640 
NATURE 
[AUGUST 22, 1912 
in plate manufacture, it was decided to repeat the 
southern stars. This was done in 1910 at Johannes- 
burg, the instrument being afterwards presented to 
the Transvaal Government Observatory. Besides 
this, there was another equatorial, carrying an 8-in. 
Wray O.G., and a 6in. Cooke triplet, with which 
some fine solar pictures were taken. In his earlier 
vears Mr. Franklin-Adams had taken part in several 
eclipse expeditions, and secured some good corona 
photographs. He was elected a fellow of the Royal 
Astronomical Society in 1897. Owing to protracted 
illness, he felt unable to carry out his intention of 
publishing his chart plates, and these were trans- 
ferred to Greenwich Observatory in July, 1911. 
Tue death is reported, in his seventy-fifth year, of 
Prof. Eugene Lamb Richards, professor emeritus of 
mathematics at Yale. His whole academic career had 
been spent at that university. Having graduated there 
in 1860, he was appointed a tutor in 1868, ana was 
promoted to an assistant professorship in 1871, and to 
a full professorship in 1891. He resigned his chair in 
1906. His best-known books were his ** Plane and 
Spherical Trigonometry’ and his ‘‘ Elementary Navi- 
gation and Nautical Astronomy.” 
Tue twenty-third annual general meeting of the 
members of the Institution of Mining Engineers will 
be held at Birmingham, on Wednesday, September 
11, in the Lecture Theatre of the University of 
Birmingham, Edmund Street, Birmingham. The 
members will be welcomed to the city by the Lord 
Mayor of Birmingham (Alderman W. H. Bowater). 
A reception of the members and their lady friends 
by the Lord Mayor of Birmingham and Mrs. Bowater 
will be held at the Council House, Birmingham, on 
the evening of Wednesday, September 11. 
In May of last year the Home Office announced a 
competition for a prize of 1oo0ol. for the best electric 
lamp suitable for miners. The prize money was pro- 
vided by a colliery owner, and the competition was 
open to persons of any nationality, conditions being 
laid down that the lamp must be safe, efficient, con- 
venient, and durable, as well as economical in first 
cost and in use. The first prize has now been awarded 
to the C.E.A.G. lamp sent in by Mr. F. Farber, Beur- 
hausstrasse 3, Dortmund, Germany, who will receive 
6o0ol.; and sums of 5ol. each have been apportioned 
to eight other competitors, whose lamps were found 
by the judges to ‘‘ possess considerable merits.” 
Tue Geologists’ Association has made arrange- 
ments for a long excursion to the east coast of Scot- 
land from September 12 to September 19. The 
directors on this occasion will be Mr. G. Barrow, Dr. 
R. Campbell, and Dr. G. Hickling. The excursion 
secretary is Miss G. M. Bauer, 16 Selborne Road, 
Handsworth Wood, Birmingham. Members of the 
British Association, which meets at Dundee on Sep- 
tember 4-11, are invited to take part in the excursion. 
The programme issued gives particulars of special 
railway and boat arrangements for travelling from 
London to Aberdeen, which will be the headquarters 
of the party. During the excursion an opportunity 
will be given of seeing the interesting coast section 
near Aberdeen. 
NO. 2234, VOL. 89] 
Towarps the end of July the crater of Etna showed 
signs of renewed activity. On July 30 a column of 
vapour, with ashes and lapilli, rose from the new 
mouth formed on the north-east side of the central 
crater on May 28, 1911. This was followed by 
another outburst on August 3 at 6 p.m., and by a 
still more pronounced eruption on the following day. 
At 10.46 a.m. on August 4 a great column of vapour 
rose from the same vent to a height of 10 km., and 
then drifted off to the south-east, covering the south- 
east flank of the volcano with ashes as far as 
Canizzaro. Shortly before this, from July 28 to 31, 
increased activity also prevailed in Stromboli, where 
there were strong shocks, loud rumbling noises, and 
considerable eruptions of vapour and incandescent 
material. 
THE summary of the weather for the week ending 
August 17 issued by the Meteorological Office shows 
that the temperature was again below the mean over 
the entire kingdom. The greatest deficiency 
was 6'0° in the south-east of England, while it was 
almost equally as large in several other districts, 
amounting to 57° in the Midland counties, 5°4° in 
the south-west of England, 50° in the Channel Islands, 
and 4°7° in the east of England. The north-east of 
England was the only district in which the thermo- 
meter rose to 70°, the highest temperature in the 
south-east of England being 66°. In the correspond- 
ing week last year the thermometer registered 91° at 
Greenwich, and it rose to 90° or above in all the 
English districts. The rainfall varied considerably in 
different parts of the kingdom, and it was below the 
average in several districts; as much as 2’2 in. fell 
at Jersey on August 12, and rr in. at Plymouth and 
Salcombe on August 17. The bright sunshine was 
again much below the average. In most districts the 
mean daily duration was Jess than 2} hours, and in 
the Midland counties, the south-east of England, and 
in the north and east of Scotland it was less than 
2 hours. The mean temperature of the sea is in some 
districts as much as 6° colder than last year. 
In The National Geographic Magazine for 
February, Miss E. R. Scidmore, under the title of 
“Adam’s Second Eden,” supplies a valuable account 
of Ceylon, illustrated with perhaps the finest collec- 
tion of photographs of the people, monuments, 
scenery, and productions which has ever been brought 
together. This is followed by an elaborate account 
of the pearl industry, prepared by Mr. H. M. Smith, 
United States Deputy Commissioner of Fisheries. 
The great bulk of the pearls, he states, is the 
result of the entry of animal parasites which normally 
pass a part of their life-cycle within the oyster. The 
minute spherical larvae of various marine worms, par- 
ticularly cestodes, enter the shell and become more 
or less embedded in the soft tissues. As a result of 
the irritation thus caused, the oyster forms a protec- 
tive epithelial sac round the intruder, and when the 
latter dies its mass is gradually converted into 
carbonate of lime, pearly nacre is secreted by the 
contiguous epithelium, and the growth of the pearly 
mass proceeds with the growth of the shell, which is 
formed in the same way. 
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