Makch 19, igcSJ 



NA TURE 



467 



most treasured possessions of the University, of 

 Sheffield will always remain the marble bust of Sorby 

 at the entrance to the Firth Hall, and his portrait, 

 which hangs in the council room. So — his " task 

 accomplished and the long day done." 



" Beyond the loom of the last lone star, through open dark- 

 ness hurled 

 Further than rebel comet dared or hiving star-swarm 



swirled 

 Sits he with those that praise our God for that they 

 served His world." 



J. O. A. 



NOTES. 



We regret to loarii at the moment of going to press 

 of the death of Sir John Eliot, K.C.I.E., F.R..S., who 

 until recently was the distinguished head of the Indian 

 Meteorological Service. 



.At the anniversary meeting of the Royal Irish Academy 

 on Monday, March 16, the following were elected as 

 honorary members of the academy in the section of 

 science:— Sir .Archibald Geikie, K.C.B., F.R.S. ; Prof. 

 J. C. Kapteyn, Groningen ; Prof. \. A. Michelson, 

 Chicago; Prof. J. D. van der Waals, .Amsterdam; and Dr. 

 A. R. Wallace, F.R.S. 



It is understood that provision will be made by the 

 Canadian Government in the estimates for the coming 

 financial year for a grant of 25,000 dollars (5000;.) by the 

 Dominion Parliament towards the expenses of the British 

 .Association's visit to Winnipeg next year. The city of 

 Winnipeg itself proposes to make a grant of 5000 dollars 

 (1000/.). The week of the meeting will probably be from 

 .August 25 to September i, 1909. 



A MEMORi.AL to the late Sir Leopold McClintock Is to be 

 placed in Westminster Abbey, with the consent of the 

 Dean and Chapter. The memorial will consist of an 

 alabaster slab, underneath the monument to Sir John 

 Franklin, whose fate was definitely ascertained by Sir 

 Leopold during his celebrated expedition on board the Fox. 

 The inscription will be as follows : — " Here also is com- 

 memorated .Admiral Sir Leopold McClintock, 1819-1907. 

 Discoverer of the Fate of Franklin in 1859." The expense 

 of the memorial has been undertaken by the Royal Society, 

 the Royal Geographical Society, and Trinity House. 



The Canadian Mining Institute is arranging, in con- 

 nection with Its summer meeting, a general e.xcursion to 

 the mineral districts of Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, and 

 British Columbia, starting towards the end of .August next. 

 Members of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy have 

 been invited to take part in the general excursion (or any 

 part of it) on the same specially favourable conditions as 

 will be accorded to its own members. The Dominion 

 Government, and the various provincial governments con- 

 cerned, will cooperate In making the excursion a success, 

 and the occasion will afford an excellent opportunity for 

 engineers to Inspect the Important mineral areas of the 

 Dominion. 



The second International Conference on Sleeping Sick- 

 ness, to the proceedings of which attention was directed 

 in our issue of last week, has terminated without being 

 able to agree on the draft convention before it. Reuter's 

 .Agency states that the French and Italian plenipotentiaries 

 declared themselves unable to accept a proposal, made at 

 the last conference in June and then unanimously recom- 

 mended, for the establishment of a central bureau in 



NO. 2003, '^'OL- n^ 



London. It was proposed that the work connected with 

 sleeping sickness should be taken over by a hygiene bureau 

 to be established In Paris, but this proposal the German 

 plenipotentiaries declined to accept, and they strongly sup- 

 ported the British plan for the establishment of a bureau 

 in London. The president (Lord Strathcona), the vice- 

 presidents, and council of the Royal Institute of Public 

 Health gave a dinner on March 11 at the Hotel MiStropole 

 " to meet the delegates of the International Sleeping Sick- 

 ness Conference." Lord Strathcona presided, and in pro- 

 posing the health of the delegates to the International con- 

 ference hoped that the result- of that and successive 

 conferences will be, if not to eliminate, at all events to 

 mitigate the great scourge of sleeping sickness. Dr. Koch, 

 in reply, said it is but the duty of medical men to investi- 

 gate diseases. Especially is this the case with countries 

 which, on account of their colonies, are particularly 

 interested in certain dangerous diseases. Dr. Cureau ex- 

 pressed the thanks of the French delegates. The Marquis 

 de Villalobar, Prof. S. LIquldo, Colonel Lantonnois, Dr. 

 Kopke, and Sir Walter Foster also replied. 



The Bakerlan lecture of the Royal Society will be 

 delivered on Thursday next, March 26, by Prof. C. H. Lees, 

 F.R.S., upon the subject of the thermal conductivities of 

 solids. 



We have received a copy of the Introductory number of 

 jVcHe Vi eltanschauun g , a scientific journal to be published 

 at Stuttgart in monthly parts at fourpence each. It 

 appears that a Neue Weltanschauung Society has been 

 established at Stuttgart which is to issue, not only the 

 monthly journal bearing the same name, but likewise 

 another publication at Irregular Intervals. We shall be 

 better able to judge of the merits of the former when we 

 receive one of the regular numbers. 



In the March Issue of British Birds Mr. N. F. Tice- 

 hurst records a number of bird-bones obtained by ex- 

 cavating an ancient mound known as the Broch of Ayre, 

 near the Bay of Ayr, in Orkney. The most Interesting 

 of these is an imperfect leg-bone of the great auk, a 

 species hitherto unknown from the Orkney mainland. It 

 would, however, remarks the author, be rash to take the 

 evidence of such a specimen as proof that the bird was 

 once an inhabitant of the mainland. 



\o. 1579 of the Proceedings of the U.S. National 

 Museum contains an interesting account of the mode of 

 collecting the sap of the Mexican agave and manu- 

 facturing therefrom the national beverage known as 

 pulque. When the agave is in the proper condition some 

 of the leaves are stripped away so as to expose the central 

 core of unfurled leaves; a year later the core is cut out 

 bodily, and a hollow made in the base to serve as a 

 reservoir for the limpid sap, which soon flows from the 

 wound, and is stated to have a taste very like cocoanut- 

 milk. The sap, or aquamiel. is drawn off by means of 

 a siphon, and transported In skins to undergo fermentation, 

 and thus be converted into pulque. 



We have been favoured with a reprint of a note pub- 

 lished In the American Naturalist for December last, in 

 which Mr. F. T. Lewis disputes the commonly accepted 

 view that the mimicry among South .American butterflies 

 is connected with birds. The original mimicry theory, it 

 is explained, has been so e.xtended as to embrace and 

 account for not only resemblances between an edible and 

 an Inedible form, but also between two inedible species. 

 The author now raises the question whether the re- 



