38 



NA TURE 



[May 9. 1907 



mrans we annihilate distance and draw the Empire 

 together. By these means we enable them to conquer the 

 wilderness and still carry with them the necessities of 

 civilisation. By these means, in the tiniest hamlet, we 

 plant almost first the schoolhouse to which the children 

 ;:^o, and, when the principle of a scientific system of educa- 

 tion is really in practice, the Empire will be marching 

 indeed. Therefore I hail to-night, sir, the presence here 

 of the intellectual men who are representatives of the 

 scientific movement, and their blending with the British 

 Empire League I take as one of the happiest auguries of 

 our future. 



VSOTES. 



The managers of the Royal Institution have awarded 

 the Actonian prize of one hundred guineas to Madame 

 Curie, as the author of the essay " Recherches sur les 

 .Substances Radioaclives." 



.Sir Willt.\m R.im.sav, K.C.B., F.R.S., has been elected 

 an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of 

 Christiania ; and the Society ilaliana delle Scienze (known 

 as the Society of the Forty) has conferred upon him the 

 Matteucci gold medal for iqo7. 



The North .Sea Investigation Commissioners will be 

 entertained by the Corporation at the Guildhall on Fridav, 

 June 14, the Eord Mayor presiding. The Fishmongers' 

 Company will give a dinner in their honour on the previous 

 evening at Fishmongers' Hall. 



The Government of Chili has appointed Count 

 de Montessus de Bullore, of Abbeville, France, to institute 

 a seismological service of the first rank. This action on 

 the part of the Chilian Government is, says Sric«cc, a 

 direct result of the disastrous Valparaiso earthquake of 

 last August. The service in question will, at the 

 beginning, include one station of Ihe first rank and three 

 of the second. 



Prof. Ira Remse.n, president of the Johns Hopkins 

 University, has been elected president of the National 

 Academy of Sciences, in succession to Mr. Alexander 

 .Agassiz. The vacancy thus created in the vice-presidency 

 has been filled by the election of Dr. C. D. Walcott, 

 secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Sir James 

 Dewar, F.R.S., Prof. A. R. Forsyth, F.R.S., Prof. D. 

 Hilbert (Gottingcn), and Prof. J. C. Kapteyn (Groningen) 

 have been elected foreign associates of the academy. 



The University of Geneva will celebrate with appropriate 

 pomp and circumstance the 350th anniversary of its 

 foundation, which falls in 1909. We learn from the 

 British Medical Journal that a committee has been 

 appointed to arrange for the proper solemnisation of the 

 festal rites, to w-hich representatives of foreign universities 

 will be invited. The " Academy," founded by John Calvin 

 in i.SSO. retained that title until 1798. It was afterwards 

 erected into a university, and reached its full development, 

 with faculties of theology, law, physic, philosophy, and 

 science, m 1873. 



Reuter reports that the Observatory of Catania and 

 Etna has issued the following statement : — " The activity 

 of Mount Etna is increasing. The mouth at the base of 

 the central crater is emitting vapour and small incandescent 

 stones. On May 4, at 11. 10 a.m., another mouth of 

 smaller dimensions opened and threw up boiling lava. At 

 the observatory the sound of an almost continuous eruption 

 has been heard up to May 6. At Nicolosi a reddish vapour 

 was seen rising from the volcano." 



The professors of the National Museum of Natural 

 History of Paris have decided to open an international 

 subscription with the object of offering a worthy tribute 



NO. 1958, VOL. 76] 



to the memory of Lamarck, by erecting his statue in the _ 

 Jardin des Planles. .Sub'scriptions may be sent to Prof. 

 Joubin, at the National Museum of Natural History, 

 Paris. The committee has decided to offer to all sub- 

 scribers of not less than twenty francs a reproduction in 

 heliogravure of an authentic unpublished portrait of 

 Lamarck, which was painted for his family by Th^'venin 

 in 180 1. To all subscribers of not less than 200 francs 

 a plaster cast of the bust of Lamarck by the sculptor 

 Fagel (to whom is entrusted the execution of the proposed 

 monument) will be presented. The scheme has already 

 received distinguished support, and a comprehensive com- 

 mittee comprising representative men of science of all 

 nationalities has been formed. .Among the list of the 

 committee we notice the names of .Sir John Evans, 

 K.C.B., Sir .Archibald Geikie, Prof. Ray Lankester, and 

 Sir John .Murray, K.C.B. 



The New York Academy of .Sciences will celebrate on 

 May 23 the 200th anniversary of the birth of Linnseus. 

 The anniversary celebrations will begin at the American 

 Museum of Natural History with an exhibition of American 

 animals known to Linn.'cus. Letters concerning the 

 anniversary received from .scientific societies will be read 

 at the beginning of the morning se.ssion, and afterwards 

 an address on North .American geography in the time of 

 Linna?us will be delivered by the president of the .American 

 Geographical Society. Dr. J. A. .Allen has been invited 

 to speak on Linna'us and .American zoology. In the after- 

 noon there will be an exhibition of .\merican plants known 

 to the Swedish nafuralisl, and an address on Linnrcus and 

 .American botany will bf given by Dr. Per .Axel Rydberg. 

 .A bronze tablet in memory of Linnxus, a gift to New 

 York from the .\cademy of .Sciences, will be unveiled at 

 Ihe bridg< — which is to be dedicated to Linna;us — over 

 the Bronx River in Pclham Parkway, between the 

 Botanical Garden and the Zoological Park. Numerous 

 addresses will be deliv^-red in connection with the unveil- 

 ing ceremony. In the evening, at the museum, the director 

 of the museum of the Brooklyn Institute will deliver an 

 address on Linnajus and American natural history. The 

 various meetings will be open to the public. 



We have to acknowledge the receipt of a copy of the 

 first part of a memoir on the caterpillars of French 

 Lepidoptera (" Les Premiers Etats des Lepidopt^res 

 Franijais "), by Prof. C. Frionnet, of the College of 

 Natural Science at St. Dizier. The memoir is being pub- 

 lished in the Mimoires of the Society of Letters, Sciences, 

 &x. , of St. Dizier, the first part, which deals with the 

 caterpillars of butterflies, being dated 1906. Unfortunately, 

 there are no illustrations. 



In a report on Antarctic birds collected by the Scotia 

 Expedition contributed to the Ibis for April, Mr. Eagle 

 Clarke has added four species — the -Arctic tern, the blue 

 petrel, the short-winged petrel, and Hutton's sooty 

 albatross — to the nine previously recorded from within 

 the .Antarctic circle. Petrels and their relatives are 

 attracted, i( is suggested, so far south by the extraordinary 

 abundance of food to be found immediately north of the 

 ice-barrier, some of these visitors making their appearance 

 in autumn after the breeding season, while others may 

 be non-breeding birds which spend the whole summer in 

 the South -Antarctic. That the -Arctic tern, after breed- 

 ing in the far north, should visit the opposite pole is a 

 most remarkable fact. 



In reference to a suggestion that Fair Island, an out- 

 lying member of the .Shetland group, is specially favoured 

 by migratory birds, Mr. Eagle Clarke, in a paper pub- 



I 



