62 



NATURE 



[May 2 1, 1908 



ology, physiology, and zoology- Applications must be sent 

 in to the Royal Society not later than June 10 on fornns 

 which can be obtained from the assistant secretary of the 

 Royal Society, Burlington House, W. 



On July I the president and council of the Linnean 

 Society will entertain the Darwin-Wallace medallists and 

 foreign guests to dinner at Prince's Restaurant. 



Prof. Otto Butschli, of Heidelberg, and Prof. k. G. 

 Nathorst, of the Naturhistoriska Riksmuseum, Stockholm, 

 have been elected foreign members of the Linnean Society. 



The annual visitation of the Royal Observatory, Green- 

 wich, by the Board of Visitors will be held on Wednesday, 

 June 3. The observatory will be open for inspection by 

 guests at 3 p.m. 



This year's meeting of the French Association for the 

 Advancement of Science will be held at the beginning of 

 August at Clermont-Ferrand. Sir William Ramsay, 

 K.C.B., F.R.S., has accepted an invitation to lecture 

 during the meeting on his researches. Full particulars of 

 the proceedings at Clermont-Ferrand can be obtained from 

 the offices of the French Association, 28 rue Serpentc, 

 Paris. 



On Tuesday next. May 26, Prof. W. Stirling will begin 

 a course of two lectures at the Royal Institution on 

 " .Animal Heat and Allied Phenomena." The Friday even- 

 ing discourse on May 29 will be delivered by Sir Ralph 

 Payne-Gallwey on " Ancient and MedifEval Projectile 

 \\'eapons other than Firearms," and on June 5 by Sir 

 James Dewar on " The Nadir of Temperature and Allied 

 Phenomena." 



The first International Congress of the Cold Storage 

 Industries is to be held in Paris, at the Grand-Palais, at 

 the end of Septembirr next. One of the sections, of which 

 M. d'Arsonval is the president, will concern itself with 

 questions relating to low temperatures and their general 

 effects. We understand that Sir James Dewar, Sir William 

 Ramsay, and MM. Van der Waals, Kamerlingh Onnes, 

 Linde, Georges Claude, and Jean Becquerel will be among 

 the contributors to this section. 



The Berlin correspondent of the Times states that a 

 scientific expedition to the South Seas left Hamburg on 

 May 16 on board the steamship Pciho, a vessel of 900 tons, 

 which has been specially chartered for the cruise from the 

 Hamburg-.-Vmerican Line. The expedition has been 

 organised by the trustees of the scientific foundations of 

 the city of Hamburg, and its mission is to complete the 

 exploration more particularly of the German islands in the 

 South Seas and to collect materials for the study of the 

 natives and natural resources of those regions. Dr. 

 F. G. H. H. Fulleborn, assistant at the Hamburg Institute 

 for Tropical Diseases, is in charge of the expedition, and 

 he is accompanied by a competent staff of assistants. 



The Home Secretary has appointed a committee on the 

 use of lead in the manufacture of earthenware and china. 

 The committee includes, with others, Mr. E. F. G. Hatch 

 (chairman), Mr. A. Vernon Harcourt, F.R.S., Dr. George 

 Reid, Mr. William Burton, and Mr. Bernard Moore. The 

 committee is to consider the dangers attendant on the use 

 of lead in pottery, and to report how far these can be 

 obviated or lessened by improved appliances and methods 

 in lead processes, by the limitation of the use of lead, by 

 the substitution of harmless lead compounds for raw lead, 

 by the substitution of other materials for lead, and by other 

 means. The danger or injury to health arising from dust 



NO. 2012, VOL. 78] 



or other causes in the manufacture of pottery, and the 

 special rules regulating the decoration of earthenware and 

 china, are also to be considered. 



A CORRESPONDENT Writes : — " The .'\tlantic Ocean is in 

 certain parts about four miles deep. Would a rock, if 

 thrown into the ocean at its greatest depth, sink to the 

 bottom? " The inquiry is a little indefinite, but Dr. C. 

 Chree, F.R.S., has been good enough to send us a reply 

 to it, in the course of which he points out that any solid 

 of larger than microscopic dimensions will fall in a liquid 

 with continuously increasing velocity so long as its density 

 exceeds that of the liquid. Even at a depth of four miles 

 the pressure of the water is only about four tons to the 

 square inch, and such increase is quite insufficient to raise 

 the density of water to that of ordinary rock. In the case 

 of some exceptional form of rock, the density of which 

 approaches closely to that of water when both are un- 

 compressed, the result would depend on the relative com- 

 pressibility of water and the material, combined with any 

 slight effects due to change of temperature. 



At the instance of the late Secretary of State for the 

 Colonies, and with the cooperation of the Government of 

 the Sudan and the Royal Society, the Government has 

 decided to establish in London a bureau for the collection 

 and general distribution of information with regard to 

 sleeping sickness. The Royal Society will find accommoda- 

 tion for the bureau at Burlington House, and one-fourth of 

 the cost of upkeep will be borne by the Sudan Govern- 

 ment. The bureau will be under the general control and 

 direction of an honorary committee of management, 

 appointed by and responsible to the Secretary of State for 

 the Colonies. The committee will include the Right Hon. 

 Sir J. West-Ridgeway, G.C.B. (chairman). Sir Patrick 

 Manson, K.C.M.G., F.R.S., Sir Rubert Boyce, F.R.S., 

 Dr. Rose Bradford, F.R.S., and Colonel D. Bruce, C.B., 

 F.R.S. The main function of the bureau, which will be 

 administered by a paid director, will be to collect from all 

 sources information regarding sleeping sickness, to collate, 

 condense, and, where necessary, translate this information, 

 and to distribute it as widely and quickly as possible 

 among those who are engaged in combating the disease. 

 The publications of the bureau will be divided into two 

 categories, viz. scientific publications intended for those 

 who are engaged in research work or in carrying out 

 medical administration in the infected districts, and publica- 

 tions of a less technical character for the use of Govern- 

 ment officials, missionaries, and others, whose duties involve 

 residence in those districts. One important piece of work 

 will be the preparation of a map of the whole of tropical 

 Africa, showing the distribution of the disease and of the 

 different species of blood-sucking insects which are 

 suspected of conveying it. The duties of the director of 

 the bureau will for the present be undertaken by Dr. A. G. 

 Bagshawe, of the Uganda Medical Staff, who has been 

 seconded from the Protectorate service for the purpose. 



A MEDUSA from Java, referable to the remarkable genus 

 Chiiopsalmus. previously known by one species from Brazil 

 and Carolina and a second from the Rangoon coast, is 

 described by Dr. R. Horst as new in Leyden Museum 

 Notes (vol. xxix., No. 2) under the name of Ch. buitcn- 

 dijki. L'nfortunately, the only known example of the 

 Rangoon Ch. quadrigatus is in very bad condition, so that 

 the distinctness of the Java form does not appear absolutely 

 beyond doubt. 



In addition to a paper on fossil cetaceans by Mr. True, 

 and one on the meteor-crater of Canyon Diablo by Mr. 

 Merrill, which have been alreadv mentioned in N.iture, 



