562 



NA TURE 



[April 13, 1899 



Wollaston Medal, which was then awarded to him by the 

 Council. \'on Mauer had been elected a foreign 

 member of the Society in 1871. In 1886 he was ap- 

 pointed Intendant of the Natural History Museum at 

 \'ienna, and since 1892 he has been a life-member of the 

 upper house of the Austrian pariiament. He died on 

 March 20, aged seventy-seven. 



NOTES. 

 At a meeting of members of the Royal Institution on 

 Monday, it was announced that the Hodgkins Medal, the first 

 gold medal for scientific work ever given by the Smithsonian 

 Institution, has been conferred upon Prof. J. Dewar, F.R.S., 

 in recognition of his researches on the liquefaction of air. 



Mr. \. P. Trotter (at present Government electrical 

 engineer for Cape Colony), has been appointed'electrical adviser 

 to the Board of Trade, in succession to Major Cardew, who has 

 resigned. 



A French warship, upon which experiments in aerial tele- 

 graphy will be made, has arrived at Calais, and the experiments 

 will be carried out between different points in the English 

 Channel and the South Foreland. The French Government 

 have under consideration the question of adopting the system 

 generally for use in the nav)-. It is reported that the Wire- 

 less Telegraphy Company have been approached by the repre- 

 sentative of a proposed syndicate, which desires to acquire the 

 sole rights of establishing wireless telegraphic communication 

 between England and America. 



The Rotterdam correspondent of the Timet reports that the 

 seventh Dutch Physical and Medical Congress opened on 

 Friday, April 7, at Haarlem. Though it is a national institu- 

 tion the Congress is entertaining a foreign guest. Prof. 

 Ramsay. On Thursday evening, in an address on the merits 

 of Haarlem as a home of science, Prof. Bosscha, the director of 

 Teyler's Museum, mentioned Kirschhuyzen, the humble teacher 

 of mathematics whose manual of algebra was translated into 

 Latin by N'ewton. Prof. Bosscha, in opening the Congress on 

 Friday, reviewed the progress that science has made in this 

 century, and dwelt especially on the researches of Lord Kelvin. 

 In one of the sections Prof Ramsay delivered an address on 

 recent researches, and at the end the audience gave him en- 

 thusiastic applause. 



DURINO the months of March and -\pril a public conference 

 is being held at the Botanical Institute at Rome, under the 

 presidency of Prof. Pirotta, on the Nutrition of Plants. 



Dr. L. Buscalioni has set out for a lengthy botanical 

 expedition to Brazil, especially to the little known affluents of 

 the .\mazon. The collections will be forwarded to the Botanical 

 Museum at Rome. 



We learn from \\ift Journal of Botany that .Mr. I. H. Burkill 

 has been appointed assistant to the Director of Kew Gardens, 

 and that Mr. C. C. H. Pearson has joined the Kew staff as 

 assistant for India. 



We regret to have to report the death of two distinguished 

 diatomists — Surgeon-Major G. C. Wallich, M.D., who died in 

 London on March 31, in his eighty-fourth year, and C lunt .\bbc 

 F. Castracane, of Rome. Dr. Wallich and Count l^"astracane 

 were, with one exception, the two oldest Honorary Fellows of 

 the Royal .Microscopical Society. 



Sir William Jkxner, who died on December u, 1898, 

 bequeathed 10,000/. to the Royal College of Physicians of 

 London. The bequest will, however, only take effect in default 

 NO. 1537. VOL. 59] 



of appointment being made by Lady Jenner of the ultimate 

 residue of the estate, if any, after the principal legacies have 

 been provided. 



The death is announced of Dr. P. L. Rijke, of the Univer- 

 sity of Leyden, at eighty-six years of age, and of Dr. Oliver 

 Marcy, professor of natural history in North-Western University, 

 Evanston, U.S.A. 



It is announced in Science that the report that Dr. T. J J. 

 See has been designated Chief of the U.S. Nautical Almanac 

 Office is incorrect. 



The Imperial Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, cele- 

 brates to-day the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the 

 central physical observatory. 



The London Geological Field Class, conducted by Prof. 

 H. G. Seeley, F.R.S., will commence their annual series of 

 Saturday afternoon excursions on April 22. Full particulars 

 can be obtained from the Hon. Secretary, Mr. R. Herbert 

 Bentley, 43 Gloucester Road, Brownswood Park, N. 



The death is announced of Mr. Joseph Stevens, for some 

 years honorary curator of the Reading Museum. Mr. Stevens 

 was a Berkshire man, having been born at Stanmore in that 

 county on April 14, 1818. After qualifying for the medical 

 profession he settled in the village of St. Mary Bourne, in the 

 Test valley between Andover and Highclere in Hampshire. 

 Here he devoted himself largely to archKological subjects, and 

 gave considerable attention also to geology. In 1867 he pub- 

 lished, in pamphlet form, "A Descriptive List of Flint Imple- 

 ments found at St. Mary Bourne ; . . . with a sketch of the 

 geological features of the upper Test valley, and a list of fossils 

 from the upper and lower Chalk," &c. He was the author of 

 other papers on similar subjects. He died on .\pril 7, at the 

 age of eighty-one. 



The Easter dredging expedition of the Liverpool Marine 

 Biology Committee was brought to an untimely end by an 

 unfortunate boat accident in Port Erin Bay. On March 31 

 dredging and trawling were carried on from the Fisheries 

 steamer John /•"<•//, and on the following forenoon the Tanner 

 closing net and the method of pumping plankton from the 

 bottom by means of a hose-pipe were tried on the steamer. On the 

 afternoon of Saturday, .-Vpril i, two of the workers in the Biological 

 Station went out to collect surface plankton n a small boat. 

 While hauling in the tow-net when returning, the boat capsized, 

 and both were thrown into the water. One of them 

 (Mr. E. J. W. Harvey, of Liverpool) was picked up by 

 another boat from the Biological Station, but his companion 

 (Mr. Eric T. Townsend, of Manchester) was unfortunately 

 drowned before assistance could reach him. The body was 

 eventually recovered. Mr. Townsend was a student of the 

 Owens College, and was occupying the College work-table at 

 the Port Erin Biological station. 



The Belgian Royal Academy has issued its programme of 

 subjects for essays in competition for gold medals of value 600 

 francs each, to be awarded in 1900. The essays are to be sent 

 to the Secretary before August 1 , 1900, each bearing a motto, and 

 written in French or Flemish. Contrary to the usual custom, 

 five subjects insieail of three have been selected in each of the 

 two departments of mathematical and physical science and of 

 natural science. The mathematical and physical questions refer 

 to(l) critical phenomena in physics; (2) viscosity of liquids; 

 (3) the carbon derivatives of an element whose combinations 

 are little known ; 14) the history and theory of v.ariation of 

 latitude j (5) the algebra and geometry of /i-linear forms where 

 H - 3. The questions in natural science refer to (i) the geo- 

 logical formations at Comblain au Pont, and whether these are 



