153 



NA TURE 



[June 13, 1907 



and Mr. D. J. Matthews (Great Britain). His Majesty the 

 King will receive the delegates at Buckingham Palace on 

 Friday afternoon. The first formal meeting of the council 

 lakes place to-day, June 13, at the Foreign Office, when 

 -Sir Edward Grey will open the proceedings. The members 

 of the council are being entertained at dinner during the 

 week by Lord Carrington, the Lord Mayor, the .Secretary 

 for Scotland, the Fishmongers' Company, and the Royal 

 Geographical Society, whilst the chairman of the council 

 of the Marine Biological Association will give a luncheon 

 at Christ's College, Cambridge, on June ifi. On Monday, 

 June 10, Dr. Pettersson delivered a lecture at the Roval 

 Geographical Society on some features of the hydro- 

 graphical work done in connection with the international 

 cooperation, and Tuesday and Wednesday were occupied 

 by meetings of various committees of the council. 



The first meeting of the science group of the Franco- 

 British Exhibition, to take place next year, was held on 

 Tuesday. The following were present :— Sir Norman 

 Lockyer, K.C.B., F.R.S., in the chair. Major Badcn- 

 I'owell, Sir John A. Cockburn, Captain Creak, C.B., 

 F.R.S., Sir David Gill, K.C.B., F.R.S., Colonel Hellard! 

 R.E., Sir Thomas Holdich, Dr. H. R. Mill, Prof. 

 Perry, F.R.S., Mr. F. \\-. Rudler, Dr. W. X.' Shaw 

 F.R.S., and Dr. T. E. Thorpe, F.R.S. The question ot 

 classification was considered under the headings of historical 

 apparatus, instruments of observation, and methods used 

 in exploration of the land, the sea, the air, and the 

 heavens. Special committees were appointed to deal with 

 these subjects. 



.At the fifth annual general meeting of the British 

 Academy, held on June ii. Lord Reay presiding, Dr. 

 Henry Bradley, Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, Dr. J. P. Postgate, 

 and Prof. J. Cook Wilson were elected fellows of the 

 academy. The corresponding fellows also elected were :— 

 M. Emile Boutroux (Paris), M. Leopold Delisle (Paris), 

 Prof. B. L. Gildersleeve (Baltimore), Prof. Adolph Harnack 

 ^Berlin), Prof. Hoffding (Copenhagen), Mr. Justice Holmes 

 (U.S.A.), Prof. William James (Harvard), ^rof. Frederick 

 de Martens (St. Petersburg), Prof. Karl Eduard Sachau 

 (Berhn), and Prof. Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Mollendorff 

 (Berlin). In a valedictory address the president, Lord 

 Reay, announced that an anonymous donor had presented 

 to the academy the sum of io,oooi., to endow a fund to 

 be called " The Leopold Schwach Fund " for the further- 

 ance of research in the archaeology, art, history, languages, 

 and literature of ancient civilisation, with reference to 

 Biblical study. Lord Reay remarked that this first bene- 

 faction was of good augury, for although they might well 

 claim aid from public funds, and maintain that the State 

 should give encouragement to scientific studies promoted 

 by the academy, he would repeat what he said in his first 

 address, viz. that the academy may also stimulate private 

 benefactors, on whose munificence we depend to a lar^e 

 extent in this country for the advancement of scientific 

 knowledge. The British Academy is probably the only 

 academy which is not State endowed, and has not even 

 a domicile, but Lord Reay expressed the conviction that 

 ere long it will be recognised at home as it has been 

 recognised by the sister academies, which have assigned 

 to the British Academy a place of distinction. Sir E. 

 Maunde Thompson was elected president in succession to 

 Lord Reay. 



The adjudicators of the Hanbury medal have decided to 



award the Hanbury gold medal this year to Mr. David 



Hooper, curator of the economic and art sections of the 



Indian Museum at Calcutta. The medal is awarded 



NO. 1963, VOL. 76] 



biennially for high excellence in the .prosecution or pro- 

 motion of original research in the chemistry and natural 

 history of drugs. Mr. Hooper, as recipient of the medal, 

 will also receive the sum of 50/., presented in the name of 

 ihc late Sir Thomas Hanbury, as an expression of his 

 desire to be associated with the memorial to his brother. 

 He is the author of numerous papers dealing with vegetable 

 materia mcdica, his latest contribution to scientific litera- 

 ture dealing with the anti-opium plant, and was associated 

 with brigade-Surgeon Dyniock (a former medallist) in the 

 compilation of " Pharmacographia Indica." 



In connection with the celebrations of the bicentenary 

 of Linnaeus, described in another part of the present issue, 

 the trustees of the British Museum have had specially 

 printed in honour of the occasion " S. Catalogue of the 

 Works of Linnaeus (and publications more immediately 

 relating thereto) preserved in the Libraries of the British 

 Museum (Bloomsbury) and the British Museum (Natural 

 History) (South Kensington)." Copies of the catalogue 

 were sent to accompany the addresses presented by Dr. 

 Bather on behalf of the trustees of the British Museum 

 to the Royal University of Uppsala and the Royal Swedish 

 Academy of Sciences at Stockholm. The catalogue was 

 prepared by Mr. B. B. Woodward, the assistant in charge 

 of the general library at the Natural History Museum, 

 with the collaboration of the general catalogue con- 

 sultative committee as regards the books at South Kensing- 

 ton, and of Mr. W. R. Wilson, of the printed book de- 

 partment, as regards the books at Bloomsbury. 



The annual meeting of the Association for Maintaining 

 the -Vmerican Women's Table at the Zoological Station at 

 Naples and for Promoting Scientific Research by Women 

 was held on April 20 at Mount Holyoke College. Miss 

 S. E. Doyle, of Providence, was elected president, Mrs. 

 E. L. Clarke treasurer, and Mrs. A. W. Mead secretary. 

 The table of the association at the Zoological Station at 

 Naples has been occupied at different times during the past 

 year by Miss G. Watkinson, Miss F. Peebles, and Miss 

 A. G. Newell. It has been assigned for the spring of 

 1908' to Miss M. J. Hogue. Nine theses (three of them 

 were sent from foreign countries) were received in com- 

 petition for the looo-dollar prize offered for this year. The 

 theses showed wider range of endeavour than those re- 

 ceived in the two previous contests, as they dealt with 

 botanical, anatomical, morphological, physiological, and 

 chemical problems. Several were of decided merit, but 

 sincp. in the opinion of the examiners, no one was of 

 adequate merit to deserve the award, the association 

 decided to e.xercise its right to withhold the prize. The 

 fourth prize is announced for 1909. 



The Herbert Spencer lecture, on " Probability, the 

 Foundation of Eugenics," delivered at Oxford on June 5 

 by Mr. Francis Galton. has been published by the Clarea- ' 

 don Press. The author gives a short sketch of the history 

 of eugenics, i.e. the " study of agencies under social 

 control that may improve or impair the racial qualities 

 of future generations, either physically or mentally," from 

 his introduction of the word in 1883 to the organisation 

 of the Eugenics Record Office in connection with the Uni- 

 versity of London. Passing to the application of prob- 

 ability to the theory of eugenics, Mr. Galton gives an 

 interesting outline of a suggested short course of object- 

 lessons in the methods of biometry, the meaning of 

 averages, measures of variability, and so on being ex- 

 plained by reference to actual objects, such as hazel nuts 

 or acorns arrayed like beads on a string. To most people 

 variability implies something indefinite and capricious, and 



