Mav 23, 1907] 



NA TURE 



85 



We regret to see the announcement that Sir Benjamin 

 Baker, K.C.B., I'.R.S., died suddenly on Sunday, May 19, 

 in his sixty-seventh year. We have al5o to deplore the 

 death of Sir Joseph Fayrer, K.C.S.I., F.R.S., on Tuesday, 

 May 21, at eighty -two years of age. 



M. DE Lappakent has been elected permanent secretary 

 of the Paris Academy of Sciences in succession to the late 

 M. Berthelot. 



The second annual meeting of the American Association 

 of Museums will be held at the Carnegie Institute in Pitts- 

 burg on June 4-6. 



The Observer states that the honorary freedom of the 

 City of London is to be conferred on Lord Lister. The 

 proposal will come formally before the Corporation probably 

 ■at its first meeting after the Whitsun recess. 



The section of geology and geography of the ."Xmerican 

 Association for the Advancement of Science will hold a 

 summer field meeting from July 3 to July 10 in New York 

 State in the region between Lake Champlain and the 

 Adirondacks. 



.'\n exhibition of reflex cameras at present on the 

 market, and of photographs illustrating the use of reflex 

 cameras, is to be opened at the house of the British 

 Journal of Photography on June 13, and will remain open 

 until July 6. 



The will of Mr. C. T. Verkes, who died at New York 

 on December 29, 1905, has just been made known. The 

 testator bequeathed 20,000/. for the upkeep of the observ- 

 atory at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, to the University of 

 Chicago, with the condition that the observatory shall 

 always be known as the Yerkes Observatory. 



Dr. W. S. Bruce is organising an Arctic expedition, 

 with the special object of completing the exploration of 

 Prince Charles Foreland, Spitsbergen, which he began last 

 summer, in company with the Prince of Monaco, in the 

 Princess Alice. The expedition will proceed in the first 

 instance to Tromsoe, in Norway, and from there to Spits- 

 bergen, in a specially chartered steamer. 



The German steamship companies Norddeutscher Lloyd 

 and the Hamburg-Amerika Linie will allow a reduction for 

 passage tickets on different lines to members attending 

 the fourteenth International Congress for Hygiene and 

 Demography to be held at Berlin next September. The 

 office of the Hamburg-Amerika Linie in Berlin has under- 

 talcen to procure rooms in different hotels for members 

 of the congress. Detailed information concerning the re- 

 duction in price for tickets, and means of communication 

 with Berlin, will shortly be published, and is obtainable 

 at the bureau of the congress, Berlin 9 W., Eichhornstr. g. 



On Tuesday next. May 28, Prof. G. H. F. Nuttall will 

 deliver the first of two lectures at the Royal Institution on 

 " Malaria, Sleeping Sickness, Tick Fever, and Allied 

 Diseases," and on Saturday, June i, Sir William White 

 will begin a course of two lectures on " The Contest 

 between Guns and Armour." The Friday evening discourse 

 on May 31 will be delivered by Mr. A. Henry Savage 

 Landor, on " Recent Journey Across Africa," and on 

 June 7 by Sir James Dewar, on " Studies in High Vacua 

 and Helium at Low Temperatures." 



On Friday afternoon. May 17, an earth tremor— possibly 

 due to some shift of strata not wholly unconnected with 

 extensive mining operations — took place in the Rhondda 

 NO. i960, VOL. 7 6] 



Valley, Glamorgan, and is described by those who felt it 

 as more severe than last year's earthquake. The vibration 

 was very distinctlv felt by the miners underground, who 

 estimated its duration at half a minute. Householders also 

 felt the shock, and noticed crockery rattle. The vibration 

 was not noticed anywhere else in South Wales. Similar 

 local shocks have been felt before, notably one in the 

 same spot on October 16, 1896. 



In a letter published in the Times of May 18, Sir James 

 BIyth suggests the formation of an Imperial Council to 

 continue and elaborate the work which has, with the end 

 of the Colonial Conference, been suspended for a time. 

 .\niong the subjects calling for investigation by such an 

 Imperial Council, Sir James BIyth includes, with many 

 others. State-aided organisation, where needed, of agri- 

 cultural activities, such as the improvement of the breeds 

 of cattle and horses, dairy, forestry, seed selection and 

 supply, and the promotion of technical and scientific educa- 

 tion, with the endowment of research, in both of which 

 we are greatly behind other nations. This permanent 

 Imperial Council would " act as eyes and ears to the 

 Empire as a whole," and would greatly assist scientific 

 procedure in government. 



The Pasteur Institute of South India at Coonoor was 

 opened, the Pioneer Mail states, by Sir Arthur Lawley, 

 Governor of Madras, on .'\pril 25. The Governor, in the 

 course of a short address, sketched the history of the 

 institute, and said that Lord Ampthill was the originator 

 of the scheme. The consummation of the work was due 

 to the generosity of an American millionaire, Mr. Henry 

 Phipps, who placed one lakh of rupees at the disposal of 

 the Madras Government. The institute will involve 

 annually considerable expense ; and the Indian Government 

 has undertaken to bear the chief part of this, but the com- 

 mittee of the institute and the Government look for sup- 

 port to the public and the neighbouring States. His 

 Highness the Nizam of Hyderabad has set an example of 

 generosity by promising, for at least ten years, to give a 

 substantial contribution to the annual expense. 



The cold days of May have this year been more than 

 usually pronounced, and for five consecutive days, from 

 May 17 to May 21, the shade temperature in London did 

 not exceed 55°, while on May 19 and 20 — Whit Sunday 

 and Monday — the maximum temperature was 51", or 

 about 15° below the average. The observations of past 

 years commonly show low day temperatures after the 

 middle of the month, although the occurrence is not 

 sufficiently frequent to be exhibited in any marked manner 

 in the mean readings for any considerable number of years. 

 In London and in many parts of England night frosts 

 were frequently registered by the exposed thermometer 

 during the past week, and a very keen north and north- 

 east wind was blowing. The cold snap was more severely 

 felt, following so closely on brighter and warmer weather ; 

 the shade temperature in London on May 12 was 28° 

 higher than on May 19 and 20. 



With the object of bringing the Smithsonian Institution 

 at Washington into closer touch with the representative 

 national scientific organisations of the United States and 

 to create a new channel for the diffusion of knowledge, 

 the secretary of the institution, Mr. Charles D. Walcott, 

 recently sent an invitation to the National Academy of 

 Sciences and to the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science to make the Smithsonian Institution their 

 headquarters. The authorities of both the National 

 Academy and the American Association have accepted the 



