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NA I URB 



[Junk 17, 1^09 



this commission the qursllon of an undi-rslanding as lo 

 the projection and scale of charts for representing marine 

 melcorologfical data was also referred. It is expected that 

 M. Angot, director of the Bureau Central M(5tCorologique 

 of Paris ; Father Froc, of Zi-ka-wei ; Prof. Grossmann, 

 npresenting Rear-.\dmiral llcrz, director of the Deutsche 

 Srewarto, who is prevented by illness from attending ; 

 Prof. Mohn, director of the Meteorological Institute, 

 Chrlstiania ; and Prof. Willis Moore, will be present to 

 take part in the meetings. The second commission is 

 appointed to consider international questions concerning 

 weather telegraphy, including wireless telegraphy from 

 ships. The members to be present arc Messrs. Angot, 

 Grossmann, and Willis Moore. Both commissions are 

 under the presidency of the director of the Meteorological 

 (Ifl'ice, and the meetings will take place at the oflice. The 

 commissions will report to the meeting of the Inter- 

 national Meteorological Committee which is expected to 

 be held in iqio. Some of the visitors will remain to take 

 part in the meetings of the Solar Commission during the 

 week beginning June 28. 



Tun annual conversazione of the Inslilution of ICIictrical 

 Engineers will be held at the Natural History Museum, 

 South Kensington, on Wednesday, June 30. 



The death is announced, in his sixty-sixth year, of Prof. 

 Carl N. I. Bcirgen, for thirty-four years director of the 

 Imperial Observatory at Wilhclmshaven. 



The Prince of Wales will attend the meeting of the 

 Royal Geographical Society at the .Albert Hall on June 28 

 for the reception of Lieut. K. H. Shackleton, and will 

 present to Lieut. Sh.ickleton the special gold medal 

 awarded to him by the society. 



The Pharmaceutical Society Ijas awarded tlv 11 anbury 

 gold medal to Prof. W. O. \. Tschirch, professor of 

 pharmacognosy and practical chemistry at Berne Uni- 

 versity. The medal is awarded biennially for high excel- 

 lence in the prosecution or proinotion of original research 

 in the chemistry and natural history of drugs. 



We have been favoured with a copy of the Sydney Daily 

 Telegraph of April 29, containing an interesting account 

 of the inaugural meeting of the .Aerial League of .Australia, 

 at which Mr. L. Hargreave, the inventor of the box 

 kite, presided. The objects of the league are, among 

 others, to watch the latest achievements in aerial engineer- 

 ing ; to secure the best recognition for .Australian efforts 

 in that direction ; and to awaken public attention to the 

 danger in allowing foreign nations to excel in aerial 

 navigation. 



The Constantinople correspondent of the Times reports 

 that a proposal, brought before the Chamber of Deputies 

 on June 12, for the adoption of the system of time-reckon- 

 ing used in Europe, instead of the Turkish system of 

 reckoning time from the hour of sunset, was carried, in 

 ^|)ite of the opposition of the hodjas and many Anatolian 

 liputies, by a considerable majority, including the .Arabs. 

 But the clerical minority in the Chamber has made such an 

 uproar that the motion has since been withdrawn. 



The council of the Royal Institute of Public Health 

 I..1S awarded the Harbcn gold medal for eminent services 

 > I the public health to Prof. E.-von Bchring, Marburg. 

 I. ieut. -Colonel W. B. Leishnian, professor of pathology. 

 Royal .Army Medical College, has been appointed the 

 llarben lecturer for the year 1910, and Prof. .Angelo Celli, 

 Rome, the Harbcn lecturer for the year 1911. The 

 Harbcn lectures for 1909 will be delivered by Prof. R. 

 NO. 206S, VOL. 80] 



Pfeiffer, Breslau, in the leclure-room of the institute on 

 June 21, 23, and 25. The subjects of the lectures will 

 be : — the importance of bacleriolysins in immunity ; endo- 

 toxins and anti-endotoxins ; and the problem of virulence. 

 The lectures will be given in English. 



We learn from 5ciViifi' that Mr. C. G. .Abbot, director 

 of the Smithsonian .Astrophysical Observatory, has left 

 Washington lor .Mount Wilson, California, to continue 

 observations, in progress for a number of years, as to 

 the intensity of the sun's rays and the effect of any 

 variation in them upon the earth. There was recently 

 erected on Mount Wilson a small permanent observatory 

 especially designed for this purpose. Here Mr. Abbot, 

 with the assistance of Dr. L. R. Ingersoll, of the L'niversity 

 of Wisconsin, will study during the next few months. 

 The expedition will also spend some time on the summit 

 of Mount Whitney, 14,500 feet high, where the institution 

 proposes to erect in July a shelter of stone and steel for 

 the use of scientific investigators engaged in researches 

 of any kind for which high altitudes, dry air, and clear 

 skies arc desirable. 



The famous Hope diamond was on view last week at 

 Messrs. R. and S. Garrard's galleries, Haymarket, London, 

 S.W. Its history has been romantic. It probably formed 

 the larger half of the pear-shaped, Indian stone, which 

 was stolen with the remainder of the French regalia at 

 the time of the Revolution in 1792, and never recovered. 

 In its present form it re-appeared in the collection of Henry 

 Philip Hope, a wealthy banker. .At his death it found 

 its way to .America, and last year, during the financial 

 crisis, the owner disposed of it to M. Habib, a dealer, 

 who was acting on behalf of the late Sultan of Turkey. 

 Owing to the deposition of that monarch, the stone has 

 come into the market once more. In the catalogue of the 

 Hope collection it is described as of a sapphire-blue, but 

 a slaty- or steely-blue would be more the correct descrip- 

 tion. It weighs 44J carats, and is by far the largest blue 

 diamond known. 



.A sevi:re earthquake was experienced at many places 

 in southern France at about 9.15 p.m. on June 11. From 

 a full report by the Paris correspondent of the Times it 

 appears that the shock was felt all along the French 

 Mediterranean shores. On the coast it was most violent 

 at Marseilles and Toulon. .At Nice and at Cannes a shock 

 was experienced, but it was not severe. More or less 

 slight shocks were felt through the south-east of France 

 from Montpellier to Grenoble and from Perpignan lo 

 .Avignon. Telegrams from the Italian Riviera, on the one 

 hand, and from Portugal, on the other, show that the 

 shock was felt in regions so widely apart as these. The 

 region most seriously affected by the earthquake is between 

 Ai.\-en-Provence, a town about twenty miles north of 

 Marseilles, and the River Durance, the northern boundary 

 of the department. The line of greatest destruction seems 

 to run in a north-westerly direction from .Aix through the 

 villages of Saint-Cannat, Lambcsc, and Rognes. 



A SHORT account <if the inauguration, on June 13, of 

 the memorial to Lamarck, which has been erected in the 

 Jardin des Plantes, is given by the Paris correspondent 

 of the Titiies in the issue of June 14. The mcniori.-tI was 

 formally inaugurated in the presence of M. Falliires, and 

 was committed to the charge of the French Government. 

 It takes the form of a bronze figure of Lamarck seated 

 in an attitude of meditation. Inscribed on the pedestal 

 are the words, " To tin- founder of the doctrine of evolu- 

 tion." The Times says that in his speech M. Perrier 



