430 



NATURE 



[June 26, 19 13 



them is a very beautiful bird of paradise which may 

 be new. A hitherto unknown tribe of a rather short 

 people of Papuan type were met with at an elevation 

 of some 4000-6000 ft. Despite the very cold nights 

 they wear no clothing. They are mainly collectors 

 and hunters, but also grow sweet-potatoes, tobacco, 

 and sugar-cane. They carry bows and arrows and 

 shoulder-bags containing apparatus for making fire, 

 tobacco, knives, spoons, and other small belongings 

 in true Papuan style. Their knives are made of a 

 hard, slaty stone that can be brought to so keen an 

 edge that bamboos can be cut with them. The people 

 are said to be extremely attractive, most friendlv, and 

 in some respects more intelligent than the people on 

 the coast. We await with interest Dr. Wollaston's 

 account of his adventurous journeyings, and sym- 

 pathise with him in the loss of a considerable propor- 

 tion of his notes due to the capsizing of a canoe. 



A shameful outrage has just been perpetrated 

 at the Gatty Marine Laboratory of St. Andrews, the 

 gift of Dr. C. H. Gatty to the University. The 

 laboratory has always been freelv open to scientific 

 workers of both sexes without distinction of religion 

 or political feeling, and might therefore have been 

 expected to be immune from attack ; yet it has been 

 fired, apparently by militant suffragettes, who have 

 thus destroyed much of the work of members of their 

 own sex. Several large original coloured drawings — 

 all the exquisite work of a lady, the late Mrs. Albert 

 Gtinther — have been irretrievably ruined by the fire. 

 Fortunately most of the fine original drawings of 

 marine animals made by Mrs. Giinther were in the 

 corridor and other rooms, away from the main work- 

 room, and so securely framed that though begrimed 

 with soot, they are practically as before. The coloured 

 and uncoloured plates for the next Ray Society work 

 had been lying for four or five months on a table in 

 an adjoining room, and they also escaped. It appears 

 that on Saturday, June 21, the incendiaries effected 

 an entry by smashing one of the windows on the 

 south side of the laboratory, after plastering it with 

 soft soap and paper. Explosives and combustibles 

 were placed in one of the cubicles and lit, and the 

 perpetrators of the outrage escaped through a window. 

 The print of a small shoe, and suffragette literature 

 stuck between the wall and a rain-pipe, were the only 

 traces left. Fortunately the fire was seen by a fisher- 

 man, who gave the alarm, but the large workroom 

 was wrecked and the roof ruined before the firemen 

 obtained control of the fire. We sympathise with the 

 director, Prof. Mcintosh, who has always done so 

 much to help on the scientific education of women at 

 the University of St. Andrews. 



The Gustave Canet lecture of the Junior Institution 

 of Engineers will be delivered by Dr. Dugald Clerk, 

 F.R.S., on the working fluid of internal-combustion 

 engines, on Monday evening, June 30, at the Insti- 

 tution of Electrical Engineers, Victoria Embankment, 

 W.C. The chair will be taken by the president, Sir 

 A. Trevor Dawson, R.N. 



The death is announced, in his thirty-fourth year, 

 of Prof. C. C. Poindexter, one of the most promising 

 of the younger negro educational leaders in America. 

 NO. 2278, VOL. 91] 



After graduating at Ohio State University in 1903, 

 he spent two years as a graduate student at Cornell. 

 Four years ago he went to Fisk University, Nash- 

 ville, as assistant-professor of biology, from which 

 post he was promoted, after two years' service, to a 

 full professorship. 



The annual exhibition of antiquities discovered 

 during excavations at Meroe, Sudan, carried out in 

 connection with the Institute of Archaeologv, 

 University of Liverpool, will be held in the 

 rooms of the Society of Antiquaries, Burlington 

 House, Piccadilly, YV, from Tuesday, July S, to 

 Friday, July iS, inclusive. The exhibits will include 

 decorated pottery vases, objects of faience and of 

 bronze, intaglio-rings, &c, plans and photographs, 

 and copies of frescoes and sketches in colour. 



It was announced in the issue of Nature for May 

 29 (p. 338) that of the ioo.oooL bequeathed by the 

 late Sir J. Wernher, Bart., for charitable and educa- 

 tional purposes, 5000Z. was a grant to the Institution 

 of Mining and Metallurgy. At a recent meeting of 

 the institution, the president, Mr. Bedford McNeill, 

 announced that Lady Wernher had added a second 

 5000Z., making a total of io.oooZ. The onlv con- 

 dition attached is that Lady Wernher desires that 

 the principal sum shatl remain intact as an aid in 

 permanently strengthening the institution. The in- 

 come is to be devoted to the ordinary purposes of the 

 institution. 



The Japan Chronicle reports the death, at St. 

 Petersburg, on May 27, at fifty-one years of age, of 

 Dr. Shogoro Tsuboi, professor of anthropology at the 

 Tokyo Imperial University. The deceased, who had 

 been attending the meeting of the International Asso- 

 ciation of Academies at the Russian capital on behalf 

 of the Japanese Academy, was regarded as the greatest 

 authority on his subject in Japan. In 1884 he estab- 

 lished the Tokyo Anthropological Society, and started 

 a vernacular magazine which has done much to 

 further the development of the science in Japan. Dr. 

 Tsuboi was an honorary member of our Royal Anthro- 

 pological Society, and a corresponding member of the 

 Berlin and Paris Anthropological Societies. 



The sixth of the series of International Fishery 

 Congresses, established at Paris in 1900, is appointed 

 to be held at Ostend on August 18-20, under thf 

 patronage of his Majesty the King of the Belgians. 

 The Board of Agriculture and Fisheries has arranged 

 to be represented officially at the congress, and has 

 also sent a fisheries exhibit to the International Ex- 

 hibition now being held in Ghent, of which the section 

 devoted to fisheries will be closely associated with 

 the congress. It is hoped that British fishery in- 

 terests will be fully represented at the congress, and 

 all interested in fish and fishing and the various 

 related industries, and in the studies connected there- 

 with, are invited to take part in the proceedings, by 

 the reading of papers and otherwise. The subscrip- 

 tion for members, giving the right to take part in 

 the discussions and excursions, and to receive the 

 publications of the congress, has been fixed at 

 10 francs (Si. 4<i.). Full particulars can be obtained 



