July i8, 1907J 



NA TURE 



277 



teaching staff. An accipss from the students was also 

 read. Prof. Lunge made a suitable reply, and the whole 

 audience showed by its enthusiasm the high regard in which 

 he is held and the regret felt at his retirement. 



The Paris correspondent of the Times states that the 

 French Government has just asked Parliament to grant a 

 fresh credit of 12,000/. in order to prepare a new French 

 e.xpedition to the Antarctic. Some four or five months ago 

 the Academy of Sciences declared that a new expedition 

 would be of great scientific utility as well as an act of 

 patriotism which would benefit the whole world ; and it 

 appointed a commission to draw up a scientific programme 

 of work. The expense is estimated at 30,000/., of which 

 the State is to provide 24,000/. The 12,000/. now asked 

 for by the Government will be immediately used for the 

 construction of the special ship necessary for the expedition. 



A LONG excursion, extending from August 15 to August 

 24, has been arranged by the Geologists' Association. The 

 district selected is .Appleby and its surroundings, and the 

 party will be under the direction of Dr. J. E. Marr, F.R.S. 

 Interesting observational work has been allocated for each 

 day, and the arrangements which have been made for 

 visitors will ensure comfort at a moderate expense. The 

 party will leave Euston at 11.30 a.m. on August 14, and 

 geologists who wish to avail themselves of the opportunity 

 offered should communicate with Mr. A. C. Young, 17 

 Vicar's Hill, Lewisham, S.E. The association has arranged 

 an excursion also in connection with the centenary celebra- 

 tions of the Geological Society in September next. The 

 excursion will be to Reading on September 28, and will be 

 conducted by Messrs. H. W. Monckton, O. A. Shrubsole, 

 and H. J. Osborne White. 



The Mackinnon studentship of the Royal Society in 

 physical science has been awarded for a second year to 

 Mr. W. Geoffrey Duflfield, for a research on the influence 

 of pressure on spefctra, being conducted at the University 

 of Manchester; and the studentship in biology to Dr. H. M. 

 Woodcock, to aid him in working out the life-history of 

 certain hasmatozoa of birds, an investigation which will 

 be carried on at the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine. 

 The income of the Gunning fund accrued during the past 

 three years has been placed at the disposal of Dr. F. H. 

 Scott for the continuation of his investigations into the 

 metabolic processes in nerve cells. The election to the 

 Joule studentship of the Royal Society will be made at the 

 end of July. 



The Commission appointed by the Presidents of the 

 Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to inquire into the 

 nature of distemper in dogs in Great Britain and the 

 methods of its infection, and to report whether any, and 

 if so what, preventive or remedial measures, exclusive of 

 ordinary medical treatment, can with advantage be taken 

 with respect to it, has now been fully constituted as 

 follows : — The Duke of Beaufort, Lord Middleton, Lord 

 Leconfield, Sir John McFadyean, Mr. E. Barclay, Mr. S. 

 Stockman (chief veterinary officer to the Board of Agri- 

 culture and 'Fisheries), Mr. W'. M. Wroughton, and Mr. 

 E. W. Jaquet (secretary of the Kennel Club). The chair- 

 man of the commission will be Lord Middleton, and Mr. 

 James Ralph Jackson (veterinary inspector. Board of 

 .Agriculture and Fisheries, 4 Whitehall Place, S.W.) will 

 be secretary. 



A DisriNGL'iSHED experimental physicist has been lost by 

 the recent death of M. .Andre Prosper Paul Crova, formerly 

 professor of physics at Montpellier, and since 1886 a corre- 



spondant of the Paris Academy of Sciences. M. Crova was 

 born in 1833 at Perpignan, and after receiving his education 

 there became, at the age of twenty, professor of physics in 

 the local College. Six years later he filled the same position 

 in the Lyc^e at Metz. In 1864, M. Crova went to 

 Montpellier, where, first at the Lyc^e and after 1870 in 

 the Faculty of Science, he occupied a chair of physics. 

 His most important work was devoted to the study of 

 radiant energy, and included a classical determination of 

 the constant of solar radiatioti. In addition to his well- 

 known researches in this field he occupied himself very 

 largely with optical and electrical problems of a general 

 character, and published a large number of memoirs. .\s 

 an experimentalist he possessed great skill and practical 

 ingenuity in carrying out researches of very great difficulty, 

 and to his inventive power are due several valuable instru- 

 ments, including, besides his actinometer, an optical 

 pyrometer and a spectrophotometer. 



The death of Sir William Broadbent, which occurred on 

 July 10 after a long illness, removes a figure well known 

 in the medical world. Those who saw the active interest 

 he took in the meeting of the British Medical Association 

 at Toronto last August little thought that he would soon 

 b2 laid low, never to rise again. Born in the early part 

 of 1835, he had completed his seventy-second year. He 

 was educated at Huddersfield College, at Owens College, 

 Manchester, and at the Royal School of Medicine at Man- 

 chester, graduated as M.B. in the University of London 

 in 1858, taking the M.D. degree two years later. Early 

 in his medical career he became associated with St. Mary's 

 Hospital, of which he was successively assistant physiciari, 

 physician, and consulting physician. As a clinician he had 

 few rivals, and his teaching was thorough and painstaking. 

 In 1870 he enunciated the hypothesis, since known as 

 " Broadbent's law," on the association of nerve nuclei, by 

 which he sought to explain the immunity of bilaterally 

 associated muscles from paralysis in hemiplegia. He was 

 also much interested in diseases of the heart, on which and 

 on the pulse he wrote standard text-books and published 

 a number of papers on clinical subjects. During the latter 

 years of his life he took an active part in movements 

 associated with the public health and the good of the 

 profession, notably in the crusade against tuberculosis and 

 in cancer research. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, 

 had bestowed on him many honorary degrees, and was 

 physician-in-ordinary to His Majesty. He received his 

 Baronetcy on the occasion of the marriage of the present 

 Prince of Wales, and was a Knight Commander of the 

 Victorian Order. 



The report of the Birmingham Natural History Society 

 for 1906 records the incorporation with that body of the 

 Midland Malacological Society, which now forms a malaco- 

 logical section. Another important event in the society's 

 career during the period under review was the transference 

 of the offices and library to .Avebury House, Newhall 

 Street, where it has been found possible to arrange all 

 the books in one room. 



We have received from the author, Mr. L. M. Lambe, 

 of the Canadian Geological Survey, copies of two papers 

 published in the Ottawa Naturalist. One deals with a 

 tooth of a musk-ox from a Canadian Pleistocene deposit, 

 while the other records the occurrence of a supernumerary 

 upper premolar in a dog. As dogs normally possess the 

 full series of four upper molars, the occurrence of an 

 additional one is more noteworthy than would be the case 

 were three the normal number of these teeth. 



NO. iq68, vol. 76] 



