June 22, 1905] 



NA TURE 



181 



Prof. E. Ray Laxkester, F.R.S., has been elected 

 president of tlie Britisli Association for the meeting to be 

 he'd at York next year. 



The Stephen Ralli memorial — a laboratory for clinical 

 and pathological research — will be opened at the Sussex 

 County Hospital, Brighton, on Thursday next, June 29. 



At the Borough Polytechnic Institute on Wednesday 

 next, June 28, marble busts of Joseph Lancaster and 

 Michael Faraday (the work of Mr. H. C. Fehr), presented 

 to the institute by Mr. Passmore Edwards, will be formally 

 unveiled by Prof. S. P. Thompson, F.R.S. Mr. Edric 

 Bayley, chairman of the governors, will preside. 



The annual conversazione of the Royal Geographical 

 Society will be held at the Natural History Museum, South 

 Kensington, on Tuesday next, June 27. 



At the meeting of the Royal Geographical Society to be 

 held in the evening of June 26, a paper will be read by 

 Dr. Charcot on the French Antarctic Expedition. Dr. 

 Charcot has just been created a Chevalier of the Legion 

 of Honour. 



We learn from the limes that the Government of India 

 has ordered the introduction of a standard time, with effect 

 from July i, on the railways (other than small local lines, 

 where the change might be inconvenient) and in all tele- 

 graph offices in the country, and also in Burma. Hitherto 

 Madras time has been adopted by most of the Indian rail- 

 ways. The standard now to be introduced is nine minutes 

 in advance of the " railway time," as it is called in all 

 parts of India, and is thus 54 hours in advance of Green- 

 wich, being the local time of longitude 82° 30'. The 

 standard for Burma is to be exactly an hour earlier, viz. 

 b\ hours in advance of Greenwich and five minutes earlier 

 than Rangoon local time. In inland places it has been 

 found convenient generally to follow railway time ; but the 

 great seaports of Calcutta, Bombay, and Karachi have 

 followed the local time of their respective longitudes. The 

 Government of India does not prescribe the new standard 

 for these and other places following local time, but if a 

 general desire to adopt the new standard is evinced, the 

 Government will be prepared to support the change and 

 to cooperate in bringing it about. In all probability, 

 therefore, there will, ere long, be a uniform time through- 

 out India exactly 5J hours in advance of Greenwich, while 

 that of Burma will be 64 hours in advance. 



The death of Mr. James Mansergh, F.R.S. , on June 15, 

 at seventy-one years of age, deprives applied science of an 

 acknowledged authority upon water supply and sewage 

 disposal. Mr. Mansergh had unique experience and know- 

 ledge of these subjects, and was associated for many years 

 with almost every important construction connected with 

 them in this country. The extensive schemes which he 

 initiated and directed for the improvement of water supply 

 and drainage will long remain as monuments to his 

 memory. He was the designer of the waterworks and 

 sewerage of Lancaster (where he was born in April, 1834), 

 Lincoln, Stockton, Middlesbrough, Rotherham, Southport, 

 Burton-on-Trent, Melbourne (Australia), Birmingham, and 

 many other large towns. These designs include some of 

 the largest schemes of water supply and drainage ever 

 carried out, such, for instance, as the sewerage scheme 

 for the metropolitan district of Melbourne, embracing an 

 area of 133 square miles, and the supply of water to 

 Birmingham from a source in Radnorshire seventy-three 

 miles away. This scheme utilises water from the rivers 

 Elan and Claerwen, and natural reservoirs have been 



formed for the water by constructing immense dams below 

 the point where the two rivers meet. Mr. Mansergh was 

 the author of about 150 reports upon schemes of water 

 supply, sewerage, and sewage disposal for many large 

 towns. He was also the author of " Lectures on Water 

 Supply; Prospecting for Water, Prospecting and Boring," 

 delivered at the School of Military Engineering, 

 Chatham, " The Water Supply of Towns," and other 

 works. While president of the Institution of Civil 

 Engineers in 1900-1, the Engineering Standards Committee 

 was formed, and Mr. Mansergh was elected chairman. 

 At the time of his death, as chairman of the main com- 

 mittee, he had more than thirty committees working on 

 standardisation in different branches of engineering. Mr. 

 Mansergh was a member of the Royal Commission on 

 Metropolitan Water Supply, and he was on the council 

 of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He was elected 

 a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1901 for his eminent 

 work as a hydraulic engineer. 



Is the Irish Naturalist for June Dr. R. F. Scharff 

 records the capture of two female bottle-nosed dolphins in 

 Dublin Bay in .\pril last. The only other record of the 

 occurrence of Tursiops tursio in Irish waters dates from 

 1829. Dr. Scharff figures one of the Dublin specimens. 



We have received a copy of the March issue of the 

 Bulletin of the Cracow •'\cademy, to which Mr. V. 

 Kulczynski contributes the continuation of an article on 

 certain spiders, treating in this instance of Araneus 

 curcubitinus and its allies. In other articles Mr. T. 

 Browicz discusses the secreting function of the nucleus 

 in the cells of the liver, while Mr. K. W6jcik describes 

 the infra-Oligocene strata of Riszkania, near Uzsok, with 

 lists of the fossils. 



A NOTICEABLE feature in the report of the Zoological 

 Society qf Philadelphia for the past year is the attention 

 paid to the causes of the deaths which take place in the 

 menagerie. In 140 instances a pathological examination 

 was instituted, mostly with definite results in determining 

 the cause of decease. The results are tabulated, and 

 show that tuberculosis is by far the most fatal ailment, 

 next to which comes inflammation of the stomach and 

 intestines, followed, with a considerable diminution in the 

 numbers, by nephritis, necrosis of the liver, and non- 

 tubercular pneumonia. 



In the .^pril issue of the £11111 the editors continue the 

 excellent practice of giving coloured illustrations of some 

 of the more remarkable Australian birds, the plate, which 

 is drawn by Mr. H. Gronvold, depicting in this instance 

 representatives of Xerophila, Mirafra, and Amytis. In the 

 case of Xerophila castaneiventris, one cannot help wonder- 

 ing what is the purpose of the pair of yellow eye-like spots 

 at the root of the beak, .■\mong the articles is an interest- 

 ing account, with photographs, by Mr. A. J. Campbell, 

 one of the editors, of that remarkable bird the kagu of 

 New Caledonia, in the course of which attention is directed 

 to the danger of extermination now threatening that species. 

 Thirty years ago it had already disappeared from the 

 more settled parts of Caledonia, and the writer urges that 

 steps should be taken, while there is yet time, to preserve 

 such an interesting bird (the sole representative of its 

 genus) from extermination. 



The problems of " vitalismus " are discussed by Mr. 

 K. C. .Schneider, of Vienna, in Biologisches Centralblatt 

 of June I at considerable length ; while in another article 

 Dr. H. Schmidt, of Jena, enters on the consideration of 

 the fundamental law of biological development. In a 



NO. i860, VOL, 72] 



