;70 



NATURE 



[Septkmhkk 22. igio 



scarcely removed from the heart of the city. Although this 

 plot has only been cleared for about two years, no fewer 

 than twenty-eight species of flowering plants and ferns 

 have established themselves upon it. Mosses, liverworts, 

 and others of the more simple plants are also represented. 

 Mr. J. C. .Shenstone is preparing a detailed list, which 

 will be published in the October number of the Sc\hoinc 

 Magazim'. 



The council of the Concrete Institute has decided to 

 offer a medal annually for the best paper submitted relating 

 to concrete and its applications. 



The Royal Philosophical .Society of Glasgow announces 

 that its Graham medal, awarded for original research in 

 any branch of chemical science, is now open to competi- 

 tion. Particulars as to the award are obtainable from the 

 secretary of the society, 207 Bath Street, Glasgow. 



The Incorporated Institution of .\utomobile Engineers 

 will hold its opening meeting for the present session on 

 October 12, when the president, Mr. F. W. Lanchester, 

 will deliver an address on " Factors that have Contributed 

 to the .Advance of Automobile Engineering, and which 

 Control the Development of the Self-propelled Vehicle." 



Dr. Frederick A. Gentii, jun., a prominent American 

 toxicologist, died on September i at Lansdowne, Pennsyl- 

 vania, at the age of fifty-five. He was a member of 

 several foreign chemical societies, and had held official 

 positions at home in connection with the University of 

 Pennsylvania, the Medico-chirurgical Hospital of Phila- 

 delphia, and the State Department of Agricuhure. 



Mr. Joseph \. Holmes, director of the technological 

 branch of the D.S. Geological Survey, has been appointed 

 by President Taft to the directorship of the newly estab- 

 lished Bureau of Mines. The functions of the new office 

 will be to investigate and report upon safety appliances, 

 and to inquire into the improvement of the methods of 

 mining in general. Mr. Holmes, who is now in his fifty- 

 first year, was professor of geology and natural history 

 in the University of North Carolina from 1881 to 1891, 

 and State geologist of North Carolina from 1891 to 1904, 

 when he entered the service of the national geological 

 survey. He was chief of the department of mines and 

 metallurgy at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904. 



The death is announced of Prof. William H. Niles, who 

 was professor of geology and geography in the Institute 

 of Technology at Massachusetts from 1871 to 1902, and 

 head of the department of geology at W'ellesley College 

 since 1888. Although perhaps best known as a teacher 

 and public lecturer, he was author of papers on glacial 

 phenomena and on the physical geology and geography of 

 Massachusetts. In 1874 he directed attention to natural 

 disturbances which occurred in quarries, whereby anti- 

 clinal structures were produced, owing to lateral pressure 

 and the relief caused by the removal of rock. Prof. Niles 

 was president of the Boston Natural History Society from 

 1802 to 1897. He was born on May 18, 1838, and died 

 on September 13 of this year. 



The death is reported, at the ripe age of eighty-three, of 

 Dr. Charles A. Goessmann, for nearly forty years professor 

 of chemistry at the Massachusetts Agricultural College. \ 

 native of Naumburg, he graduated at Gottingen, where 

 he was a favourite student, and afterward the assistant, 

 of Wohler. A report he had made on the value of 

 ■ orghum as a source of sugar led to his invitation by a 

 former .'\merican fellow-student to become scientific 

 director of a sugar refinery in Philadelphia, .\fter occupy- 

 ing that post from 1857 to 1861, he spent eight years as 

 chemist of the Onondaga salt works, where he made 

 NO. 2134, VOL. 84] 



important contributions to the chemistry of brines, mean- 

 while devoting part, of his time to the professorship of 

 chemistry at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy, 

 N.V. The most valuable part of his life-work was dom- 

 at the Agricultural College at ."Amherst, which he made a 

 training ground for agricultural and technical chemists. 

 The .State of Massachusetts appointed him also director 

 of its agricultural experiment station and analyst to its 

 board of health. He is credited with having exerted, 

 directly and through his pupils, a powerful influence over 

 the attitude of .American agriculturists to scientific 

 education. 



Writing in the Times of Friday last. Prof. R. Meldola 

 says that it appears to have been overlooked that Erasmus 

 Darwin, the grandfather of Charles Darwin, besides pro- 

 phesying the introduction of steam as a motive power, 

 foretold, in the following lines, the advent of aerial 

 navigation ; — 

 " Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam, afar, 

 Drag the slow barge and drive the rapid car ; 

 Or on wide waving wings e.xpanded bear 

 The flying chariot through the streams of air; 

 Fair crews triumphant leaning from above 

 Shall wave their fluttering kerchiefs as they move ; 

 Or warrior bands alarm the gaping crowd, 

 .'\nd armies shrink beneath the shadowy cloud." 

 The first Universal Races Congress, " to discuss, in the 

 light of modern knowledge and the modern conscience, 

 the general relations subsisting between the peoples of 

 the West and those of the East, between so-called white 

 and so-called coloured peoples, with a view to encouraging 

 between them a fuller understanding, the most friendly 

 feelings, and a heartier cooperation," is to be held, under 

 the presidency of Lord Weardale, in London on July 

 26-29, igii. We notice that among the papers to be 

 brought before the congress are the following : — Definition 

 of race, tribe, and nation, by Braiendranath Seal ; anthro- 

 pological view of race, by Prof. v. Luschan ; sociological 

 view of race, by Prof. A .Fouillfe ; the problem of race 

 equality, Mr. G. Spiller ; differences in customs and morals 

 and their resistance to rapid change, by Prof. G. Sergi ; 

 intellectual standing of different races and their respective 

 opportunities for culture, by Mr. J. Gray; inter-racial 

 marriage, by Dr. J. Deniker. 



The report for the past year of the Madras Government 

 Museum, so long associated with the reports and bulletins 

 issued by Mr. E. Thurston, now appears under the signa- 

 ture of his successor, Mr. J. R. Henderson. The most 

 important addition during the year was the establishment 

 of the marine aquarium, of which a description apoeareJ 

 in these columns (February 3). This is now stocked with 

 fish and other marine forms of life collected on the coast, 

 and forms a most attractive exhibit. Numerous accessions 

 to the numismatic cabinet are recorded, the most important 

 being a Roman denarius attributed to Quintus Cassius 

 Longinus (b.c. 60), and a second to the Emperor Augustus. 

 These furnish additional corroboration of the importance 

 of the sea trade between Rome and southern India during 

 this period. The present specimens were unearthed in the 

 Ciiimbatore district. 



The last issue {vol. v., part v.1 of the .Archa-ological 

 Publication of the University of California is devoted to 

 an account of the Chimariko tribe of Indians inhabiting 

 Trinity County, in north California. They first came into 

 contact with the whites early in the last century : but their 

 final destruction began with the sudden eruption of gold 

 miners in the early 'fifties, by whom they were over- 

 whelmed and dispersed. The information now collected 

 was obtained bv Mr. R. B. Dixon from a woman, the 



