Jan. 13. 1887] 



NA TURE 



255 



national Geological Congress, the success of which has been in 

 large measure due to his active help. His pleasant smile and 

 cheery way of smoothing over personal friction will long be 

 remembered by those who witnessed them at the meetings of the 

 Congress. 



Sir Franxis Bolton died at Bournemouth on Wednesday, 

 the 5th inst. He was born in 1831, and entered the army at 

 the age of twenty- six. For some time he served on the staff as 

 Deputy- Assistant Quartermaster-General, and in 1881 he retired 

 with the rank of colonel. He was the inventor of the system of 

 telegraphic .and visual signalling which was introduced into 

 the army and navy in 1863, and for these services and other 

 improvements and inventions in regard to warlike material he 

 received in 1883 the honour of knighthood. In 1870 he founded 

 the Society of Telegraph-Engineers and Electricians. 



Last year some of the leading statisticians of Europe com- 

 bined to form a new Society, the International Statistical 

 Institute. If we may judge from its aims, as set forth in the first 

 article of its statutes, the Institute is likely to do work which 

 will be of the highest service to Governments. It proposes to 

 foster the progress of administrative and scientific statistics : 

 " (l) by introducing as much as possible uniformity of method 

 and classification and of handling statistical material, in order to 

 make the results obtained in different countries comparable ; 

 (2) by calling the attention of Governments to those questions 

 which require to be solved by statistical observation, and 

 requesting from them information on subjects which have not yet 

 been treated statistically, or have been only insufficiently 

 treated ; (3) by creating international publications intended to 

 establish permanent relations among statisticians of all countries ; 

 (4) by striving, through its publications, and, if possible, by 

 public instruction and other means, to promote the spread of 

 sound ideas as to statistics, and to interest Governments and 

 peoples in the investigation of the phenomera of society." The 

 Institute intended to have held its first general meeting 

 in Rome in September last, but was compelled by the 

 spread of cholera in Italy to abandon its design. It has 

 now decided to hold its first meeting in Rome in Easter 

 week of this year, from April 12 to 16. Nearly fifty 

 members have e.xpressed their intention of being present, 

 and it is expected that the attendance will be considerably 

 larger. The Italian Government deserves the greatest credit 

 for the generous and enlightened manner in which it is support- 

 ing the Institute. It allows Prof. Boris, the Director-General 

 of the Statistics of the Kingdom of Italy, to .act as Secretary, 

 and in this capacity to use the services of his official staff. With 

 the sanction of the Italian Parliament, it has granted a sum 

 equal to 600/. to aid the Institute in printing its publications, 

 and another sum of 400/. has been contributed to the expenses 

 of the approaching meeting. Moreover, it has been arranged 

 that for the benefit of members who attend the meeting the fares 

 on the public railways to and from Rome shall be reduced by 

 one-half. Signor Grimaldi, the Italian Minister of Commerce, 

 is trying to induce other Governments to act in a similar spirit, 

 and it may be hoped that his efforts will not be wholly un- 

 successful. 



On Satuiday evening last. Sir John Lubbock delivered, at 

 Toynbee Hall, a lecture on " Savages," the first of a new 

 course. He pointed out that modern savages do not in 

 all respects reproduce the condition of our ancestors in early 

 times. Even the Australians hold now a system of complex 

 rules and stringent customs, which have grown up gradually, 

 and cannot have existed originally. From the study of modern 

 savages, however, we may gain a fairly correct idea of man as 

 he existed in ancient times, and of the stages through which our 

 civilisation has been evolved. The lecturer gave a remarkably 



vivid and interesting account of some of the leading facts known 

 about the customs, beliefs, and institutions of savage races. 



On Friday evening last the Drapers' Company set an admir- 

 able example to other City Companies by entertaining at its 

 Hall in Throgmorton Street the students associated with the 

 Whitechapel centres of the University Extension Scheme. The 

 classes connected with this Scheme at Toynbee Hall are attended 

 by no fewer than 631 students, who receive instruction in phy- 

 siology, astronomy, history, and English literature. The fee for 

 a course of twelve lectures is one shilling. 



The presidential address delivered at the annual meeting of 

 the American Neurological Association in June last by Dr. Burt 

 G. Wilder has been reprinted from the yournal of Nervous and 

 Mental Disease. In this address Dr. Wilder discusses the ques- 

 tion as to the need of some improvement in the nomenclature of 

 the brain. He is convinced that the current nomenclature is to 

 a large extent an obstacle rather than an aid to the advancement 

 and dissemination of knowledge concerning a complex organ ; 

 and, with regard to the encephalic cavities in particular, 

 he holds that it would be better for the student if the 

 incongruous and misleading (/«afi-descriptive terms, first, 

 second, third, fourth, and fifth ventricle, could be displaced by 

 totally meaningless, but easily remembered, Chinese mono- 

 syllables, like pran, pren, prin, pron^anAprtm. Dr. Wilder has 

 obtained an alphabetical list of nearly all the names which have 

 been applied to the parts of the central nervous system, and, allow- 

 ing for some omissions and duplicates, the numbers are as fol- 

 lows :— Latin, 2600 ; English, 1300 ; German, 2400 ; French, 

 l8oo ; Italian and Spani-h, 900 ; total, 9000. The number of 

 parts designated by these names is considerably less than 500. 



Referring to the death of Sir W. W. Pleughes, which took 

 place near London on New Year's Day, the Colonies and India 

 mentions that practically he initiated the Adelaide University by 

 contributing 20,odo/. in 1S72 for the endowment of two pro- 

 fessorships. He also contributed largely to the expedition under 

 Colonel Warburton for the exploration of the interior of the 

 Australian continent. He received the honour of knighthood in 

 1880. 



M. JANSSE.N, the Director of the Meudon Observatory, who 

 has been nominated Vice-President of the Paris Academy of 

 Sciences for 1887, will be President in 188S, according to the 

 constant rule. 



It is said that M. Chevreul will resign his membership of the 

 Academy of Sciences, and will return to his native place to 

 spend the last years of his life in retirement. He has already 

 sent in his resignation of the Directorship of the Museum. 



One of the last letters written by M. Paul Bert was read at 

 the meeting of the French Academy of Sciences on the 3rd inst. 

 In this letter M. Bert complained of the darkness in the town 

 of Hanoi at night. Gas was too dear, and he had tried the use 

 of petroleum. This, however, was a barbarous e.xpedient, and 

 he was anxious to know whether it would not be possible for 

 him to make the Red River, which flows past Hanoi, produce 

 the required illumination. " Would the expense be great ? " he 

 wrote. "Only think, if we succeeded we should be ahead 

 of England and Japan ! " " Answer," he .added, "and answer 

 quickly ; my days are numbered." The Academy decided that 

 the letter should be preserved among its archives. 



A LARGE number of French scientific Societies are anxious 

 that a building should be erected in Paris for their common use. 

 A circular on the subject has been issued. The lead in the 

 matter is being taken by the Geographical Society. 



A GOOD deal of canvassing has been going on recently in 

 Paris, in the Sorbonne, the Medical School, and the Academy 



