April it^, 1875J 



NA TURE 



475 



Mr. H. C. SoRBY, F.R.S., lias sent us the following:— 

 " In the early part of this year I was much interested in reading 

 ill the Naturforsclur an account of a paper communicated to the 

 Academia del nuovi Lincei, in Rome, by Count Castracane, on 

 the discovery of Diatomacere in the aslies of English coals. 

 Thinking it desirable that the attention of the members of the 

 Royal Microscopical Society should be directed to this fact, I 

 wrote to Count Castracane, requesting him to send to me some 

 specimens. I have now received two mounted objects of the 

 ashes of coal shipped from Liverpool, which will be exhibited 

 at the soiii-c on Wednesday, April 21st. I trust that this will be 

 the means of leading some of the Fellows to devote themselves 

 to this kind of inquiry, since they will be able to see that the 

 specimens contain not only several well-preserved species of 

 DiatomaccD?, but also other curious bodies somewhat like, yet 

 differing from, the Xanthidea found in flints." 



M. Wallon, who Is the Perjietual Secretary of the Academy 

 of Inscriptions, as well as Minister for Tublic Instruction, re- 

 sumed his academical functions last Thursday. He had to read 

 over a number of letters written to him, the Perpetual Secretary, 

 , by himself, the Minister ; and his colleagues were struck with the 

 serious way in which he performed his duties as secretary. One 

 of them, M. de Saulcy, having asked the Academy to send two 

 learned men on a mission to some place, said to M. Wallon : 

 " If M. le Secretary is good enough only to speak a few words to 

 M. le Minister, I am perfectly certain the Minister will find no 

 objection to my proposition." 



M. Paul Perny, a former pro-Vicar Apostolic in China, has 

 proposed to found a Europeo-Chinese Academy in the heart of 

 China, to be composed of missionaries, for the purpose of dis- 

 covering, translating, and circulating in Europe, Chinese works 

 of every kind bearing on the sciences, arts, and industry. M. 

 Perny states that the Emperor Kien-Lung, who lived upwards 

 of a century ago, drew out the plan of a general encyclopedia 

 of human knowledge, which has not a parallel in the world. 

 The publication of this encyclopedia is still going on. Nearly 

 100,000 volumes have appeared; there remain Go,ooo volumes 

 to be published in order to complete the scheme ol the Emperor. 

 The Chinese have encyclopredias of more than 300 volumes on 

 agriculture, horticulture, pisciculture, &c. 



There is an increasing demand for land in Ceylon for the 

 purpose of growing tea, cinnamon, cinchona, vanilla, and other 

 useful plants for economical purposes, as well as (or the spread 

 of the coffee plantations. A disease in the coffee plant has 

 lately been discovered which threatens scarcity of this product 

 unless speedily checked. It is called " leaf disease," and, as its 

 name implies, is principally apparent in the dearth of foliage, 

 though the produce of the berries is also considerably reduced. 

 It is believed by competent authorities to be mainly caused' by 

 exhaustion; and is, in this respect, similar to the disease among 

 the lemon groves of Europe, to which we alluded a week or two 

 ago. The Government of Ceylon have taken up the subject 

 with a view to its thorough investigation. 



The Acclimatisation Gardens in the Eois de Boulogne, Paris, 

 have received a rare collection of artificially coloured plants from 

 China. The plants are exhibited in the great glass house of the 

 gardens, and excite universal admiration. Among the collection 

 is a dwarf-tree of half a metre in height, the trunk of which is as 

 thick as a finger, and the root of which hardly fills the hollow of 

 a man's hand ; the specimen is about 100 years old, and is a 

 species of oak. This, however, is not a natural phenomenon, 

 but the result of Chinese horticulture, which finds its highest 

 problem in the reduction of the natural size of plants. 



We diaw the attention of friends of geography to the Hydro- 

 gra^hische Mitthdhin^en (Berlin, E. S. Mittler), which form the 



supplement to the publications of the Imperial IGermaii Adihi- 

 ralty Nachrkhtai fiir den Seefahrei- ; they have been published 

 since 1S73, and are most excellent in every way. The part for 

 1S74, for instance, contains a detiikd description of the Ker- 

 guelen Islands, a climatological picture of the Azores and 

 Madeira, a treatise by Neumayer on the geographical problems 

 in the Arctic regions, and a number of other interesting articles. 



IIeft iv. of Petcrmann's Mitthcilungm contains a letter from 

 Dr. Oskar Lenz, dated Adolinalonga, on the Ogowe, which falls 

 intoNazareth Bay, nearCape Lopez, just underthe equator, giving 

 a brief account of some short excursions he made last autumn iti 

 the district on the lower course of that river. The scenery, 

 natives, fauna, and flora ai'e characteristically Central African, 

 and Dr. Lenz has been able to make considerable collections, 

 including a large number of gorilla skulls. He seems to have 

 been much hindered by sickness. 



Dr.. GusTAV LEiroLDT, in a recently published work on 

 the " Mean Height of Europe," after an elaborate calculation 

 founded on .a broad basis of measurement, concludes that it is 

 296 '838 metres, 92 metres higher than the calculation of A. von 

 Humboldt, who indeed made out the average altitude of all the 

 land on the earth to be about 30S metres. The mean height of 

 Switzerland, Leipoldt makes to be 1299 'gi metres, while that of 

 the Netherlands is only 9 '61 metres. That of Great Britain is 

 2i7'7o. Further interesting details will be found in the April 

 number of Petermann's JMiithdluugcit. 



The same journal contains a map of Kerguelen Island, 

 reduced from the English Admiralty Chart to a scale of 

 I — 500,000. For comparison a map of Malta on the same scale 

 is printed on the sheet, and gives one a ve'ry fair idea of the size 

 of the southern island, which must be something like fifteen or 

 twenty times the size of Malta. Accompanying the map are 

 some remarks on the history and condition of the island. 



In the same number of Petermann's journal, Baron N. 

 Schilling, of St. Petersburg, discusses the fertile subject of the 

 theory ot ocean currents. 



At the meeting of the Diplomatic Conference oh the Me- 

 trical System, at Paris, on April 12, it was agreed to organise an 

 International Bureau of Weights and Measures, the cost of main- 

 tairiing which would be divided between the States repre- 

 senled at the Conference. 



The discovery of a boiling lake in the Inland of Dominica is 

 announced. It is stated to be situated in the forest-covered 

 mountain behind the town of Roseau, 2,500 feet above the sea, 

 and to be two miles in circumference. The margin of the lake 

 consists of beds of sulphur, and its overflow finds exit by a 

 waterfall of great height. 



At Monday's meeting of the Geographical Society, a paper 

 by Mr. John Forrest was read, on his journey across the centre 

 of Western Australia, referred to in Nature, vol. xi. p. 93. 

 Mr. Forrest is expected to arrive in England in the beginning of 

 next month. 



The death is announced of the Rev. Charles New, the African 

 missionary, who has made several additions to our knowledge of 

 South Africa, and who is known specially for his ascent of the 

 mountain Kilimanjaro. At the meeting of the Geographical 

 Society on Monday, a paper by Mr. New was read, " On the 

 Overland Route from the Pangani to Mombassa. " Mr. New died 

 from dysentery soon after this journey. 



The following lectures in Natural Sciences will be given at 

 Trinity, St. John's, Christ's, and Sidney Sussex College5, Cam- 

 bridge, during Lent Term, 1875. — On Electricity and Magnetism 

 (continued), by Mr. Trotter, Trinity College, commencing April 



