May 



[896] 



NATURE 



Ministry of the Interior and the Imperial Ministry of Marine. 

 A programme of exceptional interest for the instruction and 

 entertainment of the members is already in course of prepara- 

 tion. The meetings for the reading and discussion of papers 

 will be held in Hamburg in the Btirgerschafts-Saal in the 

 building of the Patriotische Gesellschaft, and in Berlin in the 

 large hall of the Technical High School. Papers have already 

 been promised by the following German members of the Institu- 

 tion : — Herr Dietrich (Privy Councillor), Constructor-in-Chief 

 of the Imperial German Navy, Herr F. Laeisz, President of 

 the Chamber of Commerce of Hamburg, and by Mr. B. Martell 

 and Dr. K. Elgar, amongst other home members of the Institu- 

 tion. It is hoped that the members of the Institution will 

 do all in their power to assist in doing honour to their most 

 hospitable hosts by attending in large numbers. 



It is with sad feelings that we read of the elaborate prepara- 

 tions that have been made abroad to celebrate the centenary of 

 the discovery of vaccination, and reflect that nothing is being 

 done in England to honour Jenner's memory. The British 

 Medicnl /otirnal says: — On May 14, 1796, Edward Jenner 

 performed the first successful vaccination. The centenary of 

 that event is to be celebrated in a manner befitting its import- 

 ance in the history of mankind in Germany, Russia, and the 

 United States. In Berlin preparations have been made under 

 the direction of a Committee which includes Profs. \'irchow, 

 Gerhard, von Leyden, Robert] Koch, von Bergmann, Koenig, 

 Ileubner, Langerhans, Proskauer, and other leading representa- 

 tives of medical and sanitary science, for a great meeting on 

 May 14 in honour of the discoverer of vaccination. There is 

 also to be an exhibition in the Medicinische Waarenhaus 

 (Friedrichstrasse, loS I, Berlin, N.) of literature, old and 

 new, relating to vaccination, portraits, medals, instruments, iSic. 

 In St. Petersburg, the Russian Public Health Society, the 

 Honorary President of which is the Grand Duke Paul Alex- 

 androvitch, has, with the sanction of the Czar, organised a 

 commemoration festival on a still larger scale. On May 14 a 

 "general and solemn" meeting will be held in honour of the 

 discovery. Four prizes will be awarded for the best works on 

 vaccination. An exhibition of objects connected with vaccina- 

 tion will be held. A Russian translation of Jenner's writings, 

 with a biography and portrait, and reproductions of his drawings, 

 will be published under the editorship of Dr. W. O. Hubert. 

 The Council of the Society, with the help c:>f the Government, 

 of provincial and municipal administrative bodies, of scientific 

 societies, and private medical practitioners, has collected 

 materials for a history of small-pox and vaccination in Russia, 

 which will appear at the same time. In the United States 

 arrangements for the celebration of the centenary have 

 been made by a conjoint Committee appointed by the 

 American Medical Association and the American Public 

 Health .\ssociation. The celebration is fixed for May 7, the 

 third day of the meeting of the American Medical Association 

 at Atlanta, and the whole of that day will be occupied by 

 addresses and discussions on Jenner and vaccination. Truly is 

 a prophet without honour in his own country when that country 

 is England. 



Sir John Gorst stated in the House of Commons, on 

 Thursday last, that arrangements are being made to open the 

 Geological Museum in Jermyn Street on Sundays, but the con- 

 tinuance of the practice will depend upon how far the number 

 of visitors appears to justify it. 



The Botanical Gazette has passed into the possession of the 

 University of Chicago. It is not, however, to be the botanical 

 organ of the University, but will be freely open, as before, to 

 botanists of all parts of the globe. The object of the change is 

 to secure permanence and possibility of development. The old 



editors. Prof. J. M. Coulter, Prof. C. R. Barnes, and Prof. J. 

 C. Arthur, remain. 



We learn from the Botanical Gazette that the recent 

 " Culver gift " of one million dollars to the University of Chicago 

 for biological endowment has resulted in the establishment of a 

 Department of Botany, in which Dr. John M. Coulter has 

 accepted the head professorship. A large building, to be known 

 as the " Hull Botanical Laboratory " has been planned, and its 

 erection will soon be begun. The four stories of this building 

 will contain ample space for lecture-rooms, libraries, laboratories, 

 and private research rooms for morphology, physiology, and 

 taxonomy. Above the fourth story a large roof-greenhouse will 

 supply an abundance of living material under all conditions 

 As the building will not be completed before April 1897, the 

 full botanical staff will not be organised before the autumn 

 of that year. 



DtJRl.NT, the last few weeks some experiments in sea-fish 

 hatching have been carried on at the Port Erin Biological 

 Station, for the Lancashire Sea Fisheries Committee. Prof. 

 Herdman has erected a series of wooden tanks and sand filters, 

 through which the water is passed by the action of a water- 

 wheel worked by the fresh-water tap. The Sea Fisheries 

 steamer, yohn Fell, spent several days at Port Erin trawling for 

 the spawning flsh. The ova were fertilised on board, and then 

 conveyed to the tanks. The first batch of young fish 

 ("witches" or white soles) were hatched out on April 29, 

 exactly seven days after fertilisation ; and there are now in the 

 tanks, far advanced in their development, lemon soles, witches, 

 and grey gurnards. The work, so far, has been carried out 

 successfully, and the result ought to encourage the Lancashire 

 Committee to realise their project of erecting a sea- fish hatchery 

 near the principal spawning grounds of the Irish Sea. 



We regret to note the death of the Rev. W. C. Ley, on the 

 22nd ultimo, at the age of fifty-five. He was ordained in 1863, 

 and in 1874 was presented by the Lord Chancellor to the rectory 

 of Ashby Parva, near Lutterworth, which he held until 1892. 

 Mr. Ley had for many years paid special attention to the study 

 of the clouds and the movements of upper air-currents. In 

 1872 he published an important work on "The laws of the 

 winds prevailing in Western Europe," in which he showed how 

 the preparation of synchronous weather charts, and the accu- 

 mulating testimony of the universality of the law generally 

 known as Buys Ballot's, connecting wind conditions with the 

 distribution of barometric pressure, had proved some accepted 

 weather theories to be erroneous, and had rendered necessary a 

 new investigation of the general laws. In the year 1879 the 

 Meteorological Council appointed him Inspector of their 

 English stations, and in the following year they requested him 

 to prepare a manual to facilitate the study of the weather in 

 connection with the information supplied by their Daily Weathe 

 Reports. This work, entitled " Aids to the study and forecast of 

 weather," explains clearly the relations of weather conditions to 

 the distribution of areas of both high and low atmospheric 

 pressure. His most recent work, " Cloudland, a study on the 

 structure and characters of clouds," published in 1894, was 

 prepared for press by his son, owing to the serious illness of the 

 author. It embodies the results of his life's work in connection 

 with this subject ; the nomenclature is probably too advanced 

 for general adoption, but the treatise contains much valuable 

 information upon the classification of the clouds and the origin 

 of their formation, as well as upon the important bearing of 

 cloud observation on the prognostication of weather. Many 

 papers of minor importance were contributed by Mr. Ley to 

 the Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. 



Mr. F. E. Beddarm, F.R.S., gave the first of a course of 

 lectures on the animals in the Zoological Society's Gardens, in the 



NO. 1384, VOL. 54] 



