54 



NATURE 



\Nov. 20, 1873 



abstracts were received of all but nine ; most of the remainder 

 were passed by the sectional committees for reading, but a num- 

 ber of those that were read were not approved by the committees 

 for publication, an example that might be very usefully followed 

 in the case of our British Association. The general character of 

 the meeting was stated to be decidedly scientific, and the discus- 

 sions to have been carried on with good feeling, and free from 

 personalities ; though complaint was made that less sympathy 

 was exhibited on the part of the citizens with the objects of the 

 Association than at any previous meeting. The next meeting 

 will be held at Hartford, Connecticut, on the second Wednesday 

 in August 1874, when a report will be received from a special 

 committee appointed to revise the constitution of the Association 

 with a view to a better carrying out of its objects. The general 

 officers for the meeting will be Dr. J. L. LeConte, president ; 

 Prof. C. S. Lyman, vice-president ; Dr. A. C. Hamlin, general 

 secretary ; and Mr. J. W. Putnam, permanent secretary. 



Dr. Beke writes to the Titms as follows with respect to Dr. 

 Livingstone : — "If the intelligence from the West Coast of 

 Africa is to be depended on, we may very shortly expect the re- 

 turn of our great traveller, Dr. Livingstone, to his native country 

 On the 1st and 4th inst. you inserted communications from me. 

 to the effect that our countryman was detained a prisoner at a 

 place about 300 miles from Embomma, on the Congo. Accord- 

 ing to the news brought by the last African Royal mail steamer, 

 it was reported at St. Salvador that Livingstone was then in the 

 interior, about 30 or 40 miles from that place. Now, as St. 

 Salvador is only 80 miles from Embomma, the distance to the 

 latter town from the spot at which, according to the later mtel- 

 ligence, our adventurous countryman was, is not more than 120 

 miles ; and, Embomma being 70 miles from the mouth of the 

 Congo, he would have been within 200 miles of the coast. As 

 the hardy and energetic traveller is not in the habit of letting the 

 grass grow under his feet, he may well be supposed to have come 

 on nearly, if not quite, as (juickly as the natives who brought 

 the news of his whereabouts. Consequently, on the assumption 

 that the intelligence received is founded on truth, we may not 

 unreasonably look for the veteran traveller's arrival in England 

 by the next mail steamer from the West Coast of Africa." 



We learn from the Journal of the Society of Arts, that one of 

 the first results in the rise of the price of coal has been the for- 

 ' mation of a company in France, whose object is to utilise the 

 power of the ocean tides on the French coast by proper 

 machinery. The first experiment is to be made at St. Malo, 

 where the tide rises nearly 80 ft., and overflows many square 

 miles of flats. 



Dr. George Burrows, F.R.S., has been appointed one of 

 the Physicians-in- Ordinary to Her Majesty, in the room of the 

 late Sir Henry Holland. 



At a meeting of the Trustees of the Hunterian Collection of 

 the College of Surgeons, held on Saturday, 8th inst., George 

 Busk, F.R.S., was elected a member of the board, to fill the 

 vacancy occasioned by the death of the Bishop of Winchester. 



Dr.LyonPlayfair, C.B., F.R.S.,M.P. for the Universities of 

 St. Andrews and Edinburgh, has been appointed Postmaster-Ge- 

 neral in succession to Mr. Monsell. Dr. Playfair was a pupil of 

 Liebig, was formerly Professor of Chemistry in the University of 

 Edinburgh, and was at one time Government Inspector-General 

 of Schools and Museums of .Science and Art. We hope the 

 new Postmaster-General will endeavour to introduce something 

 like scientific method into the postal department. 



The promoters of the railway tunnel which is intended to 

 oross the Mersey, the shafts for whicli have already been sunk, 

 have always believed that they would have only a continuous 



mass of solid sandstone rock to penetrate. A paper has just 

 been published in the transactions of the Liverpool Geological 

 Society for 1872, by Mr. T. Mellard Reade, C.E., of Liverpool, 

 in which he contends that in all prob.ability a deep gorge, filled 

 up with clay or sand, will be met with, being the ^site of an 

 ancient river or torrent formed in or before the times when 

 England was covered with ice, and when its valleys were filled 

 with glaciers. Mr. Reade believes that the ascertained data 

 warrant the hypothesis, that before the boulder clays and other 

 recent strata were laid down, a river draining the land now 

 drained by the Mersey flowed past Runcorn Gap, between land 

 of some considerable elevation, to the sea. 



We have received, in the form of a neat little pamphlet of 

 20 pp., price only one penny, an exceedingly interesting lecture 

 on "How Flowers are Fertilised," delivered by Mr. A. W, 

 Bennett, F.L.S., at Manchester, on the 5th inst. It is one of 

 a series of Science-Lectures for the People, published alter de- 

 livery by Mr. Ileywood of Manchester ; they are carefully and 

 neatly printed, and judging from the one before us, purchasers 

 have a very good pennyworth indeed. The enterprise is very 

 creditable to the publisher. 



Among the papers presented to Parliament, says the Times, 

 relating to the South Sea^ Islanders, is a report by Captain 

 C. H. Simpson, of Her Majesty's ship Blanche, giving an 

 account of his visit last year to the Solomons and other groups 

 of islands in the Pacific Ocean. While at Isabel Island. 

 Captain Simpson, with a party of officers, went a short distance 

 inland to visit one of the remarkable tree villages peculiar, 

 lie believes, to this island. He found the village built on the 

 summit of a rocky mountain rising almost perpendicular to a 

 height of 800 ft. The party ascended by a native path from 

 the interior, and found the extreme summit a mass of enormous 

 rocks standing up like a castle, among which grow the gigantic 

 trees, in the branches of which the houses of the natives are 

 built. The stems of these trees lie perfectly straight and 

 smooth, without a branch, to a height varying from 50 ft. to 

 150 ft. In the one Captain Simpson ascended the house was 

 just 80 ft. from the ground ; one close to it was about 120 ft. The 

 only means of approach to these houses is by a ladder made of 

 a creeper, suspended from a post within the house, and which, 

 of course, can be hauled up at will. The houses are most in- 

 geniously built, and are very firm and strong. Each house 

 will contain from ten to twelve natives, and an ample store of 

 stones is kept, which they throw both with slings and with the 

 hand with great force and precision. At the foot of eacli of 

 t hese trees is another hut, in which the family usually reside, 

 the tree-house being only resorted to at night and during times 

 of expected danger. In fact, however, they are never safe from 

 surprise, notwithstanding all their precautions, as the great 

 object in life among the people is to get each other's heads. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's collection during 

 the past week include an Alligator Terrapin ( Chelyara serpen- 

 tina) from North America, presented by the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution of Washington ; a large Hill Mynah (Graacla inter media') 

 from North India, presented by Rev. T. Main ; twelve Gray's 

 Terrapins {Cle7nmys grayi) from Bussorah, presented by Captain 

 Phillips ; a Changeable Tree Frog (Hyla versieolor) from North 

 America, presented by Prof. RoUeston ; a Ground Rat {Aiihuo- 

 dtis s-Mnderianus) from West Africa ; a Sharp-nosed Badger 

 (Meles leptarhynchus) from China ; a Telerang Squirrel {Sciiirus 

 bicolor) from the East Indies ; two Mantchurian Crossaptilons 

 {Crpssap/i/on mante/iiirieiim) bom Norlh China, and two Blue- 

 rowned Hanging Pa-rakeets (Loricnliis galgnli4s) from Malacca, 

 purchased ; an Agile Gibbon (Hylobales agi/is) from Sumatra, 

 deposited. 



