March 1, 188 3] 
NATURE 
423 
velocity, but without deducting this work the alteration was very 
slight, 33 per cent. instead of 32 per cent. 
THE second annual general meeting of the members of the 
London Sanitary Protection Association was held on Saturday 
at the rooms of the Society of Arts, under the presidency of 
Prof, Huxley. From the report of the council, presented to 
the meeting, it appeared that 368 new members had joined the 
Association during the year, and there was a total of 533 
members. The total number of houses inspected was 362, and 
in the greater number of these serious errors in the sanitary 
arrangements of the houses were found and corrected. Twenty- 
one of them, or 6 per cent., were found to have the drains 
choked up, and no communication whatever with the sewer; all 
the foul matter sent down the sinks and soil-pipes simply soaking 
into the ground under the basement of the houses. In 117 
houses, or 32 per cent., the soil-pipes were found to be leaky, 
allowing sewer-gas, and in many cases liquid sewage, to escape 
into the house. In 137, or 37 percent., the overflow pipes 
from the cisterns were led direct into the drains or soil-pipes, 
allowing sewer gas to pass up them, and contaminate the water 
in the cisterns, and in most cases to pass freely into the house, 
In 263, or nearly three-fourths of the houses inspected, the 
waste-pipes from baths and sinks were found to be led direct 
into the drain or soil-pipes, thus allowing the possibility of 
sewer gas passing passing up them instead of being led outside 
the house, and made to discharge over trapped gullies in the 
open air as they should be. Prof. Huxley moved the adoption 
of the report, and stated that he had found himself unable 
longer to act as president of the association, owing to the in- 
creasing demands upon his time and energies. He was glad 
however to say that the Duke of Argyll had consented to succeed 
him in that post. The second annual meeting of the Sanitary 
Assurance Association was held at the office, Argyll Place, 
Regent Street, W., on Thursday. In the absence of Sir Joseph 
Fayrer, Prof. T. Hayter Lewis, F.R.I.B.A., was elected to 
preside. The secretary read the report of the council for the 
year 1882, from which it appeared that the inspection of 
houses, supervision of work, and issue of certificates had been 
continued on the plan initiated by the association in 1881. The 
financial statement showed that considerable progress had been 
made since the issue of the first report. The increase during 
1882 had been nearly double that of 1881. 
Part 2 of vol. ii. of ‘‘ The Encyclopzedic Dictionary,” pub- 
lished by Messrs. Cassell, extends to the word Destructionist. 
The present instalment seems quite up to the standard of those 
already published, though for a work of such extent we think the 
account of the corona of the sun inadequate. On the other hand, 
to illustrate the term Darwinism, we have half a column 
biography of Charles Darwin. 
THE last number of the /zvestia of the East Siberian Geo- 
graphical Society, which has just reached us, contains a letter 
from M. Yurgens, chief of the meteorological station at the 
mouth of the Lena. When leaving Yakutsk with his com- 
panions, Dr. Bunge and M. Eigner, he took with him, besides 
provisions for eighteen months, a wooden house 42 feet long 
and 21 feet wide, 40 cwts. of petroleum, two cows with a calf, 
plenty of hay, bricks, lime, and even moss and clay, as there is 
no clay in the delta of the Lena. As is unfortunately too often 
the case with such expeditions, the barometers went out of 
order, and the observers found great difficulty in filling and 
boiling them again, so that the new meteorological station at 
Olekminsk has remained without a barometer. On this subject 
a correspondent writes: ‘‘ A new portable barometer would be 
really an immense benefit for countries like Siberia, but in the 
meantime would it not be advisable for second-rank meteoro- 
logical stations to make use of the aneroid? Of course the cor- 
rection of each aneroid changes slowly but continuously, so that 
an uncontrolled aneroid has no value at all ; but would it not be 
possible to control it, say every fortnight, by means of a hypso- 
thermometer—a most reliable instrument if the observer follows 
the advice of Dr. Wild—and, after having boiled the water, 
leave the thermometer to cool, and make use only of a second 
reading, which is made when boiling the water for a second 
time. The observations of Dr. Wild, repeated by M. Krapotkin 
at the St. Petersburg Physical Observatory on five hypsothermo- 
meters taken from an optician’s shop, proved that they were most 
reliable if the above-mentioned precaution were used. Might 
it not be useful to repeat these observations on hypsothermo- 
meters on a larger scale, in order to ascertain the degree of 
accuracy that might be expected from these instruments, which 
highly recommend themselves to travellers, and especially for 
small meteorological stations, by their portability ?” 
AN avalanche, or rather a landslip, took place at Gudvang- 
soren, in the remote and narrow Nero valley, in Norway, at 
the end of January last. The quantities of earth and stone 
precipitated into the valley destroyed several farms, and killed 
two women. Landslips have previously occurred in this 
valley. 
Ir is remarkable that a disease like leprosy should flourish in 
Norway. From the returns just published this appears however 
to be the case, although we are happy to say that the number of 
afflicted is decreasing. At the end of 1875 there were 2008 
patients reported in the country. At the end of 1880 the number 
had fallen to 1582. The disease is stated to be due to the con- 
sumption of food in an unwholesome condition, particularly fish, 
and also to uncleanliness. 
On February 5,-at 6.45 p.m., a meteor of unu-ual size and 
appearance was observed near Arvika, in Sweden. An ob- 
server who happened at the time to be passing a lake—Glas- 
fjorden—states that he first observed the meteor high on the 
horizon, going from south-east to north-west, when, after about 
eighteen seconds, it suddenly changed its course to south-east. 
During its progress to north-west, calculated at eighteen seconds, 
the meteor made several digressio: s from its plane, while its size 
varied from tbat of an ordinary star to that of the sun, sometimes 
emitting a white, at others a yellow light, and at times dis- 
charging showers of sparks. At the point of changing its direc- 
tion, when it was so near the surface of the lake that its path 
was reflected therein, it possessed a distinct tail, and with this 
adjunct it passed out of the range of sight in a south-easterly 
direction, after being observed for nearly fifty seconds. 
Ar Iserlohn (Rhenish Prussia) the fall of a meteorite was 
observed by several persons on the evening of February I. Next 
morning the meteorite was found, having penetrated deeply into 
the hard-frozen soil of a neighbouring garden. Its weight is 
165 grammes, its size that of a goose’s egg, The surface is of a 
glistening black, and the point seems broken off, 
A NEW substance, remarkable for its intense sweetness, being 
much sweeter than cane-sugar, has been lately found by Dr. 
Fahlberg in the course of some investigations on coal-tar derivas 
tives (Yourn. Frank Inst.). He designates it benzoic sulphinide, 
or anhydrosulphamine benzoic acid, 
Mr. H. HeaTHcoTe STATHAM will give the first of two 
lectures, at the Royal Institution, on ‘‘ Music as a Form of 
Artistic Expression,” on Saturday, March 10, The subject of 
Prof. Tyndall’s discourse on Friday evening, March 16, is 
«Thoughts on Radiation, Theoretical and Practical.” 
On February 11, at 9.50 a.m., an earthquake was noticed at 
Szigeth (Hungary). It lasted four seconds, It was also felt in 
the Bosnian village of Looskrupa and its neighbourhood, 
