464 



NATURE 



[February j 7, 1910 



The first fertilised eggs of the plaice for the hatching 

 season of 1910 were skimmed from the spawning pond of 

 the Port Erin Hatchery on February 14. 



The Dutch Government is reported to have voted the sum 

 of half a million francs for the erection of a new institute 

 of physical and mineral chemistry, to be under the direction 

 of Prof. F. M. Jaeger, of the University of Groningen. 



Prof. J. D. Van der Waals, of the University of 

 Amsterdam, has been elected a foreign associate member of 

 the Paris Academy of Sciences. Prof. \"an der Waals has 

 been a correspondant of the academy since 1900. 



The French Physical Chemistry Society has elected the 

 following officers for the present year : — President, Prof. G. 

 Urbain, of the University of Paris ; vice-president, M. L. 

 Lapicque, of the same university ; treasurer, M. A. Brochet ; 

 secretary, M. Ch. Marie. 



We note with regret that the Bevue scicntifique 

 announces the deaths of Prof. H. Dufour, professor of 

 experimental physics and meteorology in the University of 

 Lausanne, and of Prof. Karl Gottsche, director of the 

 Hamburg Institute of Mineralogy and Geology. 



It is announced in Science that funds have been raised by 

 public subscription for the establishment of an astronomical 

 observatory at Kamuki, Honolulu, to be used in the first 

 instance for observations of Halley's comet. The observa- 

 tory, however, will be permanent, and under control of the 

 College of Hawaii. 



Prof. G. H. F. Nutt.^ll, F.R.S., Quick professor of 

 biology in the University of Cambridge, has been awarded 

 the Mary Kingsley Medal . by the Liverpool School of 

 Tropical Medicine. The medal is awarded " from time 

 to time to those who have distinguished themselves in 

 research in tropical medicine and allied subjects." 



An International Congress on the Administrative Sciences 

 will be held at Brussels on July 27-31, in the grounds of 

 the International Exhibition. The Secretary to the British 

 committee is Mr. G. Montagu Harris, Caxton House, 

 Westminster, from whom further particulars may be 

 obtained. 



The annual meeting of the British Science Guild will be 

 held at the Mansion House on Friday, March 18, at 

 4 p.m. Arrangements have been made for the fellows and 

 members of the Guild to dine together at Prince's Hall, 

 Piccadilly, on Friday, May 6. Mr. Haldane, the president 

 of the Guild, will occupy the chair. 



A TELEGRAM Was received at Utrecht on February 14 

 from Mr. H. A. Lorentz, stating that his expedition 

 having the object of penetrating into Central New Guinea 

 from the south coast has been entirely successful. Mr. 

 Lorentz reached the snow-capped range which had pre- 

 viously only been perceived dimly from the distance ; he 

 has climbed in these Alpine regions, and has discovered 

 glaciers at an altitude of 15,000 feet. One of the last 

 geographical secrets of the tropical regions has thus been 

 opened, and exploration in detail will no doubt follow. 



Speaking at the dinner of the Physical Society en 

 February 8, Dr. Chree, president of the society, referred 

 to the work of the society and to its increasing activity. 

 i he number of papers read before the society has become 

 much larger of recent years, but he thinks there may be 

 some improvement in the presentation of such papers. 

 Generally speaking, there are three ways in which an 

 NO. 2103, VOL. 82] 



author may be congratulated : — first, on producing valuable 

 results ; secondly, on the form in which they are put ; and, 

 thirdly, both author and audience may be congratulated 

 when the reading has' been accomplished. Of these three, 

 the second is the most rare. Papers usually consist of 

 25 per cent, due to the author and 75 per cent, of material 

 that preceded the paper. Authors are apt to neglect the 

 75 per cent., and to assume that the audience know all 

 about it ; also, when any mathematics appears in a paper, 

 the author generally proceeds to put it upon the black- 

 board. This is not desirable, because a physicist's know- 

 ledge of mathematics is usually not good, and mathe- 

 matical results are frequently not of great value. In some 

 ways it would be better for authors to read each other's 

 papers instead of their own. Dr. Chree also thought it 

 would be of great advantage occasionally if the society 

 could have a general discussion of a subject by a physicist 

 well acquainted with that special branch of knowledge. 



In the January number of Man Mr. T. A. Joyce describes 

 a remarkable wooden statue brought by Mr. E. Torday 

 from the Kasai district in West Africa. Up to the present 

 the art of portraiture in the round, so far as .\frica is 

 concerned, has been supposed to be confined to ancient 

 F-gypt. This specimen, however, shows that the art ex- 

 tended to the Bu-Shongo nation. The present statue, 

 which is evidently a portrait, represents the national hero, 

 Shamba Bolongonga, who is said to have been 93rd in 

 the dynasty of rulers, the ruling king at the present 

 day being 121st. The work is in many ways remark- 

 able, the treatment of the collar bones and the swelling 

 curves of the trunk displaying an attempt at realism which 

 hitherto was supposed to be entirely foreign to the African 

 artist. Mr. Torday, who must have displayed considerable 

 tact and enterprise in acquiring a historical relic of this 

 kind, is to be congratulated on his success and on his 

 liberality in presenting such a valuable specimen to the 

 British Museum. 



Dr. C. Hose, in Travel and Exploration for February, 

 gives an account of his visit to the warlike Madang tribe, 

 occupying a region in Borneo which has up to the present 

 remained unexplored. These people, on account of their 

 raiding propensities, have been a terror to their neighbours ; 

 but the visit of Dr. Hose has resulted in an arrangement 

 which will, it is hoped, put a stop to this constant inter- 

 tribal warfare. It is remarkable that this race judge the 

 fitting season for planting their rice by the sun, and they 

 have invented a curious mode of measuring time. This 

 is a sort of gnomon, consisting of a post about a fathom 

 high, a piece of string weighted at each end and thrown 

 over the top showing when the post is perfectly straight. 

 The length of the shadow is measured by a stick marked 

 with notches gradually approaching one another as they 

 recede from the pole. Having got so far, it may be asked 

 why they have never invented the sun-dial. Dr. Hose 

 explains this by the fact that the present instrument is 

 more efficient, as in these latitudes there are many days 

 near each equinox when a sun-dial would be useless. 



Among the contents of No. i of the Bulletin de 

 I'Acad^mie Impcriale des Sciences de St. FHersVourg for 

 iqio is an illustrated paper, by Mr. E. Nasonow, on the 

 life-history and transformations of Kermes quercus. 



The sea-bass (Serranidae) of Japan form the subject of 

 an article, by Messrs. D. S. Jordan and R. E. Richardson, 

 published as No. 1714 of the Proceedings of the U.S. 

 National Museum. A new species of the large genus 

 Epinephelus is described. 



