Oct. 8, 1 8 74 J 



NA TURE 



471 



from leaving port before a certain date, and are anxious to 

 induce the Governments of other countries, whose suljjects are 

 engaged in other fishings, to take similar measures in respect to 

 vessels leaving their respective ports. It is hoped thereby to 

 establish an international convention, which will have the effect 

 of giving the seals at least another month after the breeding 

 season, in which the young may increase in size and value, and 

 thus the fearful slaughter of immature seals which has threatened 

 the total extermination of the animal will be checked. 



The ordinary business of the Paris Academy of Science was 

 entirely suspended at the meeting on September 28, owing to 

 the death of M. Elie de Beaumont. Tlie burial took place on 

 the 25th, the entire Academy attending their confrar to the 

 grave. Funeral addresses were delivered by M. Dumas on be- 

 half of the Academy, by M. Ch. Sainte-Claire Deville on behalf 

 of the Mineralogical Section, by M. Daubrce in the name of the 

 School of Mines, and by M. Laboulaye in the name of the 

 French College. 



The President and Council of the Royal Society of Edin- 

 burgh, " impressed with the conviction that the progress of the 

 sciences dt mands, and has long demanded, fuller and more exact 

 tablts of logarithms than any which at present exist," have 

 meniorallsed Sir Stafford iS'orthcote with the view of inducing 

 the Government to print a nine-figure table of logarithms of 

 numbers from unity to a million, part of which has been already 

 calcu'ated by Mr. Sang, who has carried a fifteen-figure table 

 up to 300,coo. The subject of undertaking the publication 

 of logarithm tables — so long as the number of figures does no; 

 exceed ten, the limit of utility— is one well worthy the attention 

 of the Government ; but in the present case there are several 

 reasons why, if the application is refused, the loss to science will 

 not be so great as some might think. In the first place, a table 

 of i,Soo large pages, whether in one, two, or three volumes, 

 will be so unwieldy that, notwitlistanding the ease of the inter, 

 polations, it wculd probably be very seldom used by computers ; 

 and secondly, because all who require more than seven figures 

 will, no doubt, prefer to use ten, and consult the existing works. 

 In fact, nearly all computers would, we believe, employ Vlacq 

 or ^'ega in preference to the proposed table. Mr. Sang, in the 

 pamphlet which accompanies the memorial, makes a remarkable 

 error when he intimates that the great French tables have not 

 been used to verify any seven-figure table, so that "up to the 

 present moment we have no verification of Vlacq's great work." 

 In point of fact, the whole of Vlacq was read with the 

 copy of the French tables at the Paris Observatory, by M. 

 Lefort, and the results of the comparison are published in vol. iv 

 of the "Annales de robservatoire de Paris." Almost all the 

 errors found by Mr. Sang by means of this table are among 

 those there given by Lefort, and anyone who chooses can, with- 

 out niucli expenditure of trouble, render his copy of Vlacq all 

 but free from error — much more accurate than any new table 

 could possibly be. 



Attention is being again directed to the cultivation of 

 Cinchonas in St. Helena, which at one lime promised so well, 

 but which has, owing to changes in the Government, been 

 allowed to lapse into decay. Some seven or eight years since, 

 when the island was under the governorship of Sir Charles 

 Elliott, Dr. Hooker strongly advised a trial of the plants to be 

 made, and plantations were formed at Diana's Peak. So satis- 

 factory was the progress of the plants that the Goveniment con- 

 sented to the selection of a gardener from amongst the best or 

 most inielligent of those to be obtained at Kew. One was chosen 

 and sent out, and, to quote from a recent number of the St. 

 Hclcuii Guani'ujii, "All went well so long as Sir Charles Elliott 

 was at the liead of affairs : plantations were formed, and the 

 gardener, Mr. Chalmers, was treated [as one having the charge 



and responsibility of an important colonial experiment, and the 

 plants grew well up to the time when Sir Charles Elliott left and 

 Admiral Patey was appointed in his'stead. The new governor 

 at once decreed that the plantations" at Diana's Peak were a 

 mere foolish waste of money, that the gardener sent out from 

 Kew would be better employed at Plantation House, and em- 

 ployed he was, chopping firewood and raising beans, peas, and 

 radishes, and selling them for the benefit of the privy purse of 

 Government House, and the Cinchona plantations were left to 

 go to ruin or to flourish by their own unaided vigour, as the case 

 might be." The result of three years' cultivation and three years' 

 subsequent neglect seems to be, that althougli there are a few 

 dead and sickly plants, nearly all the trees are in full vigour and 

 luxuriant growth. There are aborrt 300 nourishing plants, many 

 of which are twelve feet high, and three to four feet in diameter. 

 The bark is also a quarter of an inch thick, and has an intensely 

 bitter quinine' taste. Many of the plants in the St. Helena 

 plantations have the lower part of their stems bound. up with 

 moss in order to try if the bark would not swell and increase 

 more rapidly, but it has had 'the effect of showing, by the burst- 

 ing out of rootlets from the part so bound 'with' damp moss, that 

 the plant throws forth roots readily from the bark, and thus 

 may be easily propagated by cuttings. The Government has 

 recently been again in correspondence with" Dr. Hooker on this 

 subject, and it is to be hoped that the cultivation will be again 

 renewed and prosecuted continuously. 



■We have been requested to publish the following extract of a 

 letter recently received from Cambridge (Mass.) : — " We have 

 been very much amused by the pertinacity with which our friends 

 on your side are determined to provide us with a successor to 

 Prof Agassiz, to fill a vacancy which has no existence and has 

 been filled long since. Alex. Agassiz takes his father's place in 

 the Museum, assisted by Count Pourtales and Col. Lyman, who 

 attend more tc the details ; and the professorship has been 

 divided, and separate professors appointed, one for zoology and 

 one for geology. There is now therefore no vacant chair in 

 Harvard, so far as I know, although Prof. Wyman is lately 

 deceased ; but I think he relinquished his duties some time since, 

 on account of ill health. So I do not perceive the slightest 

 chance for the numerous successors proposed in England or 

 elsewhere." 



The French Geographical Society sent a deputation to Vienna 

 to offer its official congratulations to the Hungro- Austrian Polar 

 Expedition. It was very cordially reciprocated by Payer and his 

 associates. 



An International Horticultural Exhibition will take place at 

 Antwerp, commencing on April 4, 1875, rmder the auspices of 

 the Royal Society of Horticulture and Agriculture of that town, 

 and promises to be on a large scale. An International Ex- 

 hibition of Fruits will also be held at jVmsterdam in October 

 1875, under the management of an influential committee. 



We learn from' the Bdgiquc Hortkole that that cryptogamic 

 pest the Puccinia malvaceanim is making sad havoc among the 

 mallows and hollyhccks in some parts of Belgium. 



We are informed that the Phylloxera has appeared in Switzer- 

 land, and that the delegates of the wine-growing cantons met 

 on Monday last, the 5th inst., to consider the best means of 

 preventing its extension. 



Some excitement has been aroused in New York by the dis- 

 covery of a rich vein of hccmatite iron ore in the heart of the 

 city by some workmen who were digging foundations for a new 

 building. The vein, which is 30 ft. wide, was found at a depth 

 of only 4 ft. from tlie surface. 



Prof. Benti.ey and Mr. Trimen are engaged in the produc- 

 tion of a voluminous work on the medicinal plants of the world. 



