250 
NATURE 
[ Fan. 12, 1882 
there, and, with the aid of dogs purchased in Kamschatka, 
sending out his crew in small parties to the various sides of the 
island and its vicinity to search for the lost explorers.” 
THE Geographical Society have issued (through Stanford) the 
first part, of seven sheets, of the large-scale map of East Central 
Africa, by Mr. E. G. Ravenstein, which we have referred to as 
in preparation. The map is on the scale of fifteen miles to an 
inch, extends from 10° N. to 20° S. and lat. of 25°. It thus 
includes an extensive area of great interest, and is ona scale to 
show all the leading features in detail so far as they have been 
discovered. Mr. Ravenstein has collected in his map a vast 
amount of information which could be obtained only by con- 
sulting many books, so that it will form a library in itself. The 
routes of all explorers are shown, and abundant notes are laid 
down as to the nature of the country, ethnology, doubtful points, 
&c. It gives evidence of conscientious, painstaking, and wide 
research. To all interested in marking the progress of African 
_exploration it will prove of great utility. 
ADMIRAL MOUCHEZ will give his usual annual soirée at the 
Paris Observatory in March. He has distributed to the 
leading Parisian engineering firms the conditions for the 
construction of the cupola for the great equatorial to be built in 
the newly-annexed grounds. The diameter of the revolving 
cupola is to be 20 metres. The form must be hemispherical. 
The time required for rapid revolution is 10 minutes. It is to 
revolve in the same direction as the heavens, and the mechanism 
will cause the revolution of a seat for two astronomers. The 
dimensions of the moving platform are 1 metre by 2. The com- 
petitors are to employ either a falling weight or a gas engine as 
motor. In this case the motor. must be placed at a distance 
outside. 
THE French Government is busy preparing a large number of 
new bills which will be laid before both Houses when the 
Parliamentary recess is over. One of these relates to the the use 
of the surplus gained by the Electrical Exhibition and the other 
to the telegraphic network. 
Pror. J. G. MCKEeNpRICK, the new Fullerian Professor of 
Physiology at the Royal Institute, will give the first of a course 
of eleven lectures on the Mechanism of the Senses on Tuesday 
next (January 17) ; Mr, H. N. Moseley will give the first of a 
course of four lectures on Corals on Thursday (January 19) ; and 
Prof. E. Pauer will give the first of a course of four lectures on 
Ludwig van Beethoven (with musical illustrations) on Saturday 
(January 21). The first Friday evening discourse will be given 
by Dr. Huggins, on Comets, on January 20. 
To the British Trade Journal for January, Dr, James Geikie 
contributes an interesting article on ‘‘ The Gulf Stream and the 
Panama Canal,” in which he concludes that the opening of the 
Canal ‘‘will have as much effect on the Gulf-Stream and the 
climate of Northern Europe as the emptying of a teapot-ful of 
boiling water into the Arctic Ocean would have in raising the 
annual temperature of Greenland.” 
AMONG the sixpenny popular editions issued by Messrs. 
Longman and Co. is an abridgement of the Rev. J. G. Wood’s 
“Homes Without Hands,” under the title of ‘Strange Dwel- 
lings ; being a Description of the Habitation of Animals.” 
THE Austrian Minister for Public Instruction has ordered a 
colossal statue of the late Austrian Arctic explorer and discoverer 
of Franz-Josef Land, Carl Weyprecht. The statue will be 
executed by the celebrated sculptor, Victor Tilgner, of Vienna, 
in Laas marble. 
M. Paut Bert has filled an important lacuna in the organisa- 
tion of the French system of public instruction in Algiers. He | 
has authorised the Ecole Supérieure of Letters in Algiers to 
grant honours in Arabic literature, after candidates have passed 
through a special examination. 
RussIAN papers state that on December 22, 1881, at 11.20 
p-m., a meteor, spreading an intense violet light and the fall of 
which was accompanied by a strong explosion, was seen at 
Byejetsk, in the government of Tver, and at the village Nasilovo, 
twenty-seven miles distant from that town. 
THE detailed report of Prof. Sorokin to the Kazan University 
on the downs of Kara-koum in Russian Turkestan, has appeared 
in Russian as a separate volume, under the title of ‘‘ Travel in 
Central Asia in 1878-79.” 
A SHOCK of earthquake was felt at Batoum (Caucasus) on 
December 28, 1881, at 6.33 p.m. Itlasted for about ten seconds, 
and was accompanied by a loud underground noise. 
EXPERIMENTS in the culture of the Chinese Soja bean (Soja 
hispida), which gave good results in Vienna when Prof. Haber- 
landt made use of seeds received from Northern China and 
Mongolia, have been repeated in Russia, and so far have been 
quite successful in Kieff, Saratoff, and the Crimea, but they have 
failed in the western provinces of Russia. 
On December 22, 1881, Tiflis was covered with a sheet of 
snow ten inches deep. Snow is a very rare occurrence in this 
town, and its appearance seems the more strange as there has 
been no snow in all Central Russia. 
A VALUABLE discovery has been made in a quarry at Dil- 
lingen, near Saarlouis. Some workmen found in a small cavity 
a bronze vessel containing gold and silver ornaments of partly 
beautiful and partly very coarse workmanship. Amongst them 
is a golden disc of 8 centimetres in diameter richly covered with 
rubies, emeralds, and filigree work ; also a silver object weighing 
over 150 grammes, and bearing inscriptions in Latin, Greek, and 
unknown characters. The proprietor of the quarry will present 
the objects found to the Bavarian National Museum. 
Near Caltanisetta, Sicily, a series of caverns have been dis- 
covered, which are evidently burial-places dating from the period 
when the ancient Sicilians had already been ousted by the Italian 
tribes, but before the Greek colonisation had begun. Their 
arrangement is similar to the tombs at Pantelica, Acri, and 
Girgenti. Inthe neighbourhood of the caverns are numerous 
remains of ancient buildings and other proofs of the existence of 
an ancient populous colony. The spot derives its name from 
the hill of Gibil Gaib. 
PHYLLOXERA seems to have abandoned the vineyards of 
Lombardy and Liguria, but has appeared in other parts of Italy, 
viz. Elba, Sardinia, &c. In Sicily the plague is making rapid 
progress ; the districts of Messina and Caltanisetta being par- 
ticularly unfortunate. 
M. SynGros, the Athens banker who gave 100,000 francs 
for the erection of an archzological museum at Olympia, has 
again given a like sum to facilitate the progress of the work. 
AN earthquake is reported from Honolulu on September 30, 
1881. It consisted of one very violent and two lighter shocks. 
The first was felt at 4.53 a.m. lasting thirty seconds, and accom- 
panied by loud subterranean rumbling ; direction south-east to 
north-west, The crater of Kilauea was very active at the same 
time. Numerous houses were more or less injured. The pheno- 
menon was also observed on all the other islands of the Hawaiian 
Archipelago. An earthquake is also reported from Eastern 
Galizia on December 29, 1881 ; several shocks lasting a few 
seconds. A sharp and unusually sustained shock of earthquake 
passed along the east coast of India on the morning of the 31st 
