Febkuaky i8 1909] 



NA TURE 



46; 



lava a mile long is said to have been emitted from the 

 crater. On Kcbruary 16 severe earthquake shocks were 

 felt in southern Bulgaria and parts of Hungary. 



The Prince and Princess of Wales were present at the 

 Royal College of .Surgeons on Monday, when Mr. Henry 

 Morris, the president, delivered the Hunterian oration, 

 taking as his subject "John Hunter as a Philosopher." 

 The Prince has accepted the diploma of honorary fellow 

 of the college, and on .Monday he signed the roll. The 

 president, in the course of his address, said a study of 

 Hunter's works shows that he combined in an exceptional 

 degree the two philosophic methods of induction and deduc- 

 tion. He was essentially a thinker rather than a scholar, 

 yet an experimental philosopher rather than a meta- 

 physician. He saw that for a complete scheme of know- 

 ledge induction and deduction are supplementary to each 

 other. His adoption of both inductive and deductive 

 methods was the result of two causes — the natural scope 

 and bent of his mind and the nature of the subjects to 

 which he devoted his life. Induction was largely the 

 method required for the profession he chose. Hunter was 

 a disciple of Bacon in that he employed induction in the 

 pursuit of truth with an ulterior regard to utility and 

 the good of mankind. At the same time he had not the 

 deductive force of Descartes. It was not as a logician, but 

 as an observer and experimenter that Hunter excelled ; it 

 was not the beauty of his logic, but the industry with 

 which he collected facts, and the ability and honesty with 

 which he reasoned from them, that made him great. 



It is announced in Science that Mr. D. C. Sowers, in 

 charge of the special magnetic e.xpedition to China under 

 the auspices of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 

 left Peking on January 30. He will be assisted by Prof. 

 Chester G. Fuson, professor of history and geography at 

 the Canton Christian College. The route to be followed 

 by the party will touch at the following places : — Sianfu, 

 Lanchowfu, Suchow, Turfan, Kashgar, Khotan, thence, vid 

 the Karakorum Pass, into India, where connection will be 

 made at Dehra Dun with the magnetic survey of India. 

 Magnetic observations will, therefore, be obtained in parts 

 of China and Chinese Turkestan where no previous data 

 existed. Dr. J. C. Beattie, director of the department of 

 physics. South African College, Cape Town, has been 

 granted a year's furlough in order to take charge of a 

 magnetic survey party under the auspices of the Carnegie 

 Institution. He left Cape Town on November 25 last. 

 His general route of travel will be through German South- 

 West Africa, thence into Rhodesia, British East Africa, 

 German East Africa, and next through Nubia and Egypt, 

 connecting with the magnetic survey of Egypt at Cairo. 

 He will be assisted by Prof. J. T. Morrison, in charge of 

 the department of physics, Victoria College, .Stellcnbosch, 

 South Africa, who will confine his worlc chiefly to points 

 reached by steamer along the east and west coasts of 

 Africa. Mr. J. C. Pearson, who during the past year has 

 been engaged in making magnetic observations in various 

 parts of Persia under the auspices of the Carnegie Institu- 

 tion, will be ready some time in March to undertake similar 

 work in Asia Minor, beginning at Bagdad. 



Mfssrs. H. W. Cox and Co., Ltd., of 47 Gray's Inn 

 Road, London, W.C., point out in a circular letter that 

 the exaggerated reports which have appeared consequent 

 upon the sufferings of some of the earliest workers with 

 Rcintgen rays (including Mr. Cox himself) have affected 

 not only the English manufacturer and the medical man 

 who were sufficiently enterprising to take up the new 

 treatment, but also to a considerable extent deprived the 

 NO. 2051, VOL. 79] 



public of the benefit of the discovery which has been of 

 such incalculable value in the relief' of suffering and the 

 advancement of medical knowledge. It should now be 

 well known, however, that apparatus has been devised 

 which entirely obviates any danger either to the patient or 

 to the operator, while experiments have determined the 

 maximum exposure which may be given with safety to 

 the human skin. The rays are now used with perfect 

 safety in thousands of hospitals throughout the world 

 in the treatment of various diseases. Mr. Mackenzie 

 Davidson long ago exhibited at the Rontgen Society 

 the method of protection from the injurious effects 

 of X-rays advised by him. It simply consisted of 

 a wooden box thickly coated with red and white lead 

 mi.xed into a thick paste — this hardened, and was a 

 non-conductor. A circular opening was left opposite the 

 antikathode. Thus everyone was protected from these rays 

 except the patient who was placed in the path of the 

 rays. Further, the viewing fluorescent screen should be 

 framed and covered with thick and heavy plate glass, which 

 does not interfere with the screen except to protect it (as 

 the glass does a framed picture), and shields the observer 

 from injurious rays. Had these simple precautions been 

 carried out, we should not be grieved by these maimed 

 martyrs. Of course, any material of sufficient atomic 

 weight can be used to enclose the X-ray tube. 



A COPY of the annual report for the year 190S of the 

 council of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, N.Z., 

 has been received. During the year arrangements have 

 been under consideration for the publication of the report 

 of the expedition to the subantarctic islands of New 

 Zealand, which took place in 1907 under the auspices of 

 the institute. The expedition was assisted by the Govern- 

 ment, and 500/. was received from the same source towards 

 bringing out the report on the expedition. Other important 

 questions which have occupied the attention of the council 

 include experiments in connection with Arthur's Pass 

 Tunnel, the foundation of a library of Antarctic literature, 

 the dispatch of a scientific party to the Chatham Islands, 

 and the more adequate protection of native fauna. The 

 Government of the Dominion of New Zealand has made 

 a grant of 200!. towards the earth-temperature observa- 

 tions at .Arthur's Pass Tunnel, and we notice the council 

 puts on record its indebtedness to- Prof. Heim, of Zurich, 

 for the help and advice he has rendered the subcommittee 

 in charge of these experiments. The council recommends 

 that a party of men of science be sent at the first oppor- 

 tunity to the Chatham Islands to make collections of 

 articles of ethnological interest and of specimens of the 

 subfossil bird remains. In connection with the protection 

 of native fauna, it has been decided to direct the attention 

 of the Minister of the Interior to the fact that neither the 

 kaka nor the tuatara is protected, though the export of 

 specimens of the latter is forbidden. 



The Journal of the Royal Sanitary Institute for February 

 (xxx.. No. i) contains a valuable paper by Dr. Rideal on 

 the purification of water by ozone by the De Frise process, 

 which is considered to give extremely satisfactory results. 



In the Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital for 

 January (xx.. No. 214) another paper on the history of 

 medicine is added to the series already published in this 

 journal, the subject being John James Wepfer, a Renais- 

 sance student of apoplexy, contributed by Dr. John Donley. 



The Royal Commission on Tuberculosis recently issued 

 a third interim report (Cd. 44S3, price 4<f.). In their 

 second interim report the commissioners expressed the 



