AvucusT 28, 1902]. 
NATURE 
42k! 
NOTES. 
EArLy in this year a petition praying for the incorporation 
of a British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philo- 
sophical and Philological Studies was presented to the King, 
and referred to a committee of the Privy Council. Acting upon 
the advice of this committee, His Majesty has granted the 
Academy a Royal Charter. The Charter has not yet been pub- 
lished, but according to the 77es it states that the Academy 
aims at ‘‘the promotion of the study of moral and _ political 
sciences, including history, philosophy, law, politics and 
economics, archzeology and philology.” The forty-nine first 
fellows of the British Academy include leading representatives 
of many branches of scholarship, but not of poetry or fiction or 
other departments of pure literature. The Academy will be an 
independent body, with a separate organisation of its own; and 
it will not have any closer relationship to the Royal Society 
than has the Royal Academy of Arts. Our institutions for the 
advancement of learning and the development of intellectual 
activity will not, therefore, be coordinated in the way they are 
in France and several other countries. 
THE following reports of eruptions and earthquake shocks 
have been published during the past few days :—Awugust 21.— 
Severe eruption of Mont Pelée reported by the steamer Dahomé 
to have occurred at noon. No confirmation of the news has 
reached the’ French Colonial Office. August 22.—Mont Al- 
tomonte in Calabria reported from Rome to be in eruption. 
Subterranean rumblings have been heard, and showers of rock 
fragments and vapour have been ejected from the crater. An 
unusually large earthquake was recorded at Shide, in the Isle 
of Wight. The movement commenced at 3h. 10°9m. a.m. 
Twenty-five minutes later the amplitude of the large waves 
exceeded 22 mm. (12”‘0). The time interval suggests an 
origin about 62° distant from the Isle of Wight. Origins for 
world-shaking earthquakes at this particular distance are Alaska, 
the West Indies and northern India. Sixty-seven minutes 
after the maximum movement, but long before its irregular 
group of followers had ceased to exist, a second group of large 
waves appeared, the amplitudes of which were 18 mm. (9’’'0). 
The seismographic instruments at observatories in Hungary and 
Alsace registered several earthquake shocks in the direction from 
east to west in the afternoon. Two violent shocks were felt 
at Andishan, and one at Pavlovgk, near St. Petersburg. 
August 25.—Messages from Dominica report that between 
10 a.m. and 3 pm, clouds of dust were seen in the direction 
of Mont Pelée, while detonations were heard at long intervals 
antil morning. Light showers of volcanic dust fell in Dominica. 
Dr. L. A. BAUER contributes to Terrestrial Magnetism and 
Atmospheric Electricity, vii. 2, a note on his observations of the 
magnetic disturbances which occurred during the eruption of 
Mont Pelée on May 8. At 1th. 59m, a.m., Greenwich mean 
time, a disturbance occurred which began simultaneously at the 
two Coast and Geodetic Survey magnetic stations of Chelten- 
ham, Maryland and Baldwin, Kansas. The time of these dis- 
turbances was the same as recorded at other observatories, and 
corresponded to 7h. 54m. of local time at St. Pierre, being 
about the time at which the principal clock of that town was 
stopped. The horizontal intensity was the element principally 
disturbed, and the suddenness with which the disturbance of 
May 8 began is well illustrated by Dr. Bauer’s horizontal inten- 
sity curve. Several interesting magnetic disturbances also 
occurred between April 10 and May 8, possessing striking 
similarities with each other and with that of May 8, these 
similarities, both in magnitude and direction, extending to all 
three elements. During the eruptions, Dr. Bauer observed 
perturbations of greater or less degree, another striking co- 
incidence occurring on May 20 at the second eruption. 
NO. 1713, VOL. 66] 
THE nomination of Lord Rayleigh as foreign corresponding 
member of the Vienna Academy of Sciences has just been 
confirmed by the Emperor Francis Joseph. 
A NUMBER of eminent surgeons representing many countries 
will be present at the Congress of the Belgian Society of Sur- 
gery, to be held at Brussels on September 8-11, when a pro- 
posal will be made to found an international society of surgery. 
Mrs. R. W. LONGFIELD writes from Bandon, co. Cork, 
Ireland, to say that on August 18 she heard the cuckoo’s note 
distinctly near Bandon. The cry of cuc-koo was repeated 
several times. 
THE address by Sir Archibald Geikie, which we are able to 
print in full in another part of the present issue, was delivered 
before a large audience at Cromarty on Friday last, in connection 
with the celebration of the centenary of Hugh Miller. Many 
eminent men from America, Canada and Italy, as well as from 
various parts of the British Isles, assembled to do honour to 
Miller’s memory and to testify to his inspiring influence. The 
oration delivered by Sir Archibald Geikie was worthy of the 
occasion, and the eloquent words in which Miller’s life and work 
were described will be read with as much pleasure as they were 
listened to by the audience privileged to hear them. Among 
other speakers at the open-air meeting near Hugh Miller’s monu- 
ment, and at the subsequent luncheon, were Principal Rainy, 
Prof. Clarke, Albany, New York; Sir James Grant, Canada ; 
Dr. Horne, F.R.S., and Prof. Middleton. 4 
IF we may judge from the rarity of reports, the sound of the 
salutes during the naval review on August 16 does not appear 
to have been heard at any unusual distance. Mr. H. F. Pinder, 
writing from Blackbourton, near Bampton, informs us that the 
salute at 2 p.m. was heard by one, but so far as he knows only 
by one, person. Earlier on the same day, between 11.30 and 
12.15, heavy firing was heard, apparently from the south-south- 
west, the sound being continuous during the first half-hour. 
The distance of Blackbourton from Spithead is about 70 miles. 
WE learn from the Berlin correspondent of the 7¢/es that the 
German Sea Fisheries League recently organised a scientific 
expedition to ascertain the value of deep-sea fishing in the 
Baltic. The league, with the assistance of the Ministry of the 
Interior, chartered the Kiel steamer Ho/sa¢ia and fitted her out 
for trawl fishing and for scientific investigations. It was also 
intended to experiment with a view to discover how far the 
type of boat and the methods of fishing at present in use on the 
Baltic coast would prove suitable in the open sea. The report 
has not yet been published, but it appears that no large feeding 
grounds have been found, and that trawl fishing such as that 
practised in the North Sea would not pay in the Baltic. 
THE thirteeenth annual general meeting of the Institution of 
Mining Engineers will be held at Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 
September 17-19, under the presidency of Mr. J. S. Dixon. 
Among the papers to be read, or taken as read, are the following :— 
On the probability of finding workable seams of coal in the 
Carboniferous Limestone or Bernician formation beneath the . 
regular Coal-measures of Northumberland and Durham, with an 
account of a recent boring made at Chopwell Woods, near Lintz 
Green, Mr. J. B. Simpson ; notes on the correlation of the beds 
of the Carboniferous series in the north-east and north-west of 
England, Mr. David Burns ; the Marl-slate division of the 
Permian, Prof. G. A. Lebour; steam- generation by the gases 
from {Beehive Coke-ovens, Mr. M. R. Kirby; and the Fernie 
coal dust explosion, British Columbia, Mr. William Blakemore. 
A NOTE on the progress of the Swedish South Polar expedition 
appears in the 7Zimes. The vessel Antarctic, with five scientific 
members of the expedition, left Port Stanley, in the Falkland 
Islands, on April 11 for South Georgia, U.S.A. The expedition . 
