108 
NATURE 
[Fune 3, 1886 
Sir BERNHARD SAMUELSON, M.P., and Mr. Philip Magnus, 
of the City Guilds of London Institute, have been appointed by 
the Education Department English representatives at the Inter- 
national Congress on Technical Education, to be held at Bor- 
deaux in September next. 
Pror. FLowenr, the Director of the Natural History Depart- 
ment of the British Museum, has allowed the zoologi- 
cal collections made by Brigade-Surgeon J. E. T. Aitchison, 
C.LE., the naturalist lately attached to the Afghan Delimitation 
Commission, to be placed on view temporarily at the South 
Kensington Department. To those interested in the zoology of 
those regions and in the geographical range of species, a view 
of these collections in their entirety will be found most interest- 
ing. We believe that at an early date this collection will be 
broken up to be sent to India, and distributed to various 
museums and countries, and that it is only localised here until 
such time as a report on its details is furnished to the Goyern- 
ment of India. 
Mr. NICHOLSON has been appointed Curator of Kew 
Gardens, in the room of Mr. Smith, resigned. Mr. Nicholson 
has been one of the chief assistants at the Gardens for some 
years. 
A SERIES of Conferences on the ‘‘ Mineral Resources of the 
Colonies and India” will be held by the Geologists’ Association 
in the Colonial and Indian Exhibition on Saturday afternoons, 
commencing at 3 p.m. After the reading of the paper there 
will be a discussion, terminating at 4.30. The Conference will 
then adjourn to the Courts, where further explanations of the 
exhibits will be given. The first meeting will be on Saturday 
next, when an address will be given on the Mineral Resources 
of India and Burmah, by Prof. V. Ball, F.R.S. ; Sir Richard 
Temple will preside. The arrangements for succeeding Satur- 
days are as follow:—June 19, South Africa, by Prof. T. R. 
Jones, F.R.S.; Sir Ch. Mills in the chair. July 3, Canada, 
by Dr. A. R. Selwyn; the Marquis of Lorne in the chair. 
July 17, New Zealand, by Dr. J. Von Haast. July 24, 
Australia, by Mr. F. W. Rudler. There will probably also be 
a lecture by the President of the Geologists’ Association (Mr. 
W. Topley), on the Coaling Stations in Relation to the Fuel 
Deposits of the Empire ; but the date of this is not yet fixed. 
Conferences of the Anthropological Institute on the Races of 
the British Empire will also be held in the Conference Hall of 
the Colonial and Indian Exhibition. The first was on Tuesday 
on the Races of Africa. The others are :—Monday, June 7 : 
Races of America (West Indies). Tuesday, June 22: Races of 
Australia. Tuesday, June 29: Races of New Zealand, Fiji. 
Tuesday, July 6: Races (Aboriginal) of India. Tuesday, 
July 13: Races of Ceylon, Straits Settlements, Borneo. The 
chair will be taken at 4 p.m. The memoirs read and discussed 
in the Conference Hall will be illustrated by selections from the 
exhibits. Afterwards, but not later than 5 o’clock, the Confer- 
ence will adjourn to the Courts, and there inspect and hear 
explanations of the remaining exhibits connected with the 
subject of the day. 
THE Lick Trustees have decided to purchase from Messrs. 
Feil and Mantois a 36-inch crown disk, which was made by 
them at the same time with the crown disk of the objective now 
in the hands of the Clarks. The Clarks ‘‘have received the 
order to figure this disk as a third (photographic) lens for the 
large objective.” 
A curious phenomenon, the Sco/sman reports, was witnessed 
at Stonehaven on Sunday afternoon, May 23. At intervals, just 
before and after high tide, without any apparent cause, the water 
subsidence leaving as much as 15 to 18 feet of the beach dry. 
The disturbance continued for three hours, commencing at about 
half-past 4 o’clock. There was no wind, and the sea was quite 
smooth, but the water advanced and retired with a speed equal 
to the run of a large river during a spate, and caused so much 
commotion in the harbour that the fishermen had to secure their 
boats with extra moorings to prevent damage being done. In- 
deed, it is seldom that there is so much commotion in the har- 
bour, even during stormy weather. It is surmised that the 
phenomenon was due to some eruption or subsidence in the sea 
bottom, 
THE Executive Committee of Aberdare Hall, Cardiff, has 
issued a most satisfactory report of the progress of Aberdare 
Hall during its first term. Seven students were entered when 
this Hall for lady students was opened in October 1885. Two 
of these are studying for the Intermediate Science Examination 
(London University), one for the Intermediate in Arts, and four 
for the Matriculation Examination. Two scholarships tenable 
at Aberdare Hall were awarded. At the beginning of the next 
session several large scholarships and many exhibitions will be 
offered for competition at University College, Cardiff, and three 
exhibitions tenable at Aberdare Hall. The institution deserves 
every encouragement. 
THE New York Assembly has passed the Bill providing for 
the appropriation of 20,000 dollars annually to the Metropolitan 
Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History, 
in order that they may be kept open to the public, free of 
charge, on Sundays. It is expected that it will soon be 
favourably reported by the Senate Committee, and become 
law. 
Up to Saturday morning the accounts from Catania were re- 
assuring ; the flow of lava was much slower and was rapidly 
cooling, and Nicolosi was considered almost safe. But at 4 p.m. 
a fresh outpour of lava manifested itself, and flowing over the 
earlier stream which had ‘partially hardened, it again menaces 
Nicolosi and Belpasso. At 9.15 p.m., the lava stream which 
threatens Nicolosi showed a front 180 metres wide, from 6 to 
10 metres high, and was moving at the rate of Io metres per 
hour. According to latest reports the eruption is as active as 
ever. 
On April 28 a lovely mirage was seen at about noon at Oster- 
sund, in Northern Sweden. In the south-west, above the Storsj6, 
a great lake, the lofty Oviks Mountains, covered with snow, 
were seen reflected on the sunlit clouds. Below them was a 
dark broad belt of forest sloping down to an ice-covered lake, in 
which some woody islands could be seen. At the beginning the 
western sky was clear, but gradually a dark bank of clouds 
rolled up, at last obscuring the mirage, but it reappeared several 
times when the sun broke through. 
Mr. PENHALLOW, who has resided for some years in the 
service of the Japanese Government in Yezo, contributes to the 
last number of the Canadian Record of Science an article on the 
physical characteristics of the Ainos. Referring to the many 
contradictory reports as to the great hairiness of the Yezoines, 
his conclusion is that, although there are many exceptions, they 
generally possess a more than ordinarily hairy body, enough so 
at least to make them deserve the epithet of ‘‘ hairy Kuriles.” 
The bushy appearance of the hair and beard is doubtless due as 
much to the fact that the men never shave and seem rarely even 
to clip their beards, as to any natural excess of growth. The 
Aino of Saghalien offers a striking departure from the rule of 
hairiness which essentially characterises the Yezoine ; and this 
would appear therefore not to be a race characteristic, but to be 
due to the peculiar and widely different conditions of life, dress, 
along the coast rose and fell from 10 to 18 inches at a time, the | and exposure to which these people have been subjected. From 
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