536 



NA TURE 



[Aprils, 1886 



Two mock suns, such as at times accompany the 

 ordinary halo, were seen also on April 2, and a simple 

 halo also on April 3. William Ellis 



Royal Observatory, Greenwich, April 5 



NOTES 



\Ve learn that, at the request of the Royal Society, the 

 Treasiu-y has agreed to insert a sum in the estimates, and tlie 

 Admiralty has agreed to furnish transport and assistance, in aid 

 of an expedition to observe the total eclipse of the sun, visible 

 in the island of Grenada (West Indies) on August 29 next. The 

 Expedition, which will consist of seven observers, will leave 

 England on July 29 in the Royal Mail s.s. Nils. According 

 to present arrangements a ship-of-war will meet them at 

 Barbados, and take them on to their various stations. It is 

 a noteworthy sign of the interest taken in such national work by 

 our great public companies that the Directors of the Royal Mail 

 Company have enabled the Eclipse Committee of the Royal 

 Society to increase the number of observers beyond that at first 

 contemplated by a concession in their terms which amounts to 

 an important endowment of the e.xpedition. 



Mr. H. Fowler stated in Parliament the other day that the 

 final report of the expeditions to observe the transit of Venus in 

 1882, subsidised by the British Government to the extent of 

 14,680/., would be presented in June. 



We have already announced the death, on March 20, at 

 Leyton, Essex, of Mr. Charles George Talmage, F.R.A.S., in 

 the forty-sixth year of his age. Mr. Talmage, who was well 

 known as a skilful astronomical observer, had the entii'e direc- 

 tion of Mr. J. Gurney Barclay's observatory at Leyton for more 

 than twenty years. During this period he turned his attention 

 chiefly to observations of double stars, and the results of his 

 work are given in four volumes of the " Leyton Astronomical 

 Observations." Previous to his appointment to this post he had 

 served his apprenticeship to astronomy at the Royal Observatory, 

 Greenwich, in the years 1856-60, had worked under Mr. Hind 

 at Mr. Bishop's observatory, first at Regent's Park, and then at 

 Twickenham, and had spent four years at Nice in order the 

 better to prosecute the work on which he was then engaged, the 

 revision of Admiral Smyth's Bedford Catalogue. He was sent 

 to Gibraltar in 1S70 to observe the total solar eclipse of that 

 year, and was placed in charge of the Transit of Venus Expe- 

 dition to Barbadoes in 1882. His death will be much regretted 

 in the astronomical world and by his numerous friends. 



Mr. Edward Solly, F.R.S., F.S.A., died on Friday at 

 Camden House, Sutton, Surrey, in his sixty-seventh year. 

 Educated at Berlin, he was appointed chemist to the Royal 

 Asiatic Society in 1S38, Lecturer on Chemistry at the Royal 

 Institution in 1841, honorary member of the Royal Agricul- 

 tural Society in 1842, Fellow of the Royal Society in 1843, 

 Professor of Chemistry in the East India Company's Military 

 College at Addiscombe in 1845, ^nd honorary Professor of 

 Chemistry to the Horticultural Society in 1846. Besides several 

 works in which the importance of chemistry to agriculture was 

 maintained, he wrote " Rural Chemistry " (1843) and " Syllabus 

 of Chemistry " (1849). 



Mr. Richard Edmonds, the seismologist and antiquary, 

 died recently at Plymouth in his Ssth year. He closely studied 

 the extraordinary agitations of the sea and earthquake shocks, 

 and published the results of his investigations in the Edinburgh 

 New PItilosophical Jtitnial, the British Association Reports, and 

 the Transactions of the Royal Society of Cornwall. In 1862 

 Mr. Edmonds published a collection of his papers, under the 

 title of "The Land's End District; its Antiquities, Natural 

 History, Natural Phenomena, and Scenery." 



Prof. Oliver Lodge will give the first of two lectures at 

 the Royal Institution on Saturday next (April 10) on Fuel and 

 Smoke considered with reference to the scientific principles under- 

 lying the use of the one and the avoidance of the other. The 

 following arrangements are announced for the Royal Institution 

 lectures after Easter : — Prof. Gamgee, six lectures on the 

 Function of Circulation ; Prof. Dewar, three lectures; Prof. A. 

 Macalister, three lectures on Habit as a Factor in Human 

 Morphology ; Prof. Ernst Pauer, three lectures on How to 

 Form a Judgment on Musical Works ; and Prof. G. G. Stokes, 

 Pres. R.S., three lectures. The first Friday evening discourse 

 will be given by Mr. Frederick Siemens on Dissociation ; and 

 succeeding discourses will probably be given by Prof. J. M. 

 Thomson, Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P., Prof O. Lodge, Dr. 

 W. H. Gaskell, and Prof. Dewar. 



The seventh International Oriental Congress will be held at 

 Vienna on September 27 next and following days. 



As the work of unpacking the cases which arrive daily at 

 South Kensington from the British colonies all over the world 

 proceeds, the extraordinary variety and interest of the exhibits 

 become more apparent. In addition to objects of specially 

 scientific interest already referred to, we may mention the ethno- 

 logical groups in the south or Imperial Court of the Indian 

 section. These are intended to illustrate the physiognomy, 

 dress, and customs of the various races inhabiting the Indian 

 Empire. The collection of woods from the Andaman and 

 Nicobar Islands, shown at the Forestry Exhibition at Edin- 

 burgh, has been greatly enlarged, especially by specimens of 

 timber of extraordinary size from the Andamans, and will be 

 shown in the Indian section. One of these, the Diospyros 

 Kurzii, a marble wood, resembles a combination of oak and 

 ebony. There will be two timber trophies from the Indian 

 Forest Department ; one will be a triple arch 46 feet broad by 

 15 feet high, containing over 300 kinds of wood, while the 

 second will be formed wholly of bamboo, of which thirty species 

 will be shown. The most original arrangement of woods, how- 

 ever, is that adopted in the Victorian Court. Each specimen is 

 in the shape of an octavo volume, on the back being printed, as 

 a title and place of publication, the scientific name of the wood 

 and the locality whence it came. The whole collection is 

 inclosed in a handsome book-case, and so resembles a small 

 library. Prof. McCoy and Baron von MiiUer have prepared a 

 large natural history collection, and one of rare plants from 

 Victoria in albums. The entomological collection is said to be 

 remarkably complete, upwards of a thousand distinct specimens 

 of insects being included. The Melbourne Botanical Gardens 

 send a collection of fibres and carpological specimens. In a 

 natural history case in the Canadian section, prepared by Col. 

 Stockwell, will be a general representation of the fauna and 

 flora of Anticosti. New Guinea has been taken under the wing 

 of Queensland, and collections from that island will be explained 

 by Mr. Hugh Romilly, who will be appointed Assistant Com- 

 missioner for Queensland specially on this account. The 

 trophies in the various sections will also be of great interest and 

 beauty; Ceylon will have a natural history trophy, India a 

 jungle trophy, Queensland two of natural history — one being 

 animals, the other birds — and so for other courts. It may be 

 hoped that one result of this Exhibition and of the meeting of 

 colonists from all quarters of the globe simultaneously in London 

 will be the establishment of a permanent colonial museum in 

 London. The Exhibition will supply abundant materials with 

 which to make a beginning. 



In commemoration of the fiftieth year of the foundation of the 

 Museum of Native Antiquities at Kiel, the directress, Fraiilein 

 Mestorf, has published a hand-book on the prehistoric antiquities 

 of Schleswig-Holstein, containing 62 plates with 765 pictures of 



