222 



NATURE 



[May i, 19 1 3 



14. The directors are Prof. J. W. Carr, Prof. H. H. 

 Swinnerton, Mr. G. W. Lamplugh, and Rev. E. H. 

 Mullins. The party will travel vid Great Central 

 Railway on Friday, May 9, by the train leaving 

 Marvlebone Station at 4.45 p.m., and due at Victoria 

 Station, Nottingham, at 7.37 p.m. 



Dr. Alexander Smith, professor of chemistry at 

 Columbia University. New York, has accepted elec- 

 tion to the chair of that subject at Princeton. Prof. 

 Smith is a Scotsman by birth, and graduated in 

 science at Edinburgh University, where he was for a 

 short time an assistant in chemistry. He went to 

 America in 1890, and held professorships successively 

 at Wabash College and the University of Chicago 

 before his appointment to Columbia. 



In our issue of December 19, 1912, Prof. Milne 

 announced that Mr. Shinobu Hirota had been com- 

 pelled bv ill health to return to his native country, 

 Japan. We regret now to learn that Mr. Hirota died 

 on April 24. During the eighteen years he lived in 

 England as assistant to Prof. Milne, he played an 

 active part in establishing a new branch of geophysics, 

 and had he recovered he might well have continued 

 in Japan the work to which he was devoted. 



At an extraordinary general meeting of the Univer- 

 sity of Durham Philosophical Society, to be held in 

 the Physical Lecture Theatre, Armstrong College, 

 Newcastle-on-Tyne, to-morrow, May 2, Sir J. 

 Alfred Ewing, K.C.B., F.R.S., will deliver a lecture 

 on the structure of metals. The occasion is the first 

 meeting to be presided over by the Duke of North- 

 umberland, and has been arranged in connection with 

 his installation as Chancellor on the following day. 



The council of the Institution of Civil Engineers 

 has made the following awards for papers read and 

 discussed during the session 1912-13 : — A Telford gold 

 medal to Mr. Murdoch Macdonald, C.M.G. (Cairo); 

 a George Stephenson gold medal to Mr. G. D. 

 Snyder (New York) ; a Watt gold medal to Mr. H. A. 

 Humphrey (London) ; Telford premiums to Messrs. 

 C. W. Methven (Durban), B. Hall Blvth, jun. (Edin- 

 burgh), C. J. Crofts (Durban), Frank Grove (Canton), 



B. T. B. Boothbv (Hankow), and Francis Carnegie 

 (Enfield Lock), and the Manby premium to Capt. 



C. E. P. Sankev, R.E. (London). 



The French aviator, M. Gilbert, on April 25 

 covered a distance of some 512. miles, from near 

 Paris to Vittoria, in northern Spain, on a biplane, in 

 8 hours 23 minutes, without once alighting. He is 

 reported to have travelled from Paris to Bordeaux 

 at a speed averaging seventy-four miles an hour. 

 Between Bordeaux and Biarritz he flew at a height 

 of nearly 10,000 ft. Starting again after two hours' 

 rest, he added another 155 miles to his flight, arriv- 

 ing at Medina del Campo, thus covering, in less than 

 eleven hours, 668 miles. 



A distinguished committee has been formed, with 

 the King of Italy as president, to obtain funds by 

 public subscription for the institution of suitable 

 memorials of the late Prof. Giovanni Schiaparelli, 

 whose work for astronomical science is of the first 

 NO. 2270, VOL. 91] 



rank of importance. It is proposed to erect to his 

 memory a monument at Savigliano, his birthplace, 

 and to place a tablet bearing his effigy in the Brera 

 Palace at Milan, where he described his observations 

 and conclusions. Among the members of the honorary 

 committee are the presidents of the chief scientific 

 societies in Italv, rectors of the universities, and 

 directors of astronomical observatories. The presi- 

 dent of the .executive committee is M. Gullino, the 

 Syndic of Savigliano (Cuneo), to whom subscriptions 

 should be sent. 



The executive committee of the British Science 

 Guild has issued a report on the Milk and Dairies 

 Bill and on further legislation desirable on the sub- 

 ject. While expressing general approval with the 

 Bill as a whole, the committee fears that its largely 

 permissive character will allow local authorities to 

 ignore the powers conferred upon them. It considers 

 that the medical officer of health is placed in a diffi- 

 cult position by having to criticise, and possibly to be 

 instrumental in instituting legal proceedings against, 

 those who appoint him, who may have the power 

 to terminate his appointment. The committee also 

 regards the provisions as inadequate to check the 

 supply of tuberculous milk. Comment is made on 

 bovine tuberculosis and the means for stamping it 

 out, and the opinion is expressed that the Bill grapples 

 with the evil of bovine tuberculosis only in its fully 

 developed form, and not with the less manifest or 

 latent forms of the disease, which it is equally, or 

 even more, important should be dealt with. 



We are informed that the Crocker Land expedition, 

 which was postponed for a year on account of the 

 death of Mr. George Borup, has been completely 

 reorganised during the past year, and that the plan 

 now is to send it northward in July next. The object 

 of the expedition is the scientific exploration of the 

 land supoosed to lie north-west of the line of islands 

 stretching from Grant Land to Prince Patrick Land. 

 In addition to the mapping of the new land and of 

 the uncharted coast lines in the vicinity of Grant Land 

 and Axel Heiberg Land, the party will carry on 

 studies during. a period of more than two years in 

 many other branches of science, including meteoro- 

 logy, terrestrial magnetism, wireless telegraphy, seis- 

 mology, geology, zoology (both vertebrate and in- 

 vertebrate), botany, ethnology, and archaeology. The 

 personnel of the expedition is as follows : — Mr. Donald 

 B. Macmillan, leader of the expedition; Ensign 

 Fitzhugh Green, U.S. Navy, map work, electrical 

 work, terrestrial magnetism, and seismology ; Mr. 

 W. Elmer Ekblaw, geologist and ornithologist ; Mr. 

 M. C. Tanquary, zoologist, with particular reference 

 to invertebrate zoology. 



In addition to the appropriation for defraying the 

 expenses of the current work and operations of the 

 department of terrestrial magnetism, the trustees of 

 the Carnegie Institution of Washington, at its annual 

 meeting last December, set aside one hundred 

 thousand dollars for the purchase of a site and erection 

 of a building for the department. After an inspec- 

 tion of various sites, one embracing about seven 

 acres, situated in the district of Columbia, near Rock 



