Juty 13, 1899] 
NATURE 
=) 
little of the credit will be due to the Prince of Wales recognis- 
ing the importance of the investigations that have for some 
years been carried on by the Edinburgh Professor of Natural 
History. 
AN international conference organised by the Royal Horti- 
cultural Society for the purpose of discussing ‘‘ Hybridisation 
(the cross-breeding of species) and the cross-breeding of varie- 
ties” was opened on Tuesday. In opening the proceedings, 
Dr. Maxwell Masters gave an address on the history of the 
subject. Papers dealing with the experimental production of 
plant-hybrids and the scientific significance of the results were 
read by Mr. W. Bateson, F.R.S., Prof. H. de Vries, Prof. 
George Henslow, Prof. L. H. Bailey, and Mr. C. C. Hurst. 
Sczemce announces that Dr. Milton Updegraff, professor of 
astronomy in Missouri University, has been appointed, by 
President McKinley, professor of mathematics in the United 
States Naval Observatory. 
WE learn from the Secretary of the Institution of Electrical 
Engineers that the reunion of the Institution in Switzerland, 
from September I to 10 next, is likely to be well attended, and 
that the final arrangements for the visit are now in progress. It 
is hoped that a circular giving further details may be issued at 
the end of the current month. 
To commemorate the services which the late Mr. H. T. 
Soppitt rendered to mycological science and to Yorkshire 
natural history generally, efforts are being made to obtain 
funds to form a Soppitt memorial library of mycological 
literature, of which the nucleus should be Mr. Soppitt’s own 
books and herbaria, which the widow and family are willing to 
part with for such a purpose. Such further funds subscribed as 
are not required for the purchase of these, are to be laid out in 
the purchase of mycological reference-books. The library 
when formed will be presented to the Yorkshire Naturalists’ 
Union. 
Mr. H, H. HOWELL, who joined the Geological Survey 
under De la Beche in 1850, retires from the service to-day. 
Mr. Howell, after surveying some portions of Wales and the 
south of Scotland, and large areas in the midland counties of 
England, became District Surveyor of the north-eastern counties 
of England in 1872, he was appointed Director for Scotland in 
1882 (when Sir Archibald Geikie became Director General), 
and he was further promoted to be Director for Great Britain 
in 1888, 
Mr. Ernest E, L. Dixon, who has for the. past two 
years acted as assistant to Prof. Judd at the Royal College of 
Science, has been appointed an Assistant Geologist on the 
Geological Survey of England. 
THE annual meeting of the Society of Chemical Industry 
commenced yesterday at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In his pre- 
sidential address, Mr. George Beilby dealt with the question of 
fuel and smoke. The magnitude of this problem may be judged 
from the fact that the total coal consumed in the United King- 
dom ‘in 1898 was 157 million tons, of which 76 million tons 
were consumed for the production of power for industrial pur- 
poses, 46 million for the production of heat for industrial 
purposes, and 35 million for the production of heat for domestic 
purposes. The various remedies which have been suggested to 
reduce this consumption by using coal more economically are 
(1) improved appliances for the combustion of raw coal, and 
distribution of the air supply in furnaces ; (2) the transform- 
ation of the raw coal into smokeless fuel by preliminary treat- 
ment, either by destructive distillation in gas retorts or in coke 
ovens, or by its conversion into fuel gas by partial combustion 
in air and steam, Mr. Beilby considered these remedies, and 
NO. 1550, VOL. 60] 
concluded by suggesting that, as a means of bringing all of the 
different interests which are concerned in this matter into line, 
the Society should arrange for the holding of a conference on 
the subject of fuel and smoke, at which the leading technical 
societies, as well as the actual industries concerned, should be 
fully represented.—Prof. C. F. Chandler, of New York, was 
elected president of the Society in succession to Mr. Beilby. 
THE death is announced of Sir Alexander Armstrong, 
K.C.B., author of ‘fA personal narrative of the discovery 
of the North-West passage” (1857) and ‘‘ Observations on 
Naval Hygiene, particularly in connection with Polar service,” 
at the age of eighty-one. From the 7Zzmes we learn that in 
1849 the deceased was appointed surgeon and naturalist to 
Her Majesty’s ship Znvestzgator, under the command of Captain 
(afterwards Sir Robert) McClure, which sailed from Plymouth 
on January 20, 1850, for the Polar Sea in search of Sir John 
Franklin. After encountering many difficulties, the Zrveséz- 
gator, in September 1851, was forced into a bay which Cap- 
tain McClure named Mery Bay. Here both officers and men 
suffered great hardship and privation, the food being reduced 
during the second winter to two-thirds of its original quantity, 
and the sickness increasing to a great extent, when they were 
rescued from their perilous position by Lieut. Bedford Pim. 
In the previous April, Captain McClure had taken a party 
from the ship and, crossing the strait, reached Melville 
Island, where he left notice in a cairn that the /nvestigator 
was icebound off Bank’s Island. This notice was discovered 
by a travelling party from Her Majesty’s ship eso/wte, under 
Captain Kellett, who were stationed off Melville for their 
winter quarters. It was then that Lieut. Pim volunteered to 
go in search of the ship, which he reached on April 6, 1853, 
after a journey of 160 miles, which occupied him twenty- 
eight days. The Znvestigator was then abandoned, and the 
officers and crew were transferred to the Resolute; but, owing 
to that vessel being unable to get to the eastward, they were 
compelled to pass another winter—the fourth—in the ice. 
Eventually they were transferred to the North Star, and 
reached England on September 28, 1854. By this expedition 
the existence of a north-west passage was fully established. 
Sir Alexander Armstrong was appointed Director-General of 
the Medical Department of the Navy in 1869, and retired 
from that office in 1880. 
AN account of some simple experiments on the best forms of 
curves for use with gliding or soaring machines for artificial 
flight has been sent to us by Mr, A. A. Merrill, of the Boston 
Aeronautical Society, U.S.A. A bicycle wheel was arranged to 
revolve in a vertical plane upon an axle fastened in a pier. 
From a point on the wheel a rod projected, and at the end of 
the rod the surface to be experimented upon was fixed at an 
observed angle with the plane of revolution of the wheel. The 
wheel was then started by the fall of a weight joined to the 
wheel in such a way that when the weight had fallen through a 
certain distance it became disconnected. After a surface had 
been fastened to the rod, the wheel was started, and when it had 
stopped the number of revolutions it had made was shown by a 
mechanical recorder. Given the same starting force, the number 
of revolutions would evidently depend upon the facility with 
which the surface moved through the air. The surface which 
offered the least resistance to motion was thus obtained. Among 
other results, the experiments seem to confirm Mr. L. Har- 
grave’s statement that the existence of a wind vortex under a 
bird’s wing is an important factor in soaring. 
A SATISFACTORY report of the committee o: the Albany 
Museum, Cape of Good Hope, for the year 1898, has been 
issued. While special attention has been given to the develop- 
ment of the South African collections, a number of specimens 
