544 



NA TURE 



[January 20, 19 10 



such charitable purposes and objects in England (or any 

 British possession on the west coast of Africa) as they 

 may in their absolute discretion think fit." For the guid- 

 ance of the trustees in the administration of this very com- 

 prehensive trust, Sir Alfred Jones made the following 

 suggestions, among others, as to purposes to which it 

 might be applied : — (a) the technical education of natives 

 on the west coast of Africa ; (b) the advancement, benefit, 

 or support of education or science; (f) original research of 

 :ill kinds into the cause of disease on the west coast of 

 Africa. 



Sir Ernest Shackleton has denied the rumour, to which 

 reference was made in a note last week, that he is to 

 lead this year a third expedition to the Antarctic. He 

 discussed Antarctic exploration recently with a private party 

 nf geographical experts in Berlin, and on that occasion 

 explained that, in the event of his going south again, he 

 would travel polewards from the Weddell Sea or Gauss- 

 berg. The Weddell Sea was penetrated to 74° 15' S. by 

 Captain Weddell in 1823. The Gaussberg is a basalt 

 mountain in Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, on the southern 

 shore of the bay in which the Gauss, the vessel of the 

 German Antarctic Expedition of 1901— 3, reached its farthest 

 south. Captain Scott proposes to establish his base near 

 MacMurdo Sound, which was the winter quarters of the 

 Discovery, and near which Sir Ernest Shackleton had his 

 main base during the late expedition. 



We learn from a note in the Engineer for January 7 

 that dirigible airship companies are moving fast in 

 Germany. A Parseval airship was ordered this month by 

 the Munich Aeronautical Company, the share capital of 

 which is to be increased to 400,000 marks. The airship 

 is expected to be delivered on May i, when regular aerial 

 tours are to be commenced, .^n airship station is to be 

 built in the Upper Bavarian tourists' territory, to which 

 flights will be made from Munich. Another aeronautical 

 company has been founded this month for exploiting the 

 motor-driven airships according to the system of Herr 

 Zorn, and for establishing airship lines. The municipality 

 of Griifrath has placed about sixty-eight acres of ground 

 at the disposal of this company. Major Von Parseval has 

 accepted a nomination as unsalaried lecturer on dirigible 

 airships at the Charlottenburg High School, and has 

 already given one lecture before the teaching staff. 



The next International Congress of Mining, Metallurgy, 

 .^pplicd Mechanics, and Practical Geology will be held at 

 Diisseldorf in the last week of June next. The conference 

 will be divided into four sections, dealing respectively 

 with the subjects named in the title of the congress. The 

 president of the mining section is Mr. Randebrock, 

 director-general of the Gelsenkirchener Mining Company ; 

 of the metallurgical section, Mr. Springorum, director- 

 general of the Hoesch Iron and Steel Works ; of the 

 applied mechanics section, Mr. C. Kiesselbach ; and of 

 the practical geology section, Mr. Schulz-Briesen. The 

 general secretaries are Dr. Schrodter and Mr. Loewen- 

 stein. There will be two grades of membership of the 

 congress : members, who are entitled to become patrons 

 of the congress by payment of not less than 5/., and 

 members who pay a subscription of iZ. Any inquiries 

 should be addressed to the committee of organisation of 

 the congress, Jacobistrasse 3/5, Diisseldorf, Germany. 

 Members of the Iron and Steel Institute resident in the 

 United Kingdom who wish to attend the congress are re- 

 quested to apply to the institute not later than February 26. 

 During last week the Liverpool Geological Society 

 celebrated the jubilee of its first meeting. On Monday, 

 Janu.nry 10, the society entertained at dinner the Lord 

 NO. 2099, VOL. 82] 



Mayor and Lady Mayoress, and representatives of the 

 University, of kindred societies in the city, and of the 

 Yorkshire Geological Society and the North Staffordshiie 

 Field Club. The toast of the University elicited ex- 

 pressions of regret at the absence of a chair of geology 

 in the University. The first meeting of the society having 

 been held on January 11, i860, an open meeting was held 

 on the Tuesday of last week, and was largely attended. 

 Mr. W. Hewitt, the president, was in the chair, and the 

 minutes of the first meeting having been read, he remarked 

 that that meeting was held in a room in the house of Mr. 

 G. H. Morton, the first honorary secretary of the society. 

 He also read a letter from Mr. H. Duckworth, the first 

 president, congratulating the society and regretting that 

 his age prevented his being present. Prof. J. W. Judd, 

 C.B., F.R.S., an honorary member of the society, then 

 delivered an address on " The Triumph of Evolution : a 

 Retrospect of Fifty Years," remarking that the foundation 

 of the society was nearly coincident with the appearance 

 of Darwin's " Origin of Species." A very careful rdsumi 

 of the address appeared in the Liverpool papers, and it is 

 to be hoped that the address w'ill later be printed in 

 extenso. 



The first and second annual reports presented by the 

 council of the National Museum of Wales to the Court 

 of Governors are now available. The second report deals 

 with the 3'ear ending September 30 last, and records satis- 

 factory progress in the work of founding and establishing 

 the museum. The report points out that Dr. W. E. Hoyle, 

 the director of the museum, entered upon his official duties 

 on March i. In August an advertisement w^as issued re- 

 questing designs to be sent in for a building to cost 

 250,000!. when complete, and it is hoped it may be found 

 possible to erect about one-third of it in the first instance. 

 The sum of 2000/. is included in the estimates of the 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer for the current financial year 

 to defray the working- expenses of the museum, and of 

 this sooi. has been received. The trustees of the " Cardiff 

 Fund " have handed over the sum of 26,796!. which had 

 been collected as a contribution to the building fund in the 

 event of the museum being located in Cardiff. A Bill, 

 promoted by the Cardiff Corporation, is before Parlia- 

 ment empowering the Corporation to make over to the 

 National Museum the collections contained in the Welsh 

 Museum of Natural History, .Arts and Antiquities, belong- 

 ing to the municipality, together with the proceeds of a 

 halfpenny rate, which at the present time would yield about 

 2000?. per annum, towards the maintenance of the museum. 

 In March last the director of the museum visited northern 

 Germany and Scandinavia to study museums and kindred 

 institutions with the view of acquiring information which 

 will be needed in organising the new institution, and a 

 report on the visit is printed as an addendum. 



The Journal of Conchology for January contains a paper, 

 by Mr. J. W. Vaughan, on the land and fresh-water 

 molluscs of South Wales. 



The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine for January 

 opens with a coloured plate of seven rare or otherwise 

 interesting British insects, of which one is a wasp, while 

 the remaining six are beetles. The wasp, Odynerus 

 herricki, was first recorded as British on the evidence of 

 a single specimen in Dorsetshire in 1S7S ; a second example 

 was subsequently taken in Purbeck, and a third near 

 Wareham, but in 1908 the species was found In abundance 

 near Swanage. 



In the report of the Madras Government Museum for 

 1908-9 it is announced that, at the time when the docu- 

 ment was drafted, four volumes of Mr. Edgar Thurston's 



