NATURE 
371 
ay be expected, 
Tue Berlin medical journals record the death, from cholera, 
August 20, of Dr. Otto Obermeier. His death is supposed 
have been the immediate consequence of his intense devotion 
Science. Having too great confidence in his power of re- 
sisting infection, in consequence of having not taken fever during 
jis investigations on that disease, he kept in his bedroom patho- 
logical specimens taken from persons who had died of cholera, 
and also portions of their excreta ; and it is believed that in this 
way he became infected. According to one account, he injected 
some blood from cholera patients into his own vessels. He was 
‘0 devoted to his inquiry that, after he had become aware of the 
sondition in which he was, he made some microscopic examina- 
tions on his own blood. His death occurred after an illness of 
seven hours, in the thirty-first year of his age. 
_ THE late Mr. John Stuart Mill has left property to the amount 
of 14,0007, Of this he has left to any one university in Great 
Britain or Ireland that shall be the first to open its degrees to 
“women, 3,000/.; and to the same University a further sum of 
,000/. to endow scholarships for female students exclusively. 
His copyrights he bequeaths in trust to Mr. John Morley, to be 
pplied in aid of some periodical publication which shall be open 
to the expression of all opinions, and which shall have all its 
articles signed with the names of the writers. 
_ Tue planet No. 131, discovered by Prof. Peters, has been 
named Vala. 
No. 1,952 of the Astronomische Nachrichten contains the 
following ephemeris of the one discovered by M. W. Tempel 
-at Milan on July 3 last :— 
"a R.A. South Declination. 
1873. hsm, 5. ai he 
Sept. 4 TENG) 14 38 
Y m8 2.449. “0 15 26 
A wy “2 a) gs 16 12 
ge) een, 2 LOY 1s 16 54 
+, 20 2) 6. 52 17 31 
ESA ce, 2° 849 ...aeeOo eG 
This ephemeris is by Signor J. V. Schiaparelli ; it is for oh. 
Milan time. The same number of the Astronomische Nach- 
richten contains a short article upon this comet by Mr. L. Schul- 
hof, assistant at the Observatory of Vienna, jwherein he says, 
“Tt does not admit of doubt that we have hereto do with 
a "periodic comet of short revolution, the exact calculation of the 
orbit of which I shali enter upon without delay.” 
__ Two new comets have been recently discovered ; the one by 
'M. Henry, at Paris, the other by M. Borelly, at Marseilles. 
M. STEPHAN, the Director of the Marseilles Observatory, 
hhas succeeded in re-finding Brorsen’s comet. The correction 
of Mr. Plummer’s ephemeris is as follows :— 
R.A. + 2h 7™ 
Dec.— 15’ 8" 
WE understand that the Board of Examiners for the mining 
district of South Durham, Whitby, and Cleveland allow candi- 
dates for examination, under the New Mines Regulation Act, to 
count one or two years passed at the College of Physica] 
Science in Newcastle the same as the like period served under 
indentures to a mining engineer, or as one or two years’ experi- 
ence in a mining office. This offers a very great advantage to 
young men who intend to devote themselves to the profession 
of mining engineering. 
admission to the courses of instruction under the Science and Art 
Department :—Royal School of Mines, Jermyn Street, London : 
William Hewitt, aged 21, teacher; C. S. Fleming, 20, assistant 
teacher ; Samuel Barratt, 22, assistant teacher. Royal College 
of Science, Dublin: Henry Louis, 17, student; Robert H. 
Reilly, 18, student ; Thomas Arnall, 22, rule-maker. 
A suM of 500/. having been placed at the disposal of the Council 
of the Society of Arts, through Sir William Bodkin, byagentleman 
who does not wish his name to appear, for promoting, by means 
of prizes or otherwise, economy in the use of coal for domestic 
purposes, the Council have decided to offer the following prizes : 
Five prizes for carrying out the purpose of the donor, each prize 
to consist of the Society’s medal and so0/. Testing-rooms will 
be provided, in which the various competing articles may be 
tested in sucession, each competitor having allotted to him in 
turn a room and chimney, for a limited period, where he may fix 
his apparatus for the purpose of its being tested by the judges 
appointed by the Society of Arts, the same to be removed when 
directed by the judges; such fixing and removal to be at the 
cost of the competitor. The competing articles must be delivered 
at the London International Exhibition, South Kensington, on 
December 1, 1873, with a view to their being tested, and sub- 
sequently shown in the Exhibition of 1874. 
THE last number of the Sociely of Arts’ Fournal contains a 
Report on Cooking Apparatus at the International Exhibition, 
by Mr. G. W. Yapp. 
Ir is stated that a new Literary Review will be published at 
the beginning of next year, covering the same ground as the 
Atheneum, the Academy,{and Notes and Queries. It will supply 
a regular weekly account of English and foreign literature, 
science, and learning, the fine arts and archzology, music, and 
the drama. It is added that the proprietors have purchased all 
rights in the Fortnightly Academy Fournal, and intend to make 
that the scientific and learned part of the new paper, though 
whether under the name of the Academy or some other name is 
not yet determined. 
A LIFE of Claparéde, with an admirable portrait, precedes his 
posthumous work, entitled ‘‘ Recherches sur la structure des 
Annélides Sédentaires,” which is published es the new volume 
of the ‘‘ Memoires de la Société de Physique cc Genéve.”* 
WE have received a little pamphlet containing a very interest- 
ing account, by Mr. J. Logan Lobley, of the excursion of the 
Geologists’ Association to the Malvern district during the 21st 
and five following days of last month. 
WE have received Reports of the meetings of the Eastbourne 
Natural History Society for April 18 and May 23. At the 
former meeting, a paper by Miss A. Woodhouse was read on 
Odoxa moschatellina, and the Rey. A. K. Cherril read one ‘‘ On 
Mosses.” At the latter meeting the following papers were read :— 
“ The Orchidacez, with special reference to the species found 
near Eastbourne,’ by Miss Hall and Miss A, Woodhouse ; 
Ceratostoma Helvelle, by C.J. Muller ; and ‘‘ The Alluvial Beds 
of the Wish,” by the Rev. E, S. Dewick, F.G.S. 
A CORRESPONDENT writes us that he ‘has just obtained a 
specimen of quartz with gold found at Wanlockhead, Dum- 
friesshire. It is a fragment of a detached mass of quartz which 
weighed about ten pounds, throughout which gold was diffused. 
Gold has long been collected from the sand of some of the rivu- 
lets at Wanlockhead and Leadhills, but no instance was before 
known of gold having been found in its matrix. The specimen 
which our correspondent has contains about as much gold as 
might be equal to the third or fourth of a sovereign, along with 
THE following candidates have been successful in obtaining brown iron ochre diffused over one of the surfaces of the 
Royal Exhibitions of 50/. per annum for three years and free | 
a Lest a 
quartz, 
