NA TURE 



[77ily 29, 1S80 



his work has rendered to the advancement of the health of the 

 nation." The presentation will be made in the Senate House, 

 Cambridge, on Tliursday, August 12, at half- past twelve in the 

 afternoon. 



The French Parliament has voted a sum of 300,000 francs for 

 purchasing from the City of Paris the grounds which had been 

 rented for a nominal sum to M. Leverrier by the Municipal 

 Council, and had been already annexed by the great astronomer 

 to the Observatory. The reason for this resolution is the impend- 

 ing erection of a new monument, which, according to the pro- 

 vision of the French \3.\\, cannot be built except on ground the 

 freehold of which belongs to the Government. 



The first of the great annual Congresses, that of the 

 Archaeological Institute, commenced proceedings at Lincoln on 

 Tuesday. 



The summer meeting of the Institution of Mechanical 

 Engineers will be held at Barrow-in-Furness from Tuesday to 

 Friday next week. A number of technical papers will be read, 

 and several interesting excursions have been arranged for. 



Sir W. Harcourt stated in the House of Commons on 

 Thursday that the Commissioners on Explosions in Coal Mines 

 hoped to make their report at the end of the present or beginning 

 of next year. 



The first annual meeting in connection with the Parkcs 

 Museum of Hygiene was held at the Mansion House on Tues- 

 day, when a number of eminent medical men were present. Tlie 

 Museum has so expanded that a building specially designed for 

 it has become necessary. It has attracted a considerable number 

 of visitors, and during the past winter a series of demonstrations 

 have been given by members of the executive committee. The 

 various speakers testified to the great educational value ofi such 

 a museum, and the absolute necessity for all classes to know 

 something about sanitary science. 



The Council of Public Hygiene of Paris, on the proposition of 

 M. Pasteur, has decided to erect two estabUsImients, one at each 

 end of Paris, intended for the disinfection by steam of all 

 furniture or clothmg contaminated by individuals attacked by any 

 contagious diseases. 



An official despatch from Manila of the 20th inst., giving some 

 additional particulars of the earthquake, states that the first shock 

 lasted seventy seconds, and that nine of the ntitive inhabitan!s 

 were killed and eleven others injured. A second shock, lasting 

 forty seconds, occurred at four o'clock in the afternoon. At 

 Leguno and Rabacan some of the public buUdings were also 

 thrown down. The earth opened in several places, and jets of 

 boiling water and sho\\ers of ashes were ejected from the fissures. 

 Another shock is stated to liave occurred on the evening of the 

 24th. Other accounts received state that the period of seismic 

 disturbance commenced on the 13th inst., and that repeated 

 shocks have occurred since then, those of the 13th and 20th inst. 

 being the most violent. The cathedral and the barracks at 

 Manila have fallen in, and the troops are now encamped outside 

 the city. Almost all the volcanoes of the island of Luzon are 

 in full activity. 



A sharp shock of earthquake occurred at Naples at 3.30 on 

 Sunday morning, preceded by lighter shocks at regular intervals, 

 beginning at 9.30 the previous night. The principal shock was 

 undulatory from east to west, lasting five seconds, and was 

 sufficiently strong to awake all the inhabitants of Portici. 

 Vesuvius shows increased activity. Several new fissures have 

 opened, sending lava streams eastwards. 



The Epping Forest and County of Essex Naturalists' Field 

 Club held a meeting at Ilford last Saturday for the purpose of 



visiting the well-known pits which have yielded such a rich 

 harvest of Post-glacial mammals, &c. A well-preserved jaw of 

 Bos frtmigenius was e-xhumed in the presence of the members 

 The zoology of the period and the geology of tlie district were 

 respectively treated of by Sir Antonio Brady and Mr. Henry 

 Walker, the conductors for the occasion. After spending some 

 tmie in the pits the meeting adjourned for tea to the " Angel 

 Inn." The president announced that as the result of the Field 

 Meeting at the ancient earthworks in Epping Forest (already 

 noticed in these columns) it was decided, in accordance with a 

 suggestion made by Major-General Pitt-Rivers, to apply for per- 

 mission to excavate in one or both of the camps, and to start a 

 fund for this purpose. As the period of these camps was quite un- 

 known, this would be the only method of arriving at any definite 

 conclusion concerning them. A discussion upon the results of 

 the afternoon's excursion then took place. Sir Antonio Brady 

 brought for exliibition a large number of specimens from his 

 valuable collection of Palccolithic and NeoUthic remains ; and 

 remarks of great scientific interest were made by Mr. A. R, 

 Wallace, Mr. Worthington Smith, &c. The Club appears to 

 be in a flourishing condition, as it already numbers over 200 

 members. 



M. Gauthier Villars is publishing, at the expense of the 

 Laplace family, a new edition of the works of the illustrious 

 astronomer. The reason of this republication is very singular. 

 Tlie widow of the Marquis de Laplace bequeathed a certain sum 

 of money to the Academy in order to deliver every year a copy 

 of the iworks of her husband to the youth who obtains the 

 first rank in the leaving examinations at the Polytechnic School. 

 But latterly it has become almost impossible to find these vohunes 

 in the trade. M. Gauthier Villars and executors in pcypdiw are 

 obliged to deliver gratis a copy every year to the Academy. 



Prof. Church was" lecturing last w^eek at the Cirencester 

 Agricultural College on "Some Recent Advances in Agricultural 

 Chemistry." 



A Fren'CH journal states that the first astronomical instru- 

 ments intended for a great astronomical observatory, to be 

 established at the Trocadero, have been recently mounted on the 

 first terrace of the east tower of the palace." 



On August 8 the pupils of all the schools of the Arts et Metiers 

 of France meet at Liancourt to celebrate the lootli anniversary of 

 the foundation by the Due de la Rochefoucault-Liancourt of the 

 first establishment of this kind at his private residence. There 

 are fom- of these useful schools — Aix, Angers, Chalons, and 

 Cluses — in existence in France, and one in Algeria, of very 

 recent creation, at Delhys. It is said that each of the two pro- 

 vinces of Oran and Constantino will establish, at their o^vn 

 expense, a similar institution. 



The President of the Republic has conferred a knighthood in 

 the Legion of Honour on M. Serrin, tlie inventor of the first 

 regulator w liich could be used in lighthouses ; and on M. Gariel, 

 the general secretary of the French Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, who will lecture on Radiant Matter at Rheims 

 in the forthcoming session. 



" Tasmanian Friends and Foes, Feathered, I urred, and 

 Finned," is the title of a work, illustrated by woodcuts and 

 coloured plates, upon the Natural History of Tasmania, to be 

 issued this autumn by Messrs. Marcus Ward and Co. The 

 volume is from the pen of Mrs. L. A. Meredith, the author of 

 several well-known works upon this colony, and gives in a 

 popular style accounts of the kangaroos, bandicoots, wombats, 

 and other marsupials, the birds and fishes. Several of the 

 species described the author believes to be new to science, ahd 

 the marvellous intelligence displayed by some of these lowly- 



