t - : os é at q 
396 
Association, also Dr. Acland, Dr. Andrew Clark, Dr. Lauder 
Branton, &c. It seems that of the 192 members of the Asso- 
ciation 22 are medical men. 
WE see from a report in the British Guiana Colonist, that the 
Museum in Georgetown, belonging to the Royal Agricultural 
and Commercial Society,‘is making excellent progress. Mr, Im 
Thurn, who has already done good work for science in the 
Colony, has returned to take charge of the Museum, and the 
reforms he proposes to introduce, with the approval of the 
Society, promise to make the Museum one of real scientific 
value, as well as of practical importance in connection with the 
development of the resources and industry of the Colony. Mr. 
Im Thurn is authorised by the Society to bring out a skilled 
German taxidermist, so that in time the Museum will probably 
have a valuable collection of birds. 
THE Italian Government has published some interesting facts 
relating to the state of the public instruction in that country. 
The recent law on primary schools has been applied to 
7533 communes of the 8276 existing in the Peninsula and 
surrounding islands. The number of public teachers in these 
schools is 41,000, viz, 20,700 males and 20,300 females. Out 
of a population of 26,801,194 the pupils are 1,048,000 males 
and 853,429 females, for a yearly expense of 31,000,000 francs 
—26,000,000 for wages and 5,000,000 for matériel, There are 
besides 7422 private primary schools with 7422 male and 4444 
female teachers, but with 92,228 female and only 63,000 male 
pupils. There are also in the kingdom 11,161 male evening 
schools for adults and 472 female, the first with 439,624 pupils, 
and the other with 16,063. Females largely preponderate in 
Sunday schools ; there are only 592 schools and 21,914 pupils for 
male Sunday instruction, and 5979 with 191,245 for females. 
EARTHQUAKES in the northern alluvial districts of Europe are 
certainly of rare occurrence. Reports from many localities, 
however, prove that an earthquake was observed in North 
Schleswig and South Jutland on Jan. 14, between to and 11 p.m. 
‘The phenomenon was observed at Hadersleben, Kolding, Klitland, 
Ringkjobing, &c. Early in January numerous shocks were 
observed upon the island of Chios. The western part of the 
island continues sinking deeper and deeper, so that its disap- 
pearance below sea level is shortly expected. 
M. UjFAtvy has returned from his journey to the Western 
Himalaya district, undertaken under the auspices of the French 
Government. This was the fourth scientific expedition under- 
taken by M. Ujfalvy. He again brings large ethnographical 
collections, also numerous anthropological specimens, skulls, 
samples of hair, and measurements. 
From the programme of the Second German ‘ Geogra- 
phentag,” to be held in Halle on April 12-14, an interesting 
meeting may be expected. ‘The papers which are to be read are 
all on subjects of scieatific interest, and afford one more proof 
of the highly scientific conception which Germans have of 
Geography. 
THE ‘‘Handbook of Cinchona Culture,” by Karl Wessel 
van Gorkom, formerly Director of the Gevernment Cinchona | 
Plantations in Java, has been translated by Mr. B. D. Jackson, 
Botanical Secretary of the Linnean Society of London, and will 
be shortly published by Triibner and Co, 
CONFLAGRATIONS have at all times been the plague of Japan- 
ese towns. It has been said that Tokio, the capital of Japan, is 
rebuilt once in every seven years. During the winter of 1880-81 
it was calculated that three-tenths of the city was destroyed by 
fire. Almost the whole commercial quarter, situated in the 
heart of the town, disappeared, leaving nothing but blackened 
NATURE 
| cement material. 
» 
[ Fed, 23, 1882 
ruins behind. Each winter a tale of similar desolation comes 
from almost every town in Japan. Various modes of meeting 
or preventiug calamities of this description have been suggested. 
A system of national insurance has been proposed ; the arrange- 
ment of the towns in sections, each surrounded by a large wall, — 
which would confine fires to a single quarter, as in Peking, was 
mooted last year, but as yet nothing has been done. Expense 
has generally been the the chief obstacle ; but a paper in the last 
(the 25th) number of the AZttthetlungen der deutschen Gesellschaft 
jiir Natur und Vilkerkunde Ostasiens, by Dr. O. Korschelt, 2 
chemist in the employ of the Japanese Government, suggests an 
economical, and apparently very practicable, way of meeting 
the difficulty. The paper deals with Japanese soil as a natural 
He shows that the usual soils on the plains of 
Japan, derived from volcanic tufa, closely resemble puzsvlana 
and ¢rass in composiiion, and form the basis of an excellent 
cement. Chemical and mechanical analyses of several of these tufa 
soils are given ; their specific gravity is less than that of any other 
soilsexcept those containing very large amounts of vegetable matter, 
Mixed with one-sixth their volume of lime, these soils form excel- 
lent cement for building purposes, and the writer points out 
that by using such materials the Japanese could substitute stone 
houses for wooden ones in nearly all their provinces in a very 
simple and economical manner, and thus save to a very large 
extent the enormous annual waste of substance which occurs 
through fires. There is no lack of this material; the higher 
lands of the city of Jedo stand on beds twenty feet in thickness. 
Referring to the agricultural relations of these soils Dr. Korschelt 
coincides in the view previously brought forward by Mr. Kinch, 
that these soils are not by nature chemically rich, at all events 
in their mineral consti‘uents, but that owing to their physical 
properties, which in turn are dependent mainly on the large 
amount of easily decomposable zeolitic silicates they contain, 
are most admirably adapted to the system of agriculture pursued 
by the people. 
Amonc the papers in the last number of the JdZitthetlungen 
is one by Dr. Naumann, on the Trias formation in Northern 
Japan; by Dr. Déderlein on Japanese marine snakes, and the 
analysis of a fragment of meteorite by Dr. Korschelt. 
THE Perthshire Natural History Society have issued Part 1 of 
the first volume of their Proceedings. It is neatly got up and 
contains abstracts of the various papers read at the meetings, 
1880-81, and an account of the excursions for which the Society 
is so favourably situated. 
THE Ausland states that M. Raffray, the French Vice-Consul 
at Massowah, discovered in the Land of the Gallas in the 
mountains of Oebul (Sabul ?), at ten different places, rocks of 
which the interior was excavated and transformed into places of 
worship. He is of opinion that these rocky chapels date from 
| the fifth century. 
THE 200th anniversary of the birth of Johann Friedrich 
Boettiger, the inventor of porcelain, was celebrated at his birth- 
place, Schleiz (Germany), on February 4. The Royal porcelain 
factory of Meissen sent an artistically designed votive tablet to 
the civic authorities of Schleiz, which was fixed to the ‘‘ Rathhaus” 
of that town on that day. 
THE additions to the Zoological Society’s Gardens during the 
past week include a Mule Deer (Cervus macrotis 2 ) from North 
America, presented by Judge Caton; a Bauer’s Parrakeet 
(Platycercus sonarius) from Australia, presented by Mr, S. 
Draper; a Common Buzzard (Buteo vulgaris), British, presented 
by Lord Walsingham, F.Z.S. ; a Common Raven (Corvus corax) 
from Scotland, presented by Sir George Leith Buchanan, Bart. ; 
an African Elephant (Z/ephas africanus 8) from Africa, depo- 
sited ; two Grey headed Love Birds (Agapornis cana § 2) from 
