Fan. 19, 1882] 
NATURE 
277 
Lord President of the Council:—J. F. Main, M.A., D.Sc., 
Professor of Mathematics and Engineering at University College, 
Bristol, Assistant Professor of Mechanics and Mathematics ; F. 
Orpen Bower, B.A., Demonstrator of Botany at University 
College, London, Lecturer on Botany ; Frank Rutley, F.G.S., 
Assistant Geologist on H.M. Geological Survey, Lecturer on 
Mineralogy; J. Russell Smith, Instructor in Mechanical 
Drawing. 
THE Lord President of the Council has appointed]Mr. Haddon, 
Professor of Zoology in the Royal College of Science, Dublin, 
Assistant Curator in the Natural History Department of the 
Dublin Science and Art Museum. 
Mr. J. M. ScHUvER has forwarded to Petermann’s Mittheilungen 
an account of his proceedings since his departure from Cairo last 
January. He reached Khartum on March 19, and leaving again 
on April 4, he travelled by way of Senaar to Famaha (Fazogl), 
where he arrived on April 28. Fadassi was reached on June 12, 
and on the way Mr. Schuver ascertained that the Termat affluent 
of the Blue Nile rises in the Sori Mountains, west of Fasuder, 
and not half a degree to the south near Belletafa, as has been 
supposed. There is a stream called Turmat near Belletafa, but 
it is an affluent of the Jabus, At Fadassi Mr. Schuver met with 
a series of misfortunes, and was himself taken seriously ill with 
fever. On July 30, however, he was able to start on a trip to 
the south, and after thirty-eight days’ travelling returned to 
Fadassi. During this journey he explored the Amam country, 
which is watered by two affluents of the Jabus, as well as that of 
the Legha Gallas; he also proved that the Jabus rises a degree 
further south than is shown to be the case on Petermann’s map, 
and that the great Lake and River Baro are situated a degree 
further to the south of Fadassi, and he defined the exact line of 
water-parting between the two Niles as far as the 8th parallel. 
Mr. Schuver intended to start from Fadassi on January 1 of this 
year to explore the yast unknown regions down to the equator, 
but in so doing he will have to make a considerable a¢¢our to the 
west to avoid the country of the Legha Gallas, from which in 
his previous visit he escaped with great difficulty. 
A PRIZE of 5000 lire (say 190/.) is offered by the Reale Istituto 
Veneto ‘‘for the best history of the experimental method in 
Italy.” The application of this method to the physical sciences 
is chiefly to be expounded, with special regard to all that is 
noteworthy in the four centuries from the beginning of the 
fifteenth to the end of the eighteenth, including the discovery of 
the Voltaic pile. Some account is also required of the progress 
and rapid development of the economic and social sciences by 
means of the experimental method. Memoirs must be sent in 
before the end of February, 1885. Foreigners may compete, 
and the language may be Italian, Latin, French, (serman, or 
English. 
Mayor W. GwyNNE HuGHEs, Deputy Commissioner of 
British Burma, has just published a useful little volume on the 
hill tracts of Arakan, of which he was lately superintendent. 
Two of-its sections are devoted to their history and ethnology, 
aud the volume is accompanied by a map (scale 32 miles to an 
inch) of the eastern frontier of British Burma. 
PROVINCIAL museums haye begun to appear in Russia, and 
we learn that the Natural History Museum opened last week at 
Yaroslavl already contains 50 skulls, 250 birds, 500 birds’ nests, 
with ezgs, a complete collection of seeds of all wild plants, 1200 
fossils, and 5000 minerals, together with interesting collections 
of useful and noxious insects and plants, and a collection of 
plants classified according to the soils they grow upon. 
NUMEROUS antique objects have recently been found in an 
ancient German tomb near Lindelbach (Franconia), and have 
been presented by the proprietor to the University of Wiirzburg. 
They all date from the Bronze Age. 
CoL. VENUKOFF, now in Paris, has written to the Geogra- 
phical Society there, stating that the exploration of Turcoman 
Land by Russian topographers is progressing rapidly, and that 
Lieut. Loukiomoy has proceeded as far as Seraks on the 
banks of the Tejent River. At the same sitting letters have 
been read from the French exploring party in Central Africa. 
They had been written from Bokhara to M. Bischoffsheim, 
who, not confining his assistance to astronomers, has been 
the principal patron of the expedition, A later telegram to M, 
Bischoffsheim states that the party had arrived at Krasnovodsk. 
THE recently published volume of the ‘‘ Materials for the 
Geology of Caucasus” contains a paper, by M. Batsevitch, on 
the naphtha-valley of the Apsheron peninsula. Towards the 
north, east, and south the valley is bounded by a cirgue of 
Pliocene rocks of the Aralo-Caspian formation, and towards the 
west by the mud-volcano Bog-Boga. The valley itself, three 
miles long and three miles wide, is filled by naphtha-bearing 
formations, and it contains the:richest wells of Balakhan and 
Sabuntchi. Towards the west it joins the great crevice, or 
rapture of rocks, which runs west and east from the mud-voleano 
Saghilpiry. As to the origin of the Apsheron naphtha, the 
author considers it a result of gaseous emanations from submarine 
mud-volcanoes of the post-Pliocene period. 
THE telephone has penetrated even to Russian Turkestan, as 
we learn that Samarkand is in telephonic communication with 
Katty Kourgan, forty-four miles distant. 
Tue death is announced, at the ageZof ninety years, of the 
widow of the late Sir William Fairbairn. 
AccorpINc to Mr. G. Leyison the light emitted by the little 
fire-flies that abound in the neighbourhood of New York exhibits, 
when examined in the spectroscope, a peculiarity worthy of note- 
The blue and violet rays are wanting, and those of least refran- 
gibility are predominant. In the light emitted, of the various 
preparations of phosphorus itself very little can be discovered 
except green rays. 
Pror. KonrAD KELLER, of Ziirich, the well-known zoologist, 
is about to undertake a scientific exploring tour to the shores of 
the Red Sea. The journey will last several months. 
Guarus has been the scene of another great landslip. A 
mass of rock 300 metres high has fallen from the summit of the 
Rothrisi, swept away a forest above Ennenda, devasted some 
valuable land, and destroyed the roads. It fortunately missed 
the village, and no lives were lost. There being nothing in the 
weather to account for the many landslips that lately have oc- 
curred in Switzerland, the phenomena are ascribed in great 
measure to the frequency of slight earthquake shocks, twenty- 
one of which have been observed in various parts of the country 
since the beginning of December. 
Tue American Naturalist announces the death, at the age of 
twenty-seven years, of Mr. J. D. Putnam, President of the Daven- 
port Academy of Natural Sciences, the success of which is largely 
owing to Mr. Putnam’s exertions. Mr. Putnam had devoted 
considerable attention to entomology. 
THE additicns to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 
past week include a Bonnet M onkey (Macacus radiatus 2) from 
India, presented by M. Kessels; a Ring-tailed Coati (WVasua 
yufz) from South America, presented by Mr. John Verinder ; 
three Young Otters (Lutra vulgaris § 6 ¢), British, presented 
by the Reading Angling Association ; seven European Scorpions 
(Scorpio europeus) from Nice, presented by Mr. T. D. G, Car- 
michael, F.Z.S. ; two Macaque Monkeys (Aacaczs cynomolgus 
$ ¢) from India, two Arabian Gazelles (Gazella arabica $ 2) 
from Arabia, deposited. 
