4 
Sept. 16, 1886] 
THE Paris newspapers have published a congratulatory com- 
munication from the Academy of Sciences in Berlin to M. 
Chevreul, from which the following is an extract :—‘‘ He who 
would form a complete idea of your so busily occupied life 
should follow the entire course of your creative activity, which 
has been directed to all departments of chemistry. He must 
follow all the innumerable detailed researches which have en- 
abled you to determine the nature of various minerals and of a 
large number of salts, as well as the composition of many 
organic matters. He should study your chemico-physiological 
works, by which you have made such great advances towards the 
knowledge of the most important secrets of the animal organism 
as well as your labours on the most varied questions of public 
hygiene. He ought to follow the excursions which enabled you 
to fix the laws of the contrasts among colours, and to class them 
_ systematically and scientifically. .He ought to study your lec- 
tures on the chemical principles of dyeing. He should finally 
imagine himself at the period when misty ideas of the most false 
and fantastic kind threatened to surround aad obscure the mind, 
and when, with the record of history in your hands, you dis- 
sipated the mists by making your countrymen recognise in the 
delusions of the past the errors of the present time. Having 
thus represented in all its extent the activity that you have shown 
throughout your long life, we hold that your name should be 
inscribed in one of the first places on the list of the great men 
who have carried the scientific glory of France to the extremities 
of the earth.” 
Tn a long communication to the Zimes of September 7 from 
its Correspondent with the Grenada Eclipse Expedition, it is 
stated that a botanical garden is in course of formation under Mr, 
_ Elliott, with a view to the development of the resources of the 
island. Mr. Elliott, the article goes on tostate, ‘ has made fre- 
quent excursions into the high woods for the latter purpose, and 
the results of his botanical exploration of the island, which will 
soon be made known, are very satisfactory, many valuable woods 
having been found. It is hoped by means of the botanic garden 
to encourage the planters of the Windward Islands to cultivate 
the minor products of this fertile region, and especially to im- 
prove their fruits by exhibiting the finest kinds in the gardens 
_ brought from other regions and giving information showing how 
itcan be done. No more healthy sign of the progress of the 
colony could be afforded than in the enterprise of the Colonial 
_ Government in establishing such a garden and the interest taken 
_ init by the planters of the island. So mich for applied botany. 
_ During the stay of the Expedition pure botany has been studied 
; _ with much success by Mr. George Murray, of the British Museum, 
_ the naturalist attached to the Expedition, who arrived a fortnight 
_ before the observers of the eclipse to gain the necessary time for 
finding good working grounds. His special mission is an inquiry 
into the life-history of certain marine A/ge called the Siphonee. 
_ The forms of this group are well enough known to European 
~ botanists, but the development and life-phenomena of most of 
the genera composing it have not yet been investigated. He 
_ has been greatly gratified to find an abundant supply of material 
_ for his special research, though the island is poor in A/gi2 owing 
to the small rise and fall of the tide, which exceeds a foot only 
_ at spring tides. The operation of examining this material is 
r5 conducted in a well lighted and very convenient room set apart 
_ for the purpose by His Excellency the Governor, who has in this 
instance, too, shown the greatest sympathy with the object of 
= work, and an unfailing helpfulness towards its accomplish- 
ment. So far as the examination of the material collected has 
Beene, it promises to yield an answer to the question of the nature 
of the reproduction and development of the types investigated, 
but whether the information will result in fixing definitely the 
‘Position of the Si/honee as a group or in the breaking up of the 
_ group and the incorporation of certain genera into other orders, 
NATURE 
489 
already better known, cinnot, of course, yet be determined. 
The Jand and marine fauna are also engaging Mr. Murray’s 
attention to the extent of collecting these, and the reptiles and 
small mammals have in this department of work been kept par- 
ticularly in view.” 
Mr. JoHN TAYLOR, a pupil of Dr. Marshall Ward, who went 
out some time ago as botanist to the Bahamas Government, is 
evidently pursuing his work under difficulties. While he and 
his companions were on shore at Acklin Island, 30 miles from 
Long Cay, on August 13, the cook, a Haytian, who was left in 
sole charge of the vessel, made off with it under cover of dark- 
ness, and up to the rgth no trace of ship or cook was found. Mr. 
Gardiner had on board nearly all his scientific books, and all 
the instruments, &c., necessary for a month’s good work. He 
lost everything of that kind he had, including his Zeiss micro- 
scope ; besides all his manuscript scientific diary, and list of the 
Bahamas flora, not to mention a sum of money, bedding, &c. 
His total loss he estimates at 75/.; we are sure the Bahamas 
Government will not allow Mr. Gardiner to sustain a loss which 
to him must be serious. 
THE translation of an English botanical book into German is 
so much a reversal of the p»esent fashion that it is of some interest 
to know that a translation of Dr. Maxwell Masters’ ‘‘ Vegetable 
Teratology” has been made by Mr. Udo Dammer, and pub- 
lished by Haessel of Leipzig. Many additional notes have been 
added by various German and Italian botanists, as well as by 
Dr. Masters, and some additional woodcuts provided. 
THE celebrated waterfall of Teverone, which Horace calls 
“pre-eps Anio,” has been employed to put in operation two 
dynamos of too horse-power for the illumination of the city of 
Tivoli. Others are being fitted up. The motive power, which 
is to be utilised by a company from the designs of M. Cantoni, 
is equivalent to several thousand horses. ‘The illumination of 
Rome is contemplated, as well as the distribution of force to a 
distance from the station. The excavations and canals are con- 
ducted under the house of Mecenas, which is described as 
situated at wm Tibur, now Tivoli. 
Two more of the Paris theatres are now illuminated by incan- 
descent light—the Palais Royal by Edison, and the Variétés by 
Woodhouse. With the Opera and the Eden Theatre this 
brings the number up to four. Every evening the Industrial 
Exhibition at the Palais des Champs Elysées is lighted also by 
electricity. 
WE have received a copy of a paper read by Mr. H. C. 
Russell before the Royal Society of New South Wales, on 
“Local Variations and Vibrations of the Earth’s Surface,” in 
which he records his own experiences on this subject in the hope 
that other astronomers will do the same, and thus by united 
action assist in the work of tracing these vibrations and changes. 
Mr, Russell’s observations took place at Lake George, and were 
made chiefly by means of an automatic recorder of the height of 
the water in the lake. Although the instrument used has not 
the extreme sensitiveness to minute vibrations which Mr. 
Darwin’s reflecting mirror and similar instruments have, yet it 
was so placed that all such changes became magnified by the 
relatively enormous extent over which it extends its sensitive 
part, if this expression may be used ; for any change in gravity, 
or the direction of the vertical, is not seen as it affects the base 
of a small instrument a few feet square, but as it affects a surface 
20 miles long and 5 to 6 miles wide. Barometric and wind 
changes, too, so difficult to see in other instruments, at once 
became evident here’ by their effects on such a large body of 
water, and the lake-gauge for these reasons is not only capable 
of showing changes quite as minute as the Cambridge pendulum 
apparatus, but also of keeping a perfectly satisfactory record of 
