40O 



NATURE 



[September 29, 19 10 



The Thomas Vount; lecture of the Optical Society will 

 be delivered in the lecture hall of the Chemical Society 

 this evening by Prof. R. W. Wood, of the Johns Hopkins 

 University, Baltimore, U.S.A. The subjects will be " The 

 Echelette Grating " and " The Mercury Telescope." 



Lieut. Filchner, the German explorer, in an address 

 at the meeting of German naturalists and physicians at 

 Konigsberg, announced, says Reuter, that the start of his 

 .Antarctic expedition could with a certainty be fixed for 

 the spring of iqii. He has agreed with Captain Scott, 

 who starts from the Ross .Sea for the Pole, while Lieut. 

 Filchner's base w'iU be the Weddell Sea, that, if the 

 expeditions meet in the centre of the Antarctic, some of 

 Captain Scott's party shall join his and accompany him 

 to the Ross Sea, and that some of his party shall go with 

 Captain Scott to the Weddell Sea. 



We learn from the British Medical Jotinial that the 

 fifth International Dairy Congress, which w^ill be held in 

 Stockholm in igii, offers a prize of 2o(. for the best 

 essay on the nutritive value of raw milk as compared with 

 that of pasteurised, sterilised, or evaporated milk, deter- 

 mined, at least in part, by experiments made upon infants. 

 In case the raw milk is found to give the better results, 

 it is requested that the rdle played by the enzymes of the 

 milk be determined if possible. The papers, which may 

 be WTitten in German, French, or English, and type- 

 written, should be sent before April i, iqii, to the 

 Secr^tariat-g^n^ral de la Federation Internationale de 

 Laiterie, 23 rue David Desvachez, Bruxelles, Belgium. 



The observatory of the Hampstead Scientific Society is 

 now in full working order. It is equipped with an 8-inch 

 equatorially mounted reflector telescope, which may be 

 used by members of the society on any evening by arrange- 

 ment with the secretaries, and by the public on Saturday 

 evenings. A special meeting of the astronomical section 

 of the society will be held on October 5, at 8.30 p.m., at 

 Stansfeld House, Prince Arthur Road, Hampstead, when 

 a paper on Saturn will be read. For several successive 

 evenings following the observatory will be devoted to 

 demonstrations on Saturn. Inquiries may be addressed to 

 Mr. P. H. Hepburn, one of the honorary secretaries of 

 the astronomical section, 49 Downshire Hill, Hampstead. 



The Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company announces 

 that it has received a Marconigram from the Italian Lloyd 

 steamship Principessa Mafalda stating that Mr. Marconi, 

 who was on board, has been successful in obtaining w'ire- 

 less messages from Clifden, Ireland, and Glace Bay, 

 Canada, stations up to a distance of 3500 miles, in broad 

 dayhght. A kite was used for the support of the aerial 

 wire on the vessel, and, except for encountering high 

 wind, which stopped kite-flying, Mr. Marconi is confident 

 that a greater distance would have been achieved. The 

 distance easily excels all accomplishments in the reception 

 of wireless messages on shipboard in the daytime, the 

 greatest previous distance at sea being 1750 miles. 



The Berlin correspondent of the Times announces the 

 death, in his si.xty-fourth year, of Prof. Theobald Fischer, 

 professor of geography in the University of Marburg. 

 Prof. Fischer made valuable contributions to the know- 

 ledge of the structure of the plateau of the Atlas ; and 

 the results of most of his researches are to be found in 

 Pelcrmaiin's Mi-tteilungen and in the Proceedings of the 

 Hamburg Geographical Society. He was the author of a 

 work on the peninsulas of southern Europe in Kirchhof's 

 NO. 2135, VOL. 84] 



" Landerkunde Europas, " and of books on the date palm 

 (1881) and the olive (1904). 



M. G. Chavez was successful on Friday, September 23, 

 in making a flight with a Bl^riot monoplane across the 

 .\lps from Brigue to Domo d'Ossola, but he had thc- 

 misfortune to meet with a severe accident when landing, 

 from the elTects of which he died on Tuesday, Sep- 

 tember 27. To traverse by aeroplane a distance of about 

 thirty miles of snow-covered mountain, including the 

 .Simplon, which reaches a height of 6600 feet, is a notable 

 achievement, even though it has a sensational aspect. M. 

 Chavez started at 1.30 p.m., and reached Domo d'Ossola 

 at 2.19; over the Simplon Pass he encountered a very high 

 wind, which caused him to take the route over the Gorge 

 of Gondo instead of going by the shorter route over the 

 Mousoera Pass. When quite near the landing place at 

 Domo d'Ossola the wings of the monoplane appear to 

 have broken, and the machine fell to the ground with 

 M. Chavez beneath. Everyone will regret that the re- 

 markable feat of crossing the Alps by aeroplane should 

 have had such a melancholy termination. M. Chavez is 

 the fifteenth airman who has been killed by flying accidents 

 this year. 



We record with regret the death, on September 16, of 

 Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, at the age of eighty-four years. 

 Mr. Rassam in 1845 joined Mr. (afterwards Sir) A. H. 

 Layard to assist him in his Assyrian researches. He was 

 sent out again by the trustees of the British Museum in 

 1849 to take part in Layard's second undertaking, and 

 carried on work for the British Museum until 1S54. In 

 1864 he was selected by the Britisli Government to pro- 

 ceed to .Abyssinia to try to persuade King Theodore to 

 release Consul Cameron and other prisoners. Though at 

 first he met with success with King Theodore, he was. 

 after a few months, thrown into prison with the original 

 prisoners, who had been retaken, and he was kept in 

 chains for nearly two years. The occurrences led to the 

 war with .Abyssinia in 1868. Mr. Rassam conducted 

 further .Assyrian e.xplorations from 1876 to 1S82, and 

 during the Turko-Russian war he was sent to Asia Minor, 

 .\rmenia, and Kurdistan by the British Foreign Office. 

 .Among his published works may be mentioned " British 

 Mission to Theodore, King of Abyssinia, with Notices of 

 the Country Traversed from Massowah through the 

 Soudan, the .Amhara, and back to Annesly Bay from 

 Magdala," two vols., and " .Asshur and the Land of 

 Nimrod." 



The second International Congress of Alimentary 

 Hygiene will be held in Brussels on October 4-8. In 

 addition to the usual meetings of sections, the following 

 lectures are included in the provisional programme : — 

 Tuesday, October 4 : Prof. Dastre, " The Ultra-violet 

 Rays and their .Application to Alimentary Hygiene"; 

 October 5: Prof. Paterno, "The Chemical Sciences"; 

 October 6: M. Bordet, "Hygiene and Bacteriology." 

 Various social functions and visits to the exhibition, to 

 the Colonial Museum, and to the Institut au Pare Leo- 

 pold have also been arranged. Members and associates 

 (subscription, 20 francs and 10 francs respectively) are 

 admitted free to the Universal Exhibition during the time 

 of the congress. Further information may be obtained of 

 the honorary secretary, Mr. Cecil H. Cribb, 136 Shaftes- 

 bury Avenue, London, W. 



The annual foray of the mycological section of the 

 Yorkshire Naturalists' Union was held at Sandsend, near 

 Whitby, on September 17-22. The magnificent old woods 



