Mav 3, 1905] 



NA 7 URL 



15 



now existing at Monaco, including its laboratories, collec- 

 tions, aquaria, &c. The Prince has set apart 4,000,000 

 francs (160,000/.) for the maintenance of the institute. It 

 will 1)6 established on grounds recently bought by the 

 UniviTsity of Paris with the assistance of the Prince in 

 the rue Saint-Jacques and the rue d'Ulni. The scientific 

 direition of the institute is vested in an international coni- 

 mitti'e of specialists in oceanography. The French Govern- 

 meni has e.\pressed its formal thanks for this really princely 

 gift." 



Tin-; first of a series of four lectures on atmospheric circu- 

 lation and its relation to weather was delivered by Dr. 

 W. .N. Shaw at the University of London on Tuesday, 

 Mav I. Dr. .Shaw referred to the valuable contributions 

 to meteorology in the last fifty years by Dr. Buchan, 

 /Vbercromby, and Clement Ley, and he pointed out that, 

 so far as the forecasting of the weather is concerned, no 

 great advance has been made in recent years, and that it 

 is necessary to take into consideration the atmosphere in 

 the upper regions and to deal with the general circulation 

 as a whole. Great advance has been made recently in that 

 way by the use of kites and balloons, and the direction of 

 the air currents in the higher regions can be determined 

 from the records of the barometer, thermometer, and hygro- 

 meter obtained in those ascents. Some very interesting 

 diagrams were thrown on the screen, showing the circu- 

 lation at a height of 4000 metres, from charts constructed 

 bv M. Teisserenc de Bort, and also showing the results 

 of international upper-cloud observations as deduced by Dr. 

 Hildebrandsson for various parts of the globe. 



The contents of Irish Fisheries Scientific Investigations, 

 1904, No. 6 (1905), includes a paper on " plankton " 

 collected at light-stations, by Dr. L. H. Gough, and hydro- 

 graphical observations made at the same. In connection 

 with the plankton, it is noticeable that when this com- 

 prises a large number of copepod crustaceans, the vegetable 

 organisms are much less numerous than usual, and vice 



The four articles in the April issue of the Zoologist are 

 equally divided between birds and fishes. In recording the 

 rare birds seen in Norfolk during 1905, Mr. John Gurney 

 again notices the occurrence of quite a number of avocets 

 on Breydon Flats. The birds of Derbyshire, as observed 

 in 1904-5, form the subject of an article by the Rev. Mr. 

 Jourdain. Mr. L. E. Adams describes his own observ- 

 ations on the mode of fiight of flying-fishes, while Prof. 

 Mcintosh discusses certain Japanese food-fishes. 



Six new fishes from Japan, described by Messrs. Jordan 

 and Seale, form the subject of No. 1445 of the Proceedings 

 of the U.S. National Museum ; while the succeeding 

 number of the same journal (No. 1446) is devoted to de- 

 scriptions of new American Palaeozoic ostracod crustaceans, 

 by Messrs. Ulrich and Bassler. In No. 1447 of the Pro- 

 ceedings Mr. J. VV. Gidley describes the skull of a ruminant 

 allied to the musk-ox from Pleistocene strata in New 

 Mexico. The new generic name Liops is proposed for this 

 ruminant, which is of special interest on account of its 

 southern habitat. 



The trustees of the Indian Museum, Calcutta, according 

 to the report for the past financial year, have decided to 

 charge an admission-fee of 8 annas on Sundays between 

 the hours of 3 p.m. and 5 p.m., in order to give the educated 

 classes an opportunity of studying the contents of the 

 galleries under more favourable opportunities than has 

 NO. 1905, VOL 74] 



been hitherto possible. As a rule, the galleries are abso- 

 lutely crowded with members of the illiterate class through- 

 out the time when they are open to the general public. It 

 is proposed greatly to enlarge the museum, at an estimated 

 cost of 2j lakhs of rupees — a sum apparently already at 

 the disposal of the trustees. 



Mr. F. a. Lucas, curator of The Museum, Brooklyn 

 Institute of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn, N.Y., desires to 

 direct attention to a photograph of Laysan Island, issued 

 several years ago, showing on the beach a large turtle, 

 and, what is more important, a large seal, which appeared 

 to be of the genus Monachus. He points out that if this 

 seal really belongs to the genus Monachus, the fact is of 

 great scientific interest, as it would make the seal circum- 

 tropical. Mr. Lucas would be glad to know if anything 

 has been published regarding this seal, specimens of which 

 he believes were taken to Europe. 



A PAMPHLET has reached us containing an address de- 

 livered by Dr. Paul Kronthal before the Berlin Psycho- 

 logical Society in October of last year on the idea of the 

 soul (Jena : Gustav Fischer). The lecturer, continuing 

 the investigation of which notice has already been 

 taken in these columns, elaborates his account of the soul 

 as the sum of reflexes. This definition, he claims, does 

 justice to all the facts, e.g. of inheritance of physical 

 characteristics, of mental disease, of memory, and the like. 

 He occupies several pages with a discussion of the freedom 

 of the will, a conception which, it appears, is abandoned 

 by all consistent theologians, men of science, historians, 

 and jurists. But it appears also from the later half of 

 the lecture that to define the soul as the sum of reflexes 

 satisfies only natural science ; from the standpoint of meta- 

 physics we must speak of the soul as sensation. Appar- 

 ently, too, the metaphysical view leads directly to 

 solipsism, and the metaphysical world consists of abstrac- 

 tions like love, hate, joy, sorrow, good, bad. The world 

 of the scientific man, on the other hand, is made up of 

 five entities, which at first sight appear very real as com- 

 pared with these abstractions, but which are ultimately 

 admitted to be five metaphysical ideas — time, space, matter, 

 energy, number. It is further admitted that the funda- 

 mental law of causality is for natural science undemon- 

 strable. Dr. Kronthal concludes his somewhat paradoxical 

 lecture with two dicta — that the honourable metaphysician 

 must grant that the conceptions of natural science are the 

 more justifiable, and that no thoughtful man of science can 

 deny that the conceptions of natural science are in the 

 last resort only matters of faith. 



.\ CATALOGUE of Hiicroscopical objects and accessories has 

 been received from Mr. R. G. Mason ; a special feature 

 is made of geological and stained botanical sections that 

 can be mounted by purchasers. A section of limestone 

 sent as a sample of the mounted objects shows a variety 

 of Foraminifera, and is otherwise a desirable specimen, 

 also a double-stained section of pine stem is a thoroughly 

 satisfactory preparation. 



The second number of the Journal of Economic Biology 

 contains papers on the effects of metazoan parasites on 

 their hosts, by Messrs. Shipley and Fearnsides ; on the 

 bionomics of grain weevils, by Mr. F. J. Cole; on the 

 deposition of eggs and larvae in CEstrus ovis, by Mr. 

 W. E. Collinge ; and on the ox-warble flies, by Mr. A. D. 

 Imms. The reviews and current literature, with notes, 

 which complete the numbei are a valuable feature of the 

 journal. 



