comitat) has been officially stated. Also in the Swiss canton 

 of Neufcluitel it is spreading to an alarming extent. The vine- 

 yards of Grand-Saconnex, Colombier, and La Coudre are fast 

 succumbing to the plague. 



M. SvNVROS, an Athens merchant, has recently given 100,000 

 francs for building a museum at Olympia. 



The construction of another great Alpine tunnel which 

 should bring Paris and the North of France into more direct 

 communication with Italy than is aft'jrded by the etisting tunnel 

 through Mont Cenis, is under consideration with the French 

 Government, the projects including not only one through Mont 

 Blanc, but also through the Simplon or the Great St. Bernard. 

 It is not likely, however, that the latter will meet with much 

 encouragement. The tunnel under the Simplon would be 

 60,719 feet long, while that under Mont Blanc is only 44,292 



