OpXOliER 17. I907J 



NA rURE 



621 



system of weights, and mpasures througliout the Chinese 

 Empire, the standards to be fixed withiji six months. 



A REMARKAHi.E lonjj Hon-stop railway run was achieved 

 by the Great Western Railway on September 16. A special 

 excursion train, carrying only third-class passengers, the 

 total load weighing approximately 148 tons, was run from 

 I'addinfilon to Kishguard, a distance of 263J miles, with- 

 out a stop, at an average speed of 53 miles an hour. 



On October 12 the Clifton (Bristol) Scientific Club 

 celebrated its twenty-first anniversary by entertaining Sir 

 William Ramsay and other past members, when Sir 

 William, who was one of the founders of the club, 

 delivered an address on the recent history of chemical 

 science and on the nature of matter. On the previous 

 evening he visited Clifton College, where he gave an 

 account of the experiments by which argon and other 

 gases of the atmosphere were discovered. 



We learn from the Pioneer Mail that a large meeting 

 was held at Rangoon on September 19 to consider the 

 establishment of a Pasteur Institute in Burma. It was 

 resolved that the institute should be established at 

 Maymyo. A committee was formed with powers to under- 

 take measures preliminary to the formation of the insti- 

 tute. The subscriptions alre.ady amount to 80,000 rupees, 

 which secures the success of the movement. Other sub- 

 scriptions have been promised, which will be suflicient to 

 enable the institute to start on a wide basis. 



The announcement that bison are about to be taken 

 from the Zoological Park in New York to Kansas reminds 

 one of the carrying of coal to Newcastle. In the great 

 I)lains of the Middle West, however, the encroachment of 

 population has practically made these animals extinct. 

 The zoological collections in the east are now to be drawn 

 upon to re-establi.sh, in the Wichita reservation, herds of 

 sufficient size to ensure their permanency. 



■An exhibition has just been held in Boston, U.S.A., 

 lo illustrate the precautions that should be taken against 

 tuberculosis. It included a representation, side by side, of 

 two sleeping-rooms, with arrangements favourable and 

 unfavourable respectively to the growth of the disease. 

 There were also exhibits of tents for open-air treatment. 

 A lecture on hygiene was given during the exhibition. 



An exhibition promoted by Lady Aberdeen, as president 

 of the Women's National Health Association of Ireland, 

 with the object of educating the people on the great 

 danger of tuberculosis, was opened at Dublin by the Lord 

 Lieutenant on October 12. The exhibition is intended to 

 be an object-lesson to teach people certain facts contained 

 in Blue-books and the Registrar-General's reports. Its 

 primary object is to reach the women of the country, and 

 to bring these facts home to them as guardians of the 

 home. In opening the exhibition, the Lord Lieutenant 

 read the following message from the King : — " I am com- 

 manded by the King to express his good wishes for the 

 success of the Tuberculosis Exhibition, the first of the kind 

 ever held in Great Britain and Ireland, on the occasion 

 of its being opened by you to-day. His Majesty is greatly 

 interested in the problem of checking the progress of this 

 disease, and he trusts that the exhibition may be the 

 means of attracting the attention of the public to the 

 terrible ravages caused by this scourge and to the efforts 

 which are now being made to arrest its progress. — 

 Knoli.ys. " After the exhibition has closed at Dublin it 

 will be taken to various parts of Ireland, where lectures 

 will be delivered upon it. 



NO. 1 98 I, VOL. 76I 



In connection with the indication by the London County 

 Council of houses in London which have been the resi- 

 dences of distinguished individuals, a memorial tablet 

 was, on October 7, erected on 88 Mile End Road, E., 

 where Captain Cook, the circumnavigator, resided at one 

 time. It is probable that his removal to this house took 

 place in 1764, and his wife continued to reside there for 

 some time after his death in Hawaii in 1779. The house 

 does not appear to have been re-built since Captain Cook's 

 tenancy, but it has been converted from a private dwelling- 

 house into business premises by the erection of a shop on 

 the forecourt. The tablet is of encaustic ware, terra-cotta 

 in colour, and bears the following inscription : — " Capt. 

 Cook, 1728-1779, Circumnavigator, Lived Here." 



Reference has previously been made in these columns 

 to the progress effected by the Congo authorities in 

 the task of domesticating the African elephant. A recent 

 visitor to the State establishment at Api writes as 



follows ; " Owing to an unfavourable season no attempt 



has been made to increase the number of elephants under 

 training. The number in the colony at the present time 

 is twenty-five, of which nineteen are employed in different 

 kinds of work. During the four months of the wet 

 season the elephants are not merely not worked, but are 

 even allowed to rejoin those in' a wild state — that is to 

 say, they are turned out into the forest, but they seem 

 to keep apart. They, however, attract some of the wild 

 elephants to the vicinity of the establishment, but these 

 are generally too old and intractable to provide useful 

 recruits. On resuming the regular routine they manifest 

 no indisposition to work, and submit themselves freely to 

 the discipline of the establishment. The African elephant 

 is of short stature, the young elephants at Api averaging 

 from 4 feet 4 inches to 5 feet 7 inches at the shoulder." 



The report of the Departmental Committee appointed 

 to inquire and report as to the nature and extent of the 

 benefit accruing to British arts and industries from the 

 participation of this country in great international exhibi- 

 tions, which has just been issued as a parliamentary paper 

 (Cd: 3772,' price yd.); is a document of great interest. The 

 committee found that the evidence it received went to 

 show that international exhibitions are of little use to the 

 textile and other great staple industries of the country. 

 The committee is, however, in favour of the continued 

 participation of this country in all really important exhibi- 

 tions, owing to the indirect advantages resulting. One 

 aspect of exhibitions to which it is considered that con- 

 siderable importance should be attached is the effect which 

 they have in encouraging national emulation and in 

 stimulating individual exhibitors to improve their produc- 

 tions. Interesting examples of the effects which particular 

 exhibitions have had on the development of different in- 

 dustries will be found in the evidence of Sir William 

 Preece, K.C.B., Mr. Bennett Brough, and other witnesses. 

 Sir William Preece attributes to the Paris Exhibition of 

 1881 many of the most important developments of the 

 electrical industry. The exhibition at Paris of certain high- 

 speed tool steels by an American firm is said by Mr. 

 Bennett Brough to have contributed in a large degree to 

 the development of what has become a British industry of 

 great magnitude ; and an exhibit by the Courrii-rcs Colliery 

 Company, at the mines of which the death-rate from falls 

 of roof was abnormally low, has since led to considerable 

 improvement in the methods of timbering employed and 

 a consequent decrease in the death-rate. The report con- 

 cludes with important recommendations for securing in 

 future continuity of organisation from exhibition to 



