254 



NA TURE 



[January i6, 1908 



iiOTES. 



M. BsiiiAUD, director of the Toulouse Observatory, has 

 Ebeen appointed director of the Paris Observatory. 



SiK Geobge Darwin, K.C.B., F.R.S., has been elected 

 41 corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of 

 Sciences of St. Petersburg- 



LiEUT.-CoLONEL R. E. Cromtton, C.B., has been elected 

 to the presidency of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 

 •»-acant by the death of Lord Kelvin. 



Phof. Bouchard has been elected a vice-president of 

 *he Parrs Academy in succession to M. Henri Bccquerel, 

 ■who has passed to tbe presidential chair. 



Tire Hayden memorial geological medal of the .-Vcademy 

 of Natur^il Sciences of Philadelphia has been awarded to 

 Mr. C. D. Walcott, secretary of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion. 



We regret to see the announcement of the death of 

 tieut. -Colonel R. L. J. Ellerj', C.M.G., F.R.S., late 

 <jovernment astronomer and director of the Melbourne 

 Observatory, at eighty years of age. 



We learn from the Paris correspondent of the Chemist 

 •and Dmggtst tliat the appointment of Prof. E. Jungfleisch, 

 •of the Paris Superior School of Pharmacy, as successor 

 to Bertlielot^s cliair of organic chemistry at the College de 

 France was formally signed by M. Briand on January 6. 



The Geological Society of London will this year award 

 Its medals and funds as follows : — Wollaston medal to 

 Prof. -Paul Groth, of Munich; Murchison medal to Prof. 

 A. C. Seward, F.R.S. ; Lyell medal to Mr. R. D. Old- 

 iliam ; Wollaston fund to Mr. H. H. Thomas ; Murchison 

 fund to Miss Ethel G. Skeat ; and Lyell fund to Mr. H. J. 

 Osborne White and Mr. T. F. Sibly. 



Reports have appeared in tlie daily Press of a new 

 treatment for consumption in wliich the diseased portion 

 «f the lung is removed by operation. The only novelty 

 ■seems to be the use of hot water or steam to control the 

 fisemorrliage, for excision of a portion of the lung has 

 ■occasionally, been performed during the last seventy years. 

 Such a procedure could only be of service in a very Tew 

 selected cases. 



We deeply regret to announce the death of Prof. C. D. 

 "West on January lo in Tokyo. He had then been twenty- 

 five years in the service of the Japanese Government, and 

 ■was one of those men the Japanese did not wish to 

 lose. He never cared to write scientific papers, but his 

 thought can be traced in those written by others. " West's 

 formula " relating to the destructive power of earthquakes 

 Is certainly the basis of all other formulae on this subject, 

 and these have had a wide application. He was a pioneer 

 in the education of engineers in Japan, and is looked up to 

 as the father of engineering in that country. A modest 

 man has been called across the bar. 



As the result of a vigorous sanitary campaign, involving 

 an expenditure of more than 40,000/., bubonic plague has 

 ■now been almost eradicated from San Francisco. One of 

 the most notable features has been the destruction of 

 130,000 rats during the last four months. Of this number, 

 11,391 were examined by bacteriologists in the laboratory 

 ■of tlie Health Department, and loS were found to be 

 infected. Up to the end of December, 1907, the total 

 number of persons reported as plague-stricken was 136, of 

 whom seventy-three died. The sanitary measures adopted 



NO. 1994. VOL. yy] 



have been under the conlriil of an officer of the U.S. Marine 

 Hospital Service, with the cooperation of the local health 

 authorities. 



New awards will shortly be made from the " Elizabeth 

 Thompson Science Fund," which was established " for the 

 advancement and prosecution of scientific research in its. 

 broadest sense," and now amounts to 5200/. .Applications 

 for assistance from this fund should be sent promptly, 

 with full information, to the secretary of the board of 

 trustees, Dr. C. S. Minot, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 

 Mass., L'.S..'\. The trustees are disinclined, for the pre- 

 sent, to make any grant to meet ordinary expenses of 

 living or to purchase instruments, such as are found 

 commonly in laboratories. Decided preference will be 

 given to applications for small amounts, and grants exceed- 

 ing 60/. will be made only in very exceptional circum- 

 stances. 



In honour of the memory of the great Russian chemist 

 .Mendel^elif, a Congress of Chemistry and Physics was 

 held at the University of St. Petersburg on January 2-12. 

 The congress was organised by the Russian Physico- 

 Chemical -Society, and the following telegram, signed by 

 Prof. Borgniann, Rector of the Imperial University, who 

 presided, was sent to Sir James Dewar : — " The Russian 

 Physico-Chemical Society, with members of the first 

 Mendel^eff Congress, express to you — a friend of the late 

 Prof. MendeMeff — great esteem for your scientific labours 

 opening new ways for investigations of Nature." Many 

 British men of science will be glad that their Russian 

 colleagues have thus shown their appreciation of the 

 greatness of Mendel^eff's work and of the high regard in 

 which his memory is held in this country. This sympa- 

 thetic feeling and unanimity of aim among scientific men 

 is of international importance, and makes the congress at 

 St. Petersburg' an event in which the whole scientific 

 world is interested. 



Mr. Henry Far.man on Monday won the Deutsch- 

 Archdeacon prize by flying toward a goal previously fixed 

 and returning to the starting point, the total distance 

 being more than one kilometre, with a machine heavier 

 than air. The course was marked out by delegates of the 

 Aero Club of France upon the military ground of Issy. 

 Five hundred metres from the starting point, two posts 

 were placed fifty metres apart, and the conditions of the 

 contest were such that the aeroplane had to pass between 

 these posts in the journeys both out and back. At the 

 starting signal the machine ran along the ground for a 

 few yards and then rose easily in the air and headed 

 toward the turning post. This point was reached by a 

 steady flight, and after sweeping round it, Mr. Farman 

 returned to the starting point with perfect ease. The 

 entire flight occupied im. 28s. A description, with an 

 illustration, of Mr. Farman 's aeroplane was given in 

 Nature of December 5, 1907 (p. 106). 



An electrical engineer, M. Lemoine, is under arrest in 

 Paris charged with having obtained more than 60,000/. 

 from Sir Julius Wernher in connection with an alleged 

 invention for the manufacture of diamonds. The " secret " 

 of the process was deposited in a London bank at the 

 time the negotiations were entered upon, and the magis- 

 trate appears to be in a legal difficulty, since the defendant 

 refuses to allow the document to be examined. The 

 defendant has, it is reported, given several demonstrations 

 of his process, and some of these were in the presence of 

 witnesses. During the progress of the case, a Times 

 correspondent states : — " An Englishman, Mr. Jackson, 

 said that he had been present at two experiments in M. 



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