53 
NATURE 
[ April 5, 1883 
Naples Zoological Station, will send contributions of great 
scientific value. 
France, the other day only, consented to the official 
appointment of her Consul to look after the interests of 
the oyster cultivators who are contributing an important 
feature. 
In the Chinese and Japanese annexe, on the east, will 
be seen a large collection of specimens (including the 
gigantic crabs) which has been collected, to a great 
extent, at the suggestion of Dr. Giinther of the British 
Museum. 
It is at the same time fortunate and unfortunate that a 
similar Fisheries Exhibition is now being heldat Yokohama, 
as many specimens which have been collected specially 
for their own use would otherwise be wanting; and on 
the other hand, many are held back for their own show. 
China, of all foreign countries, was the first to send her 
goods, which arrived at the building on the 30th ultimo, 
accompanied by native workmen, who are preparing to 
erect over a basin contiguous to their annexe models 
of the summer-house and bridge with which the willow- 
pattern plate has made us familiar; while on the basin 
will float models of Chinese junks. 
Of British colonies, New South Wales will contribute 
a very interesting collection placed under the care of the 
Curator of the Sydney Museum; and from the Indian 
Empire will come a large gathering of specimens in spirits 
under the superintendence of Dr. Francis Day. 
Of great scientific interest are the exhibits, to be placed 
in two neighbouring sheds, of the Native Guano Company 
and the Millowners’ Association. The former will show 
all the patents used for the purification of rivers from 
sewage, and the latter will display in action their method 
of rendering innocuous the chemical pollutions which 
factories pour into rivers. 
In the large piece of water in the northern part of the 
gardens, which has been deepened on purpose, apparatus 
in connecticn with diving will be seen; and hard by, 
in a shed, Messrs. Siebe, Gorman & Co. will show a 
selection of beautiful minute shells dredged from the 
bottom of the Mediterranean. 
In the open basins in the gardens will be seen beavers, 
seals, sea-lions, waders, and other aquatic birds. 
From this preliminary walk round enough has, we 
think, been seen to show that the Great International 
Fisheries Exhibition will prove of interest alike to the 
ordinary visitor, to those anxious for the well-being of 
fishermen, to fishermen themselves of every degree, 
and to the scientific student of ichthyology in all its 
branches. 
The economic question of the undertaking we have 
left untouched. 
NOTES 
Ir will be seen from a communication in another columa that 
the Council of the British Association have virtually decided that 
that body is bound to hold its meeting in Canada in 1884. From 
Sir A, T. Galt’s letter it is evident that our Canadian fellow- 
subjects have already arranged to give the Association a hearty 
and generous welcome; and now that Canada seems in- 
evitable, we hope that as many members as possible will 
make up their minds to be present. The expenses for 
visitors will be reduced to a minimum, a: d the travelling expenses 
of officials, to the number of fifty, to #7. A magnificent pro- 
gramme for three weeks’ excursions has been sketched, and the 
expenses connected with them will be confined to hotel charges, 
carriages, &c., the railway companies haying handsomely offered 
to convey members free of charge. 
THE Academy of Sciences held its Annual Meeting on April 
2, M. Jamin in the chair. He pronounced the é/oge of the 
three Academicians who died last year, viz., MM. Liouville, 
Bussy, and Decaisne. M. Blanchard, filling the room of M. 
Dumas, who, although present, was unable to deliver any 
speech, read the list of laureates. The number of prizes offered 
for public competition is yearly enlarging; not less than three of 
them—Monti, Machedo, and Francceur—were delivered for the 
first time. The number of verdicts which the commission had 
to render was thirty-three. In nine cases the commission de- 
clared no memoir was worthy to take a prize; the competitions 
were in general adjourned to 1885, and a certain sum of money 
was given to some semi-successful candidates. In two instances 
the merit of the candidates was acknowledged so great that two 
prizes were delivered instead of one. These two cases were in 
statistics and mathematics; the question put was to give a 
theory of the partition of numbers in five squares, Amongst 
the prizes lost is included the famous Prix Breaux, for the cure 
of cholera. The interest was divided amongst four pupils of 
M. Pasteur’s, The Poncelet Prize has been taken by M. Clausius, 
and the Voltz Prize by Mr. Huggins and M., Criils, a Brazilian, 
for their spectroscopic work. 
If was announced at the ahoyve-mentioned meeting that 
the great mathematical prize of the French Academy had been 
awarded to the late Prof. H. J. S. Smith for his dissertation 
on the representation of a number as the sum of five squares. 
The subject for the prize was announced in the Comptes Rendus 
of the Academy in February of last year, and, according to 
custom, the essays were to be sent in before June 1—each dis- 
sertation bearing a motto and being accompanied by a sealed 
envelope having the motto on the outside and the writer’s name 
inside. The envelopes of the unsuccessful candidates are de- 
stroyed unopened. Prof. Smith’s dissertation bore as its appro- 
priate motto :— 
“Quotque, quibusque modis possint in quinque resolvi 
Quadratos numeri pagina nostra docet.”’ 
There were three candidates, and the value of the prize is 3000f, 
The theory of numbers, to which the prize subject related, is 
one to which Prof. Smith had devoted the greater part of his 
life, and in which he occupied an almost unique position ; with 
the exception of Prof. Kummer of Berlin, there is no one whose 
contributions to the science could be compared to his, and this 
posthumous mark of the appreciation on the Continent of the value 
of his work is all the more satisfactory as the great prize has 
never before, we believe, been awarded to an English mathema- 
tician. The complete solution of the important problem pro- 
posed by the French Academy had been obtained by Prof. 
Smith sixteen years ago as part of a far more general investiga- 
tion, and the results were published by him in the Proceedings of 
the Royal Society in 1868, but without demonstration. These 
researches seem, however, to have escaped the notice of the 
French mathematicians. When the subject of the prize was 
announced last year, Prof. Smith extracted from his manuscript 
books the demonstrations of the propositions relating to the 
five-square problem, and it is to the dissertation so formed that 
the prize has been awarded. No more striking instance of the 
extent to which Prof. Smith had carried his researches, or of his 
great mathematical genius, could be given than is afforded by 
the fact that a question considered by the French Academicians 
of so much importance to the advancement of mathematical 
science as to be chosen for the subject of the ‘‘Grand Prix” 
should have been completely solved by him as only a particular 
case in the treatment of a general and even more intricate 
problem. In 1868 Prof. Smith won the Steiner Prize of the 
Berlin Academy, so that had he but lived till now he would 
have been ‘‘laureate’’ of the Academies of both Paris and 
Berlin. 
THE removal of the natural history collection from Great 
Russell Street to its new quarters at South Kensington, on the 
