July 9, 1896] 



AVi TURE 



229 



July 14. The Hon. Mr. Justice Vauyhan Williams will occupy 

 the chair. 



Th E geological collection at Peel Park, Salford, which some 

 years ago was withdrawn from public view, has been entirely 

 rearranged, and was reopened last week. The process of re- 

 arrangement has been carried out by Mr. Herbert Bolton, of 

 the Manchester Museum. The collection is now in a condition 

 which will make it of service to students, and it will doubtless 

 become an important factor in the educational progress of the 

 borough. 



A TEl.ECRAM from Sir Walter Sendall, High Commissioner 

 for Cyprus, reports that incessant earthquake shocks have been 

 felt there for several weeks, causing great alarm and interruption 

 of business. A Reuter telegram from Larnaca, dated July 6, 

 says: "Violent shocks of earthquake continue to be felt in the 

 island. A general panic prevails at Liniasol, and the Govern- 

 ment and military authorities are providing tents for the people. 

 Permission has also been given to families to take up their 

 quarters in the commissariat huts and camp at Polymedia. The 

 town is deserted, and the Government offices, the bank, and 

 the telegraph office have been installed under canvas." 



Mr. John Milne writes us, that between June 23 and 31 

 he recorded several earth disturbances, which from their 

 character had apparently originated at great distances. One 

 commencing at gh. 2m. 35s. G.M.T., on June 29, is probably 

 i<Ientical with the earthquakes which on that evening shook 

 Cyprus. With regard to the records of Prof. \'icentini of 

 Padua, which in Japan mean time occurred at about 8.30 p.m. 

 on June 15, and 5 and 9 a.m. on the following morning, he 

 remarks that he only recorded the former of these on the i6th — 

 his instrument being dismantled for adjustments to correspond 

 with those of a second instrument which that day was installed at 

 Carisbrooke Castle. Certain telegrams tell us that the sea waves 

 on the coast of Japan took place on June 17 ; but this inform- 

 ation, which, it will be observed, does not accord with what 

 was noted in Europe, has not yet been confirmed. 



The highly poisonous nature of acetylene has suggested to 

 M. Chuard the possibility of employing carbide of calcium as 

 an insecticide for agricultural purposes. M. Chuard proposes 

 to try thoroughly mixing the carbide with earth, so that under the 

 influence of moisture acetylene would be slowly given off at the 

 roots of plants, thus preserving them from attack. At the same 

 time, the bye-products, consisting of chalk and a little ammonia, 

 would have a beneficial effect on the soil. It is proposed to try 

 this method against phylloxera. Whether this would succeed 

 equally well in all weathers, wet or dry, is quite another 

 question. 



In the Annales de inkrographic, M. Miquel gives statistics 

 for ten years of the numbers of bacteria in a cubic metre of air, 

 both in the centre of Paris and in the park of Montsouris. In 

 consequence of local improvements, the air in the park has 

 gradually become purer, the number of bacteria having decreased 

 from 480 per cubic metre in 1884 to 275 in 1893 ; but the air 

 in Paris itself has increased in microorganisms from 34S0 in 

 1S84 to 6040 in 1893. This large increase M. Miquel attri- 

 butes to the greater cleanliness of the inhabitants, who, by 

 dusting out and cleaning their houses and shaking carpets, &c., 

 stir a large quantity of germs into the air. He even goes so 

 far as to condemn this form of cleanliness on the ground that 

 the germs are simply blown about by the wind, and find their 

 way into the houses again, so that if you do not get your own 

 germs back, those from your neighbours fly in at the window 

 instead. 



^■O. 1393, VOL. 54] 



It is nearly ten years ago that Dr. Carl Auer von Welsbach 

 first enunciated the property of rare earths, which led to his 

 discovery of the incandescent light. In a contribution to the 

 Alti dclla K. Aiiadciiiia dci I.imci, Signor Enrico Clerici 

 now considers the action which takes place when vegetable 

 tissues are soaked with solutions of certain salts, such as are 

 used in the preparation of incandescent mantles, and the 

 organic matter is afterwards removed by calcination. It ap- 

 pears that if sections of wood are treated in this manner with 

 nitrates of certain metals, and the ashes are examined under the 

 microscope, every detail of the original tissues is found perfectly 

 preserved, even down, for example, to the scalariform ducts of 

 Plo-is aqiiilina. The author compares this process with the 

 petrifaction of fossil woods, and he concludes that we have 

 here a phenomenon of molecular interposition with which it is 

 possible to cause certain insoluble and refractory oxides to 

 penetrate into cell-walls and vegetable fibres, and to transform 

 them in the course of a few minutes into true petrifactions. 



The anxiety of German municipal authorities to attract men 

 of science to their cities and retain them there, is exemplified 

 by a note in the current number of the Lancet. It may be 

 remembered that in 1890, when Prof Koch made his announce- 

 ment respecting tuberculin, a special institution was founded 

 by Parliament, under the name of the Royal Institution for 

 Infectious Diseases, in order that he might be enabled to 

 continue his researches on the treatment of such diseases on a 

 larger scale than before, and it was placed entirely at his 

 disposal instead of being controlled by the university, like all 

 the other scientific institutions. It was, in fact, a special 

 hospital in which new methods of treatment were to be tested, 

 and it also contained a large laboratory, provided with every 

 requisite, where not only Prof. Koch and his staff, but a number 

 of other medical men carried on scientific work. The Govern- 

 ment having lately announced that the Institution would 

 possibly be removed from Berlin, the town council of Frankfurt 

 offered to provide Prof. Koch with ample laboratory and 

 hospital accommodation if he would agree to settle in their city. 

 But when these negotiations became known, the medical as well 

 as the lay press urged the Government to take measures to 

 retain this important establishment in the metropolis, and an 

 arrangement has now been made according to which the 

 Institution is to be attached to the new Berlin Municipal 

 Hospital at present in course of construction. The laboratory 

 department will be built and furnished by the State, whilst the 

 wards for infectious diseases belonging to the hospital are to 

 be placed at the disposal of Prof. Koch by the municipal 

 authority. This arrangement was strongly supported by Prof. 

 Virchow, who is a town councillor, and it will, says our con- 

 temporary, undoubtedly have the approval of the medical men 

 of Berlin, anxious as they are not to lose so celebrated an 

 investigator as Prof Koch. The spectacle of the London 

 County Council holding out advantages to a man of science in 

 order to dissuade him from migrating to another city awaiting to 

 receive him with acclamation, is one which we are unable to 

 imagine. 



Last autumn a mysterious disease appeared amongst the 

 poultry-yards in Rome, and was of so virulent a type that ij 

 produced a mortality of about 60 per cent, amongst the fowls 

 which it attacked. Careful investigations could not identify it 

 with the fowl-cholera of Perroncito and Pasteur, or with the 

 cholera of ducks described by Cornil, or indeed with any other 

 of the diseases hitherto bacteriologically associated with feathered 

 animals. Dr. Salverio Santori, of the Laboratorio medico- 

 micrografico del Comune di Roma, has recently published in an 

 Italian hygienic journal the investigations which he has carried 

 out as to the nature and origin of this epidemic. His results 

 are extremely interesting, for he has succeeded in isolating, 



