June 4, 1908] 



NA TURE 



107 



We learn from the Times correspondent at St. Peters- 

 burg that on Monday, June i, the Grand Duke Michael 

 opened the International Congress on Navigation, which 

 is being held for the first time in St. Petersburg. Three 

 thousand delegates from all countries have assembled, in- 

 cluding Sir John Murray, K.C.B., F.R.S. Regret is ex- 

 pressed by the organisers of the congress at the small 

 representation of Great Britain. 



Under the direction of Prof. Loomis, an exploring 

 party will leave Amherst College, Mass., on June 12 to 

 work in the western States. The party will first examine 

 the Indian quarries in Converse County in search of stone 

 implements, and will then look for horse, camel, and 

 rhinoceros bones in the Lower Miocene in Nebraska. The 

 partv will then go southwards to the Upper Miocene of 

 north-eastern Colorado, where it is expected to find the 

 later stages of the same groups of animals. Prof. Lull, 

 of the Yale Museum, will probably camp with this party, 

 but will make an independent collection. 

 • 



The death is reported, in his fifty-seventh year, of Prof. 

 Leslie Alexander Lee, who held the chair of biology in 

 Bowdoin College, Maine, since 1876. In 1887 he was 

 chief of the scientific staff on the voyage of the UI.S. Fish 

 Commission's steamer Albatross through the Strait of 

 Magellan. The results of his work on this expedition 

 were preserved in a large number of biological, geo- 

 logical, and ethnological memoirs published by the Smith- 

 sonian Institution. He was also director of the Bowdoin 

 expedition to Labrador in 1891, when large collections were 

 made, and the Grand Falls, 316 feet high, were re- 

 discovered. 



On May 15 there was held in Cracow, at the Academy 

 of Sciences, a celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary 

 of Prof. Olszewski's work on the liquefaction of gases, 

 his first researches in that direction having been com- 

 menced during the spring of 1883 with the late Prof. 

 Wr6blewski. The celebration was an unofiRcial one, and 

 onlv the members of the mathematical and natural history 

 class of the academy took part in it. The president of the 

 academy. Prof. Count Tarnowski, congratulated Prof. 

 Olszewski in an address, after which an album containing 

 photos of the members of the mathematical and natural 

 history class was presented to him. As the intention of the 

 academy to celebrate the work of its distinguished member 

 was not publicly made known, only a few letters and 

 telegrams reached him, including those of several learned 

 societies in Warsaw and of the professors of chemistry 

 and of physics in the University of Fribourg. 



A POLL has just been taken by the Geological Society 

 to ascertain the opinion of the fellows resident in the 

 United Kingdom as to the admission of women to the 

 society. The number of voting papers sent out was 870, 

 and 477 replies were received. An analysis of the votes 

 shows that 248 fellows were in favour of the admission 

 of women as fellows and 217 against their admission, but 

 of this number only 133 voted against the admission of 

 women at all, the remaining eighty-four being in favour of 

 their admission as associates. The fact that there was a 

 majority of thirty-one in favour of the admission of women 

 as fellows should be an encouraging sign to the increasing 

 number of women who are taking up scientific work and 

 in other ways contributing to the extension of natural 

 knowledge. 



The council of the Institution of Civil Engineers proposes 

 to award annually a prize, of the value of about 33/., to 

 NO. 2014, VOL. 78] 



be called the Indian premium, to the author, being a cor- 

 porate member of the institution in practice in India, of 

 the best paper received during the year on a subject con- 

 nected with Indian engineering. The council further pro- 

 poses that the income of a legacy of 1000/. bequeathed by 

 the late Mr. L. F. Vernon-Harcourt to the institution be 

 applied, in general accordance with the testator's wishes, 

 to provide for a biennial lecture on some subject relating 

 to rivers, canals, or maritime engineering, to be delivered 

 before meetings of students of the institution in London 

 and before such of the provincial associations of students 

 as the council may determine from time to time. The 

 council recently accepted, on behalf of the institution, a 

 legacy of 1000!., bequeathed by the late Mr. F. W. Webb, 

 to be applied to establish a " Webb prize " for the best 

 paper submitted to the institution on railway machinery, 

 or upon some branch of railway machinery which may be 

 prescribed. 



The thirteenth annual congress of the South-eastern 

 Union of Scientific Societies will be held at Hastings on 

 June 10-13 under the presidency of Sir Archibald Geikie, 

 K.C.B., Sec.R.S., who will give his presidential address 

 at the Royal Concert Hall, St. Leonards, on Wednesday, 

 June 10, at 8 p.m. Papers are promised by Mr. E. A. 

 Martin, on some considerations concerning dew-ponds ; 

 Messrs. Ruskin Butterfield and W. H. Bennett, a con- 

 tribution to the spider fauna of the district round Hast- 

 ings ; Mr. \V. H. Mullens, Gilbert White and Sussex ; 

 Mr. Edward Connold, local sponges ; Mr. J. E. Ray, 

 mediaeval timbered houses of Sussex and Kent ; Mr. 

 Wintour F. Gwinnell, the reptile monsters of Mesozoic 

 times, with especial reference to the iguanodon ; Mr. Lewis 

 .'\bbott. Pleistocene vertebrates of the south-east of 

 England ; Mr. W. M. Webb, Darwinism as applied to 

 dress. There will be a loan museum under the super- 

 intendence of Mr. E. W. Swanton. Excursions, geological 

 or antiquarian, will take place to Hastings Castle and 

 Caves, and the salient physical features of the district. 

 Battle Abbey, Rye, Bodiam Castle, and Dungeness. The 

 local secretary is Mr. W. Ruskin Butterfield, Corporation 

 Museum, Hastings, from whom tickets and all information 

 can be obtained. 



Captain Ejnar Mikkelsen has returned, we learn from 

 the Times, to Copenhagen after his two years' sojourn 

 in the regions north of .Maska. The chief object of the 

 expedition was to decide whether there is land to the north 

 of .Alaska or a deep sea. Captain Mikkelsen 's ship arrived 

 on September 17, 1906, at Flaxman Island, where she was 

 soon frozen in. The whole of that afttumn was spent in 

 iTiapping the surrounding country and observing the tide. 

 About forty miles from the coast the party found moun- 

 tains from 10,000 feet to 12,000 feet in height, hitherto 

 not marked on any map, and Mr. Leffingwell, the com- 

 panion of Mr. Mikkelsen, undertook some geological re- 

 searches. In March, 1907, Captain Mikkelsen, Mr. 

 Leflingwell, and the mate started in three sledges with 

 eighteen dogs on a trip over the ice towards the north. 

 The thermometer showed —56° C. ; nevertheless, they 

 often came across big crevices among the ice floes. About 

 fifty miles from shore they found water which they sounded 

 to the depth of 800 metres without reaching bottom. 

 Sixty miles further on no change was recorded, until at 

 last, turning towards the south-east, they found bottom. 

 They followed this edge of the continental shelf towards 

 the east, but had soon to return owing to the strong 

 current. Captain Mikkelsen was thus able to prove that 

 deep water exists north of .Alaska to a great distance. 



