April 3, 1902J 



NATURE 



317 



The fourteenth International Medical Congress will be held 

 at Madrid on April 23-30 of next year. The British Afedical 

 [ournal states that in almost all the countries of Europe and 

 America local organising committees have been formed. The 

 Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs has invited all Governments 

 to send representatives. A similar invitation has been sent to 

 all universities and medical schools, and to the principal medical 

 societies in all countries. Among the numerous applications for 

 membership which have up to the present been sent in are the 

 names of eighty five delegates, and there is every prospect of a 

 most successful meeting. Among the notabilities of the medical 

 world who have promised to deliver addresses are Profs. Pavlov, 

 Maragliano. Thomson, Liache, Waldeyer, Cajal and others. 

 Almost all the various sections have arranged their programmes 

 of discussions, and they are now grappling' with the task of 

 selecting men to open them. A preliminary programme, in- 

 cluding not only the official list of discussions, but the titles of 

 communications offered, will shortly be issued. 



As already announced, the jubilee of the scientific career of 

 the eminent palajontologist. Prof. A. Gaudry, was celebrated at 

 Paris on March 9, when many of his old pupils, friends and 



He was born in 1843, received his education in a military 

 school, and next in the .Academy of the General Staff, and after 

 having finished his studies remained for fifteen years at the 

 General Staff at Omsk, making important journeys in Dzungaria 

 and north-western Mongolia. He also took part in the great 

 surveys which were made in 1880 on Chinese territory in 

 connection with the tracing of the boundary between China and 

 Russia. The results of the first two journeys were embodied 

 in papers published in the Memoirs of the West Siberian Geo- 

 graphical Society, the description of north-western Mongolia, by 

 Pyevtsoff, being the best work on the subject. In 18SS, after the 

 sudden death of Prjevalsky, Pyevtsoff was nominated head of the 

 Tibet expedition, and, in company with Roborovsky and Kozloff 

 and the geologist Bogdanovich, he explored during two years 

 eastern Turkestan and the Gobi^-the results of these explorations 

 being now embodied in three quarto volumes edited by the 

 Russian Geographical Society. Pyevtsoff also contributed to 

 theoretical geodesy an important paper on the determination of 

 latitudes from the corresponding altitudes of two stars — a most 

 useful extension of M. Tsinger's method, which has been largely 

 applied since by Russian explorers in Central Asia — and another 

 on barometrical levellings. 



admirers assembled lu Ju liiiu liuiuur and l^. offer him a medal 

 commemorative of his services to science. Delegates were 

 present from numerous learned societies and academies, in- 

 cluding our own Royal Society ; arid addresses were delivered 

 by M. E. Perrier, director' of the Natural History Museum, 

 where the celebration was held, M. M. Boule and M. Liard. 

 The accompanying illustrations from La Nature show the 

 medal which was presented to Prof. Gaudry as a slight 

 mark of appreciation of his work in pal.Tontology and the 

 honour it has brought to France and to the museum with which 

 he has been so long connected as student, assistant naturalist 

 and professor. 



The Russian Geographical Society has sustained another 

 heavy loss by the death of General Mikhail Vasilievich Pyevtsoff. 

 NO. 1692, VOL. 65] 



The series of Saturday afternoon c\ciirMcHii ui iIil- L'jndun 

 Geological Field Class, conducted by Prof. H. G. Seeley,' 

 F. R. S;, will commence on April 26, when a visit will be paid 

 to Erith. The excursions will be continued on each succeeding 

 Saturday (except on Saturdays before Whitsuntide and in 

 Coronation week) until July 12. Further particulars can be 

 obtained from the hon. general secretary,- Mr. R. Herbert 

 Bentley, 43 Gloucester Road, Brownswood Park, N. 



Dr. H. R. Mii.i. has collected observations relating to the 

 frost of February last from all available sources, and has pub- 

 lished in Symons's Mcleorological Magazine for March an inter- 

 esting summary of the results, with a sketch-map which shows 

 diagrammatically the number of days of frost in different parts of 

 the country. With the exception of the long-continued cold of 



