668 



NA TURE 



[October 31, 1907 



The cup for the winner of tlie International Balloon 

 Race, to be awarded to the aeronaut landing furthest from 

 St. Louis in a measured straight line, has been won by 

 llcrr Krbsloh (Germany), who descended at Annapolis 

 Junction, .Maryland, having covered a distance of 8744 

 miles. 



The death is announced of Mr. T. F. Brown, a recog- 

 nised authority on the geology of the South Wales coal- 

 field. Mr. Forster Brown was a member of the Institute 

 of Civil Engineers, a Fellow of the Geological Society and 

 of the Surveyors' Institute, and past-president of the South 

 Wales Institute of Engineers. 



We are asked to announce that the annual " fungus 

 foray " of the Essex Field Club will take place on Satur- 

 day, November 2, at Loughton and Theydon Bois, Epping 

 Forest. The director will be Mr. George Massee, of the 

 Kew Museum. Botanists wishing to be present should 

 communicate with the secretary, Mr. W. Cole, Buckhurst 

 Hill, Essex. 



Referring to his letter in N.mure (October 3, p. 568), 

 the Rev. Dr. Irving writes to state that his assignment 

 to the Upper Eocene or Oligocene of the fossiliferous lime- 

 stone discovered in a well-sinking at Thorley, near 

 Bishop's Stortford, was erroneous. The bed in question 

 is probably Lower Eocene, of the age of the Oldhaven 

 beds. 



Count G. N. Plunkett, who has just taken office as 

 director of the Dublin Museum of Science and Art, 

 initiated the system of museum " demonstrations " about 

 ten years ago, and has lectured on the arts and artistic 

 crafts, and also on Irish archaeology. In the Cork Exhi- 

 bition of 1903 he organised a nature-study section, the 

 work of more than a hundred schools. He is known out- 

 side Ireland through his book on Sandro Botticelli. 



The list of lectures to be delivered at the London Institu- 

 tion during the present winter session is varied and com- 

 prehensive. Prof. G. S. Boulger takes for his subject 

 the Andes of Peru ; Prof. W. M. Flinders Petrie, F.R.S., 

 will describe ancient Egyptian houses ; Mr. E. S. Bruce 

 is to explain the coming of the aeroplane, with the aid 

 of experiments and illustrations ; Mr. A. R. Hinks will 

 discuss the evidence for life on Mars; Mr. I. S. .Scarf 

 takes up the subject of flames; Mr. L. E. Hill, F.R.S., 

 researches on deep-sea diving ; Prof. W. B. Bottomley, 

 soil inoculations; and Mr. P. Chalmers Mitchell, F.R.S., 

 ruminating animals. The lectures for juveniles will be 

 delivered during the Christmas vacation by Prof. Grenville 

 .'\. J. Cole, his subject being three days of open-air geology. 



Calabri.\ was subjected to a severe earthquake shock 

 during the evening of October 23. The disturbance, which 

 occurred at 8.30 p.m., seems to have followed the same 

 line and to have been felt throughout the same districts 

 as that of 1905. The centre of the disturbance was located 

 in Monteleone, and its effects seem to have been noticed 

 from Catanzaro to Reggio di Calabria. Reports of vary- 

 ing amounts of damage have been received from Gerace, 

 Sinopoli, Pizzo, Tropea, and other places, which also 

 suffered two years ago. Secondary shocks were felt on 

 October 24, but from observations which have been re- 

 corded it is believed that the earthquake of last week was 

 less severe than that of 1905. The shocks on both days 

 were recorded by Prof. Milne's instruments at Shide, in 

 the Isle of Wight, and by Prof. Belar at Laibach, in 

 Austria. The number of victims is variously estimated, 

 Reutcr putting the number at 600. The damage is 

 NO. 1983, VOL. 76] 



extensive and widespre.-id. Shortly before 6 p.m. on 

 October 28 a violent shock was experienced at Monte- 

 leone, Santa Eufemia, Bagnara, and Sinopoli. 



Mr. Balfour on October 25 opened the new adminis- 

 trative buildings and two now wards at the Royal Victoria 

 Hospital for Consumptives at Craigleith, Edinburgh. 

 During the course of an address, Mr. Balfour said it is 

 impossible to withhold wonder at the enormous strides 

 which scientific medicine has made in the treatment of 

 consumption in less than thirty years. Referring to future 

 work in this direction, he remarked : — " If we cannot 

 destroy and expel the tubercle bacillus from among as, 

 we can reduce its poivjr to do evil to a degree which may 

 seem to us at the moment to be almost incalculable. We 

 have an example before us of what has been done with 

 regard to typhus. I doubt whether there is a single case 

 of typhus in Edinburgl at this moment ; and it may be 

 that our children will live to see the time when consump- 

 tion will be as little known in their midst as typhus is 

 at this time. We have, made the conditions of infection 

 with regard to typhus lo small that the power of resist- 

 ance of the community at large is amply adequate to 

 prevent its making any /odgment of a serious kind in our 

 midst. That is the idt^l to which we look forward with 

 regard to tuberculosis."' Continuing, Mr. Balfour pointed 

 out that it is a great responsibility resting upon every 

 person to see thai the doctrines of modern scientific 

 medicine penetrate, not merely among the well-to-do, but 

 to every class in the community. 



According to Museum News for October, a figure of 

 a native Australian, carefully modelled by an eminent 

 Washington sculptor, has been placed in the Brooklyn 

 Museum alongside stuffed specimens of the man-like apes, 

 in order to illustrate the wide differences between the 

 latter and the lower races of mankind. Silk-worm-culturc 

 and silk-manufacture arc now illustrated in the museum by 

 cases of living silk-worms, as well as by exhibits of the 

 more important descriptions of raw silk. 



Total prohibition of the use of the plumage of wild 

 birds as articles of dress is regarded by Prof. T. H. 

 Montgqmery (Bull, Univ. Texas, No. 79) as the only 

 effectual remedy against what he regards as a mischievous 

 fashion. " It will not do," he writes, " to prevent the 

 killing of our American birds and to allow the import- 

 ation of foreign ones, for this would be injuring another 

 country, and in the long run, for the sake of greater 

 cheapness, would result in the killing of our native 

 species." 



The additions to the Zoological Society's menagerie 

 during September were 149 in number, of which sixty- 

 eight were acquired by presentation and two by purchase, 

 while sixty-five were received on deposit, four by exchange, 

 and ten were born in the gardens. Amongst these, special 

 attention is directed by the secretary to the following, viz. 

 a female giraffe, born on September 20 ; a male gayal, 

 born on September 6 ; three harnessed antelopes {Tragcla- 

 phus scriptus) ; a nagor antelope {Ccrvicapra redunca) ; and 

 two side-striped jackals {Canis lateralis), from Gambia, 

 presented by Sir George Denton ; and a Cayenne kite- 

 falcon (Lcptodon cayentiensis), deposited. 



Vol. Ixxxviii., part i., of Zeitschrift fiir wisseiischaft- 

 liche Zoologie contains an exhaustive article on the 

 morphology and life-history of the vine Phylloxera 

 {Phylloxera vastatrix), by Mr. H. Stauffacher, of Frauen- 

 feld, Switzerland, illustrated by a coloured plate showing 

 the chief developmental stages and the dimorphic phases 



I 



