S78 



NA TURE 



\August j 7, 1882 



rate records into a whole. The International Congress should 

 consist of representatives of each of the Committees ; and it 

 would aim at securing so much uniformity as would be necessary 

 for the successful working out of the scheme without interfering 

 with the liberty of the Committees ; it would also afford an 

 opportunity for the interchange of ideas. Such a Congress might 

 indeed be made a part of an International Association for the 

 Advancement of Science. The scheme presents certain diffi- 

 culties, especially that of expense, but these will doubtle.-s be 

 fully discussed by the Association when the subject is brought 

 forward. 



Prof. Peestwich has prepared "An Index Guide to the 

 Geological Collections in the University Museum, Oxford '' 

 (Oxford : Clarendon Pi ess), which is of a more general nature than 

 the late Prof. Phillips's "Notices," and includes the large local 

 collections, with regard to which he not only shows the various 

 genera existing at each period, but gives the names of places 

 where the fossils are to be met with. In the series of organic 

 remains the student is enabled to follow the succession of life 

 forms from the earliest palaeozoic periods to the present ; and in 

 general, the relative place of the specimens in systematic classi- 

 fication and geological age is indicated. 



A telegram from the Swedish Circumpolar Expedition 

 party dated August 6, was received in Stockholm on the 

 nth inst. viS Tromso, where it had been brought by a 

 Norwegian fishing smack ; the Expedition has been unable 

 to land on account of ice in Mossel Bay, and has in con- 

 sequence returned to Cape Thordsten on the Norse islands, where 

 the party landed, erected magazines and an observatory, and 

 where observations are now being made. The message states 

 " all well." 



It is noteworthy that Bossekop, one of the Polar stations 

 selected this year for establishing an observatory, has before 

 been occupied by a French scientific mission, sent in 1838 in 

 La Recherche. The mission was composed of MM. Lottin, 

 Bravais, and Charles Martin. They sailed in 1S38 for Bossekop, 

 where they stayed from September 1 of that year till April 30, 

 1839. This Polar exploration was followed by observations 

 taken on Mont Blanc. The French Nonh Polar Expedition 

 was sent by the Government in connection with another directed 

 to the Southern Polar seas, and conducted by Dumoiit d'Urville, 

 who left Toulon on September 7, 1837, with the Astrolabe and 

 the Zeta. This time English and American expeditions are sent 

 to these remote and dangerous regions. 



Intelligence received at Buenos Ayres, on July 15, 

 announces the wreck at Cape Horn, of the vessel with Lieut. 

 Bove and the members of the Italian Antarctic expedition on 

 board. Lieut. Bove and his companions were saved by the 

 English cutter Allen GoJcn. 



On Monday the annual Congress of the German Anthropo- 

 logical Society began at Fiankfort. After an opening address 

 by the President, Prof. Lucae, on the development of anthropo- 

 logy during the last ten years, Dr. Schliemann delivered a 

 lecture on his latest excavations at Troy. He was followed by 

 Prof. Virchow, on Mr. Darwin's relations to anthropology. 

 About 500 members were present. 



Dr. Mackintosh, Superintendent of Murthly Asylum, 

 Perthshire, has been presented by the patron, the Marquess of 

 Ailsa, to the Natural History Chair in the University of St. 

 Andrew's, vacant by the transfer of Prof. Nicholson to 

 A berdeen. 



The Trustees of the Gilchri-t Educational Trust have arranged 

 for courses of " Science Lectures for the People " during the 

 ensuing winter in five towns of Central Lancashire, in five Scotch 



towns, and in Leicester, Lincoln, Chesterfield, Doncaster, York, 

 Reading, and Banbury. The lecturers who will take part in 

 them are Dr. Carpenter, F.R.S. (the Secretary to the Trust), 

 Prof. Balfour Stewart, F.R.S., Prof. W. C. Williamson, F.R.S., 

 Dr. Martin Duncan, F.R.S., Rev. W. H. Dallinger, F.R.S. , 

 and others. 



We learn from the Photographic Times (U.S.) that the third 

 Annual Convention and Exhibition of the Photographers' Asso- 

 ciation of America was to meet at Indianapolis on the 8th inst. 

 Mr. Muybridge, who has returned to America, purposes giving 

 a series of lectures this autumn on instantaneous photography 

 and what it has revealed. 



Concerning the August meteors, Mr. Donald Cameron writes 

 us from Aberfeldy, under date August 7, that there was a bright dis- 

 play the previous night witnessed by him from the right bank of the 

 Tay. The meteors were many and brilliant, some of them com- 

 paring favourably with stars of the first magnitude ; but they 

 were very transient and left no traces of light. One of the 

 longest in duration was one shot down at right angles to the 

 horizon from a point equidistant from Saturn and the fifth bright 

 star in Auriga. The region north of the Milky Way (which was 

 bright and well defined) was the principal theatre of the display. 

 At midnight the meteors became very rare, and Mr. Cameron 

 waited till I a.m., seeing scarcely any. He remarks on the 

 striking apparent proximity of the stars to the earth in those 

 clear mountainous regions, the brightness of the moon, though, 

 in her last quarter, on the night in question, and the silence of 

 the owls which had been very noisy for some weeks before. 



Mr. Stanford has published a Map of the Seat of War in 

 Lower Egypt, on the scale of two miles to the inch ; it is ex- 

 ceedingly clear, and likely to be of service to those desirous of 

 watching the progress of operations 



The several designs presented to the Commission for the large 

 dome of the Paris Observatory are being exhibited in the 

 Museum of Astronomy established by Admiral Mouchez. The 

 Commissioners have given the first prize to the design sent in by 

 MM. Cail, of Paris. 



M. Duvaux, the new French Minister of Public Instruction, 

 was formerly director of Nancy College. Since M. Jules Simon 

 resigned, it is the first time that this high office has been given 

 to a professor. This circumstance is considered as being im- 

 portant at a time when public bodies are showing such an interest 

 in the cause of general and special education. 



The brickwork of the subterranean chambers of the Observa- 

 tory of Paris, constructed for magnetic observations, is now quite 

 finished. Admiral Mouchez intends to use a part of i f , in order 

 to study the changes of a mercurial reflecting surface, produced 

 by the attraction of celestial bodies. The changes will be 

 observed with a collimator watching the motion of the reflected 

 image. The determinations will take place in an underground 

 corridor, of which the length is upwards of forty yards and may 

 be con idered as being of invariable temperature. 



A FIRE, caused by an electrical wire at the Paris Opera 

 House, has created quite a sensation in the scientific world, 

 although it has been successfully kept from the knowledge 

 of the public. Mr. Geoffroy, a wire manufacturer in Paris, 

 has taken a patent for covering electric wires with asbestos. 

 Experiments, which will be repeated officially have proved 

 that the copper can be burned without any spark being conducted 

 outside. Another fatal accident from a similar cause occurred 

 last week in Paris. Two young people wishing to introduce 

 themselves into the Tuileries Gardens without paying th 



