December 12, 1907] 



NA TURE 



boyhood, and worked for some time at farming and 

 carpentr\'. In 1857 he became an assistant at Harvard 

 Observatory, which he left in 1862 to enter the service of 

 the Naval Observatory of the United States. 



An International Congress of Low Temperature Indus- 

 tries will be held at Paris for the first time in June, 190S. 

 The general effects of low temperatures and their use in 

 connection with food, horticulture, mines, metallurgy, 

 commerce, and transport are to be discussed. Full par- 

 ticulars may be obtained from the secretary to the con- 

 gress, 10 rue Poisson, Paris. 



Dr. J. CossAR EwART, F.R.S., commenced a course of 

 twelve Swiney lectures on geology in connection with the 

 British Museum (Natural History) on Friday last, 

 December 6. The subject of the lectures, which are being 

 delivered on Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays, at 5 p.m., 

 in the lecture theatre of the Victoria and Albert Museum, 

 South Kensington, is " Horses of the Past and Present." 

 The lecture to-morrow (Friday) will be on the fossil horses 

 of Central Europe compared with Prcjvalsky's horse. 

 Admission to the course is free. 



The Duke of Argyll, honorary president of the Franco- 

 British Exhibition, the Earl of Derby, president, the vice- 

 presidents, and the executive and finance committees are 

 this afternoon giving a reception in the exhibition grounds, 

 to be followed by an inspection of the progress of the 

 works. 



The annual conversazione of the Royal College of Science 

 and Royal School of Mines will be held in the new build- 

 ings of the college on Wednesday next, December 18. 

 Many interesting exhibits will be shown in the various 

 departments, and Mr. G. S. Newth will deliver a popular 

 lecture on " Coal-mine Explosions." 



The annual meeting of the British Science Guild will 

 be held at the Mansion House on Wednesday, January 15, 

 at 4.15 p.m. The Lord Mayor has consented to preside 

 and to become one of the vice-presidents of the Guild. 

 Mr. Haldane. the president of the Guild, and other gentle- 

 men will address the meeting. Steps are being taken by 

 the Guild to bring the proposals for legislation for the 

 prevention of the pollution of rivers before many societies 

 and local bodies. 



We are requested to make it known that a meeting will 

 be held under the auspices of the Essex Field Club on 

 Saturday, December 14, at the Essex Museum, Stratford, 

 for the discussion of rivers' pollution from the naturalist's 

 point of view. The subject will be opened by Prof. 

 Meldola, F.R.S., and spoken to by Sir William Ramsay, 

 K.C.B., F.R.S., Mr. E. B. Barnard, M.P., Sir Alexander 

 Pedler, F.R.S., Mr. William Whitaker, F.R.S., Dr. 

 Thresh, and other gentlemen well acquainted with the 

 question of water supply. .-Ml interested in the matter are 

 invited to attend. Mr. W. Cole, Buckhurst Hill, Essex, 

 will be glad to send cards. 



k PROPOSAL made to the Public Control Committee of 

 the London County Council by Signor D. Maggiora to 

 apply the process of discharging cannon of special con- 

 struction, known in Austria as weather shooting, " to 

 |ir.vcnt the formation of fog or to disperse it in case it 

 is already formed, and also to disperse and destroy all 

 clouds, and to prevent rain, hailstorms, lightning, and 

 Ihunder," has been under the consideration of the Council. 

 It was referred to the director of the Meteorological Office 

 for report. The proposal is even more ambitious in its 

 scope than its predecessors of more or less similar character 



NO. 1989, VOL. 77] 



in other countries of the old or new world. .As might 

 be expected, Dr. Shaw's report, based largely upon Prof. 

 Pernter's article in the ileteorologische Zeitschrift of 

 March last, and on official reports of the Vienna Meteor- 

 ological Office, is entirely unfavourable, and the County 

 Council has therefore not been asked to vote money for 

 the proposed experiments. 



The Brent Valley Bird Sanctuary consists of a wood, 

 nineteen acres in extent, which comes into the London 

 postal district. About eighty species of birds have been 

 seen in or near the enclosure, while nearly half that 

 number are known to have bred within it ; and for four 

 years a number of members of the Selborne Society and other 

 lovers of natural history have with their own hands main- 

 tained the fences and brought them into a state of greater 

 efficiency, or have contributed towards the wages of 

 temporary watchers. Much more should be done, and 

 the committee has therefore made an appeal for annual 

 subscriptions from people who are interested in birds, so 

 that a permanent custodian may be appointed. Subscrip- 

 tions should be sent to Mrs. Webb, Odstock, Hanwell, W., 

 honorary secretary of the committee and of the Brent 

 \'alley branch of the Selborne Society. 



At a meeting of the epidemiological section of the Royal 

 Society of Medicine on December 2, papers were con- 

 tributed by Dr. Haffkine, on the present methods of com- 

 bating plague, and Dr. Ashburton Thompson, of Sydney, 

 N.S.W., on protection of India from invasion by plague. 

 Dr. Haffkine considers that the following propositions are 

 now more or less generally recognised, viz. that (i) 

 plague is what has been termed, in a general sense, a 

 disease of locality ; (2) it is contracted principally at night ; 

 and (3) the part which man plays as direct agent in its 

 propagation is a more or less subordinate one. After 

 discussing such measures as desertion of the locality, dis- 

 infection, and rat destruction, the conclusion was arrived 

 at that the ultimate method of combating the bubonic 

 plague in the areas in which it becomes endemic is that 

 of conferring on the population immunity from the disease 

 by means of an artificial treatment. Dr. Ashburton 

 Thompson, in his paper, said the fundamental data 

 acquired in the investigations at Sydney are that (i) the 

 epidemic spread of plague occurs independently of com- 

 munication of the infection from the sick, consequently the 

 infection of plague spreads by means which are external 

 to man; (2) the plague-rat is harmless to man, but is, 

 nevertheless, the essential cause of epidemics ; and (3) the 

 intermediate agent between rat and man (and between 

 rat and rat) is the flea. The infection of man is most 

 usually contingent on his being within buildings together 

 with plague-rats. 



We learn from the Lancet that Prof. Alfonso Sella, pro- 

 fessor of experimental physics in the Royal University of 

 Rome, died on November 25 at forty years of age. From 

 an interesting obituary notice by the Italian correspondent 

 of our contemporary, we extract the following particulars 

 of Prof. Sella's scientific career. Prof. Sella inherited 

 from his father, Ouintino Sella, one of Italy's greatest 

 statesmen, a love of science, abstract and applied, which 

 carried him with special distinction through the mathe- 

 matical and physical curriculum of the University of Turin. 

 Like his sire he took his annual holiday in the Alps, 

 where, in his seventeenth year, he was the first to scale 

 the summit of the Dent-du-Midi ; and he found another 

 pastime in aeronautic adventure, a field in which he had 

 many followers, in conjunction with whom he founded the 

 "Society Aeronautica Italiana." For the ten years 



