OcrTosER 19, 1899] 
NATURE 
S85 
the command of an expedition fitted out in 1889 by a German 
anti-slavery association. In the following year he explored the 
Usambara, and made preliminary observations for the purpose 
of tracing a projected railway in that region. In addition to a 
map of the Congo and numerous contributions to the reports of 
the Geographical Society of Vienna, Dr. Baumann published 
three books dealing with his travels and observations in 
Fernando Po and Usambara and with the rising in German 
East Africa. 
WE regret to notice the death of Dr. J. W. Hicks, the Bishop 
of Bloemfontein, which has just taken place. The late Bishop 
was an earnest student of science, and was at one time a 
demonstrator in chemistry in the University of Cambridge, and 
published a text-book on inorganic chemistry. He was also a 
fully qualified medical man, having been made an M.D. in 1864, 
and an M.R.C.P. in 1865. 
THE death has occurred, at Adirondacks, New York, of Mr. 
Hamilton Y. Castner, well known for his work in connection 
with the manufacture of aluminium and the establishment on a 
manufacturing scale of a process for the electrolytic production 
of alkali and bleaching powder from common salt. 
THE National Geographic Magazine states that various sites 
within a radius of twenty-five miles of Washington are being 
examined by parties under Dr. Bauer’s direction for the deter- 
mination of the best location for the Coast and Geodetic Survey 
Observatory. The examinations thus far made have disclosed 
some interesting regional disturbances, especially in the vicinity 
of Gaithersburg. In order to determine what influence such 
regional disturbances have upon the variations of the earth’s 
magnetism, such as, for example, the diurnal variation or the 
secular variation, it is proposed to mounta sensitive Eschen- 
hagen dedinetograph at Gaithersburg, with the aid of which the 
variations of the most sensitive of the magnetic elements—the 
declination—will be continuously and automatically recorded. 
Tue British Fire Prevention Committee made a series of fire 
tests yesterday at their testing station as we went to press. The 
tests on this occasion were with a concrete floor, an iron safe, 
and two doors of wood. We are glad to see that the committee 
are continuing their valuable work in so energetic a manner. 
Valuable results may be expected to accrue from the experiments 
made by the committee from time to time. 
A MONUMENT erected to the memory of Johannes Miller 
was unveiled at Coblentz on October 7. Prof. Virchow, who 
was the principal speaker at the cer emony, said in the course of 
his remarks that Miiller was a biologist, a naturalist whose aim 
was the study of life itself in its universality. He was the 
first to use the microscope in researches on living beings, the 
first to disclose the fauna of the seas. His example inspired 
the deep-sea researches of to-day. Miiller’s method was 
observation ; he put things into the right positions for exhibiting 
their action, and then registered his observations. At the time 
of Miiller’s youth it was believed that from inanimate nature, 
from atoms, from matter, or substance, new combinations might 
form themselves, which finally might lead to the generation of 
living organic forms, that, in short, plants and men might be 
evolved from dust. In modern times this had been 
spontaneous generation. Johannes Miiller warned against such 
hypothetic conclusions. He said : ‘* We cannot generate living 
substance, and as long as we cannot do so, as long as we have 
no proof, we must put these theories aside” ; and (said Prof. 
Virchow) that is the standpoint of resignation, of submission, 
that is the true position for a naturalist, such as Miiller was. 
On the occasion of the waveiling of the monument, Miiller’s 
daughter presented to the State Library fourteen volumes of 
drawings, containing upwards of nine hundred zoological 
NO. 1564, VOL. 60] 
named 
sketches made by her father in the years 1850-1854 in various 
countries. 
Tue Indian correspondent of the Zancef states that new 
regulations have been made with reference to persons sending 
or taking from place to place in India cultures or other articles 
known or believed to contain the living germs of plague. No 
person who is not a commissioned medical officer, a military 
assistant surgeon, or a medical practitioner in possession of a 
qualification not lower than that of L.M.S. of the University of 
Calcutta, Madras or Bombay shall without the special per- 
mission of the Governor-General in Council or a local govern- 
ment take in his private possession from one place to another 
any cultures or other articles which he knows or believes to 
contain the living germ of plague. No such culture shall be 
sent from one place to another unless it is securely packed in 
a hermetically closed tin of adequate strength, placed in a 
strong outer box of wood or tin, with a layer of at least 
three-quarters of an inch of raw cotton wool between the 
inner and outer case, the outer case being enclosed in a stout 
cloth, securely fastened and sealed, and labelled with such 
distinguishing inscription as will suffice to make immediately 
manifest the nature of the contents. 
ACCORDING to a recently issued consular report, a new 
process for the production of ammonia has recently been dis- 
covered in Germany. The process is said to be at present an 
expensive one, but this difficulty will, it is thought, be over- 
come. 
An American paper, the Pharmaceutical Eva, has published 
an article by Mr. H. M. Whelpley, of St. Louis, in which 
particulars are given as to the use of the metric system in 
American physicians’ prescriptions. It appears from the 
article that out of 1,008,500 prescriptions examined, only 
6 per cent. were in the metric system. The information was 
obtained from apothecaries in forty-two States and territories. 
A sHoRT article in the current number of the Wational 
Geographic Magazine sums up in brief the main results of 
Lieut. Peary’s explorations in 1898-99, from which we extract 
the following information :—In the south Peary discovered that 
the so-called Hayes Sound, north-west of Cape Sabine, is only 
an inlet or bay. It was supposed by many that it extended 
through to the Arctic Ocean west of Ellesmere Land, and 
separated that country from Grinnell Land on the north. It 
now proved that these regions are one and the same land. He 
also travelled west across the northern part of Ellesmere Land, 
which has never before been penetrated for any distance, and 
visited its west coast, joining his survey of the shoreline with the 
short bit of the coast further north, which Lockwood, of the 
Greely Expedition, discovered in May 1883. This is the first 
time that any part of this coast has been seen south of the inlet 
visited by Lockwood. In his various sledge journeys up the 
channel from the /Vndward’s position, Peary skirted the east 
coasts of Grinnell Land and Grant Land for a distance of about 
250 miles, rectifying the mapping of this shore-line in some 
respects, and particularly the surveys of a number of indent- 
ations. The most northern point reached by Peary was Cape 
Beechey, about 82° N. latitude. No effort to push northward 
has been made this summer, and Peary’s winter camp has been 
established on the Greenland side of Smith Sound, several miles 
further south than his quarters of a year ago. 
Pror. Kocu has published his first report on his study ox 
malaria in Italy in the Deutsche Medécinische Wochenschrift. 
In all the cases of malaria examined by Prof. Koch and his 
assistants the parasite of malaria was found in the blood. 
Apart from the blood of human beings, the parasites occurred 
only in some species of mosquitoes which were met with 
only in the summer. The mosquitoes convey the malaria germs 
