200 
NATURE 
| ¥uly 1, 1886 
Principal of the Agricultural Experimental Station at Bonn ; 
and the author of the second essay, M. A. Damseaux, Professor 
im the Agricultural Academy at Gembloux. It should be re- 
membered that essays competing for the second part of the prize 
offered—namely, 500/. for the best essay treating of the same 
subject, on the basis of mew, persona’, experim*ntal investiga- 
tions—must be sent to one of the above-named judges, on or | 
before January 1, 1887. 
THE Local Committee for the Birmingham meeting of the 
British Association have their arrangements well forward. A 
considerable contingent of Canadian and other colonial men of 
science will no doubt be present, and every effort will be made 
to extend a hospitable welcome to them and to all the members 
of the Association who may be able to visit Birmingham. The 
Great Western, the London and North-Western, and the Mid- 
land Railway Companies offer exceptional facilities to intending | 
visitors. The Council of the Birmingham and Midland Institute 
have placed their spacious lecture theatre, with its convenient 
suite of rooms attached, at the disposal of the Local Committee 
as a reception-room, officers’ and ladies’ rooms, &c. The meet- 
ings of the Sections will be held in the Council House, the 
Mason Science College, the Medical Institute, the Birmingham 
Municipal School of Art, and in the offices of the Board of 
Guardians—buildings which closely adjoin each other ; and the 
use of rooms in the Council House has also been granted by the 
Mayor for other purposes. The Town Hall will be utilised for 
the evening meetings. Various clubs and scientific and literary 
institutions will be thrown open to members and associates by 
the courteous invitation of the governing bodies, and the Com- 
mittee of the Birmingham Botanical and Horticultural Society 
will open their Gardens during the week of the meeting to 
members and associates. The Committee are also preparing an 
extensive exhibition of the products of local industries and of 
local manufacturing processes, which will be held in Bingley 
Hall. A collection of the flora and fauna, together with the 
rocks and fossils of the district, will be shown in connection 
with this exhibition. 
excursions to various localities of great beauty and interest, and 
many kind offers of hospitality have been received in connection 
with the projected excursions. The Committee are engaged in 
the preparation of a guide-book of the town, which will include 
an account of its history and antiquities, trade and manufactures, 
a description of its modern government, papers on the geology 
and physiography (accompanied by a geological map), and the 
zoology and botany of the district. 
Some of the friends of the late Dr. Walter Flight are anxious 
to collect a fund to be invested for the benefit of his widow and 
children, who have been left with extremely inadequate provision, 
A Committee has been formed with the Rev. Prof. Bonney, 
F.R.S., as chairman, to carry out this object. The honorary 
treasurer is Mr. L. Fletcher, Natural History Museum, Crom- 
well Road, S.W., and the honorary secretaries T. W. Carmalt 
Jones, M.D., 6, Westbourne Street, Hyde Park, W., and John 
M. Thomson, King’s College, Strand, W.C. Contributions may 
be paid to the account of the “Flight Memorial Fund” with 
Messrs. Robarts, Lubbock, and Co., to the honorary trea- 
surer, or either of the honorary secretaries. We need not say 
a word to impress upon our readers how deserving is such a 
case as this. 
A MOVEMENT is on foot for obtaining subscriptions to pur- 
chase an annuity for Mr. J.B. Dancer, who has done so much 
for the improvement of photography. But photography is only 
one of the many arts and sciences indebted to him. There is 
the stereoscopic camera with twin lenses, which he was the first 
to make. He invented microscopic photographs, which so 
much delighted and astonished us twenty-five or thirty 
years ago. He also introduced photography to the magic 
The Committee are arranging a series of | 
lantern, being the first to show a photographic transparency on 
ascreen. The lantern itself is also indebted to him, not only in 
its optical parts and in its construction generally, but also parti- 
cularly in the application of the oxy-hydrogen light, and for a 
dissolving gas tap, which saves half the gases and produces the 
best dissolving effect. Then there should be mentioned, as 
of much greater importance than the above, the automatic 
“contact-breaker,” used probably by the million at this moment, 
in every induction coil in the world. Prior to Mr. Dancer’s in- 
vention, contact used to be made and unmade by hand, ina 
vessel containing mercury. The first helical coil with the 
vibrating interrupter was constructed by Mr. Dancer, and 
was exhibited long after by him at one of the soirdes 
of the British Association, when the meeting was held 
in Manchester. When Mr. Dancer established himself 
as an optician in Manchester, his presence soon made 
itself felt amongst the few microscopists then living in 
the district. Good microscopes were then costly, and worth- 
less ones very common. Mr. Dancer successively brought 
out several forms of instruments, as excellent in their m-ch- 
anical and optical arrangements as they were moderate in price. 
It is sad to have to say that, notwithstanding Mr. Dancer’s 
talents and achievements, he is now living in very straitened 
circumstances, is morever afflicted with almost total blindness, 
and therefore unable to follow the optical business to which his 
life has been devoted. It is not an unusual thing fora man of great 
mechanical ingenuity and skill to be an indifferent man of the 
world, and so it has been with him; as a business man he has 
been a failure. He has made improvement after improvement, 
invention after invention, any one of which might in ‘‘ pushing ” 
hands have made a fortune ; but, more interested in science than 
in money-making, he has allowed the golden chances to become 
public property, and has thus remained poor himself, while the 
world has reaped the advantage of his labours. Mr. Dancer 
is now in his seventy-fourth year, and, it is to be hoped that in 
his hour of darkness the world will pay back to him something 
for that which it has freely received at his hands. A Committee 
has been formed for the purpose of receiving subscriptions, and 
| we commend the movement strongly to the support of our 
readers. The Comumitteeare : J. P. Joule, LL.D., F.R.S., Sale ; 
Prof. W. C. Williamson, LL.D., F.R.S., Owens College ; Prof. 
Balfour Stewart, LL.D., F.R.S., Owens College ; John Dale, 
F.C.S., Cornbrook, Manchester ; Leo H. Grindon, Manchester ; 
S. Platt, J.P., Oldham; Charles Bailey, Hon. Treasurer Man- 
chester Literary and Philosophical Society ; James Birchall, 
Hon. Sec. Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society ; Abel 
Heywood, jun., Higher Broughton (Hon. Sec. fro ¢em.). 
Dr. ULLMANN, of Vienna University, who spent several 
weeks with Dr. Pasteur in Paris, and brought back some of the 
virus with him, began on Monday, in the presence of several 
eminent professors, to inoculate against hydrophobia. He had 
for patients thirteen men bitten by rabid dogs and one woman 
bitten by a rabid pig. 
WE regret to announce the death, on the 23rd ult., at his 
residence, Glenoir, Galway, of William King, D.Sc., Emeritus 
Professor of Geology, Mineralogy, and Natural History in the 
Queen’s College, Galway, in his seventy-eighth year. Upon 
the foundation of the Queen’s Colleges in Ireland, in 1849, Dr. 
King was selected to fill the Chair of Ge logy in the Galway 
College, a post that he occupied, and of which he fulfilled the 
duties most assiduously and laboriously, until 1883. In that 
year, owing to a severe attack of paralysis, Dr. King was most 
reluctantly obliged to relinquish his professorial duties. In 
1882 the additional performance of the business of the Natural 
History Chair devolved upon him: the double task proved too 
onerous. Subsequent to his resignation, the Corporate Body of 
the College presented Dr. King with an address, as a testimony 
ow wurve~ 
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