5^4 



NATURE 



{^April 14 1 88 1, 



sors Ayrton and Perry a variety of apparatu';, as also Siemens 

 Brotliers, Newall and Co., and others. Prof. Helmlioltz ended 

 on Tuesday liis visit to London, and went with Mr. Spottiswoode, 

 president of the Royal Society, to his country house at Coombe 

 Bank, SevenoalvS. From thence he proceeds to Dublin to 

 receive an honorary doctor's degree from the University of that 

 city. 



The National Fisheries Exhibitio.i will be opened at Noruich 

 by the Prince of Wales on the 18th inst. The delay in opening 

 it has been caused by the necessity for enlarging the space to 

 admit of satisfying the numerous a; >plicatiijns that have poured 

 in. Every point connected with the growth and nurture offish, 

 the modes of capturing them, the condition of the fishermen will 

 be illustrated. The aquatic fauna of Norfolk and Suffolk will be 

 a special feature, as also fish-eating birds. The Earl of Ducie, 

 Viscount Powerscourt, Lord Lovat, Mr. Spencer Walpole, and 

 Prof. Huxley, H. M. Inspectors ol Fisheries ; and Mr. Calcraft, 

 Permanent Secretary to the Board of Trade, have been appointed 

 by the Home Secretary to act as Her Majesty's Commissioners. 

 In addition to a large number of special money prizes. Go- 

 vernment gold, silver, and bronze medals, diplomas of honour, 

 will be awarded by the jurors. Prof. Huxley will give an 

 address on the occasion. 



Museum No. i in the Royal Gardens, Kew, will be reopened 

 to the public on Easter Monday, after being closed during the 

 winter. It has been enlarged by the addition of a new wing 

 terminating in a wide staircase with ascending and descending 

 flights. The expense has been borne by the India Office in con- 

 sideration of the maintenance at Keiv of the botanico-economical 

 collections recently forming part of the India Museum. The 

 whole collections have been entirely re-arranged by the curator, 

 Mr. John Jackson, A.L.S. On the staircase has been placed a 

 large painted window, presented to the museum by Alderman 

 W. J. R. Cotton, M.P. This window represents the successive 

 stages of cotton cultivation and manufacture. Amongst other 

 recent additions to the museum may be mentioned a series of 

 models of farm and garden vegetables prepared and presented 

 by Messrs. Sutton of Reading ; a collection formed by Col. 

 Pearson, who has charge of the Indian forest-students at Nancy, 

 of the various objects manufactured in France from native-grow n 

 woods ; a further series of vegetable products and manufactured 

 articles, collected in Afghanistan by Surgeon-Major Aitchison. 

 The collection of portraits of botanists has also been much enlarged 

 and re-arranged. An oil portrait of Thomas Andrew Knight, 

 F.R.S., well known for his classical researches in vegetable 

 physiology, has been presented on behalf of the family by Sir 

 Charles Rouse Boughton, Bart. 



The President of the United States of America has notified 

 to the French Government his intention of appointing a special 

 commission to preside over the arrangement of the American 

 Section at the Electrical Exhib'tion. A number of commis- 

 sioners have been alrea''y selected for the purpose. M. 

 Philippart has written to ??. Perger, placing at his disposal 

 a sum of /"oooi. f^r the best system presented of transporting 

 electric force at a d's'ance. 



On Sunday week a deputation composed of eminent repre- 

 sentatives of French science waited upon the venerable M. 

 Milne-Edwards to present him w ith a medal in commemoration 

 of the completion of the great naturalist's work on Comparative 

 Physiology and Anatomy. Warm congratulatory addresses were 

 made by MM. Quatrefages, Bianchard, and Dumas, the last 

 speaking of himself as the oldest of M. Milne-Edward's friends. 

 In thanking the deputation the recipient of this well-earned 

 honour was naturally much moved. 



On March 26, in presence of the Minister of the Interior, the 

 Commission of the Observatory, several State functionaries and 



men of science, there were repeated at the Brussels Observatory 

 experiments with Van Rysselberghes' telemeteorograph, which 

 prove that the registration of the meteorological elements by 

 this instrument may be made automatically at very great dis- 

 tances (several hundred kilometres). The author explained to 

 the Minister a plan of International Telemeteorography, the 

 realisation of which would be of the greatest utility for the 

 scientific study of the atmosphere, and which would render 

 possible the prevision of the weather. 



The destruction caused by the Chios earthquake has been 

 even greater than we stated last week. The Constantinople 

 Correspondent of the Daily News sends some interesting particu- 

 lars : The temperature on the 3rd was heavy and oppressive, 

 and the horizon was broken by broad flashes of light that seemed 

 to denote a coming storm. In all this atmospheric disturbance 

 however the inhabitants saw nothing extraordinary, and were far 

 from being alarmed by what they fancied would result in a 

 thunderstorm. At ten minutes to two in the afternoon a terrific 

 shock was felt, bringing three-fourths of the houses in the town 

 to the ground like so many packs of cards, and burying a 

 thousand persons under the falling ruins. Then commenced a 

 fearful scene of horror. The ground rocked and danced, 

 kneading the ruin already formed into an unrecognisable mass 

 of stone. The survivors ran hither and thither, not knowing 

 where to flee to escape the horrible fate that menaced the 11, and 

 were tossed and flung about by the heaving earth, like feathers 

 in a breeze. Even those who gained the open country were by 

 no means safe. The earthquake attacked not only the towns and 

 villages, but worked its ravages in the hills and mountains of 

 the island. Enormous masses of rock and earth came rushing 

 down the hill-sides, carrying all before them, bounding far into 

 the plains, and tearing roads in the solid rocks of the mountain 

 such as might have been formed by a torrent a thou<and years 

 old. The town presented a pitiable spectacle. Great fissures 

 and crevices yawned in the streets, walls were falling with a 

 crashing report, and entire buildings crumbled in fragments to 

 the ground. In many places whole streets had disappeared, and it 

 was hard to say where thedifterent well-known buildings had stood. 

 The ground still heaved and tossed, bringing fresh buildings to 

 the ground at every moment, and hurrying innumerable victims 

 to destruction. It is impossible to say what the number of 

 victims would have been if a second shock had not displaced 

 the ruins formed by the first and thus permitted thousands of 

 sufferers to escape or to be rescued by others from the horrible 

 imprisonment to which they had been condemned. All the 

 fissures and crevices run from east to west. In the country the 

 effects of the horrible upheaval have been even more terrible 

 than in the town. The shocks are now, April 8, diminishing. In 

 all there were counted 250 since the first three awful upheavals 

 which destroyed the greater part of the island. A telegram of 

 the 1 2th states that earthquake shocks of considerable violence 

 have recommenced in Chios, and it is estimated that barely 

 tH enty h juses now remain habitable in the whole island. Forty- 

 five villages have been totally destroyed, and in many localities 

 the population has absolutely disappeared. 



Some slight shocks of earthquake w-ere felt on the moraing of 

 the 5th inst. at San Cristobal, Cuba. A violent shock was felt 

 at two o'clock on Sunday morning throughout the centre of 

 California. Earthquakes were reported from South Hungary on 

 Wednesday last week. 



The Daily News Naples correspondent, telegraphing on the 

 6th, states that Mount Vesuvius was displaying greater activity. 

 Abundant streams of lava were descending northwards, and 

 great numbers of smoke fissures had opened round the crater, 

 some afioo metres distance from the centre of eruption. 



