252 



NA TURE 



[JULY 16, 1896 



NOTES. 

 Dr. N. Buscil, of Dotpat, has undertaken, at the request of 

 the University of Dorpat and the Russian Geographical Society 

 of St. Petcisburg, a botanical investigation of the Caucasus. lie 

 proposes to visit the hitherto unexplored sources of the rivers 

 Teberda and Maruch in Northern Caucasus. 



The Goldsmiths' Company has contributed a second donation 

 of /'looo to the special funds of the research department of the 

 Imperial Institute, to be applied to the extension of the labora- 

 tories and to their better equipment. The Salters" Company 

 has established a Research Fellowship of the value of ^150 per 

 annum, in connection with the .scientific department, tenable 

 by chemists thoroughly qualified to undertake the investigation 

 of new or little-known natural products received by the Institute 

 from the colonies and India. 



A Royal Commission has been appointed " to inquire and 

 report what administrative procedures are available and would 

 be desirable for controlling the danger to man through the u,se 

 as food of the meat and milk of tuberculous animals, and what 

 are the considerations which should govern the action of the 

 responsible authorities in condemning for the purposes of food 

 supplies animals, carcasses, or meat exhibiting any stage of 

 tuberculosis." The Commissioners are Sir Herbert Maxwell, 

 Dr. Richard Thorne Thome, C. B. (medical officer of the Local 

 Government Board), Mr. George Thomas Brown, C.B., Mr. 

 liarcourt Everard Clare, Mr. Shirley Forster Murphy (member 

 of the Royal College of Surgeons), Mr. John Speir, and Mr. 

 Thomas Cooke Trench. 



The death is announced of Prof. E. Curtius, the distinguished 

 Professor of Archaeology in the Berlin University. 



Prof. August Kekule v. Stradonitz, Professor of 

 Chemistry in the University of Bonn, died on Monday, at the 

 age of sixty-six. 



The Vienna Academy of Sciences announces as the subject 

 of the Baron von Baumgartner prize of 1000 florins, " Extension 

 of the Knowledge of the extreme Ultra-violet Rays." The 

 prize will be awarded in 1899. 



From a special number of their Atti, we learn that the Reale 

 Accademia dei Lincei (of Rome) has made the following awards : 

 Of two prizes given by the King of Italy, one for chemistry and 

 the other for philosophical science, the first has been divided 

 equally between Prof. Luigi Balbiano, of the University of Rome, 

 for his monograph on cerlain compounds of the pyridine series, 

 and Prof. Raffaele Nasini, of the University of Padua, for a series 

 of twenty-seven papers on chemical physics. The prize for 

 philosophy has not been awarded. Two prizes of 1500 lire, 

 given by the Minister of Public Education, have been awarded — 

 one for mathematics, the other for ]3hilology. For the mathe- 

 matical prize eight candidates have submitted essays, and the 

 prize has been adjudged to Prof. Geminiano Pirondini, of Parma, 

 in consideration of eleven printed and written papers on geometry. 

 The philological prize has been divided between Profs. Filippo 

 Sensi, Silvio Pieri, G. B. Camozzi, Antonio Fiammazzo, and 

 Oreste Antognoni. Of a further prize, given by Signor Enrico 

 Santoro (an Italian residing in Constantinople), for mechanical 

 inventions relating to weaving or spinning, the award has been 

 postponed for a couple of years. These awards were announced 

 at the twenty-first anniversary commemoration of the revival 

 of the Academy on June 7, in presence of the King and Queen 

 of Italy. 



The prize awards of the French Societe d'Encouragement, 

 for 1896, were announced at the recent annual general meeting. 

 The Prix Giffard, for distinguished services to French industry, 

 NO. 1394, VOL. 54] 



is of the value of 6000 francs ; but this year, on accouiu oi 

 e.xceptional merit, it has been increa.sed to 10,000 francs and 

 divided equally between D. Legal, for his mechanical works, 

 and the family of the late A. Martin, renowned for his optical 

 researches. The Grand Gold Medal, awarded each year to the 

 author whose works have exercised the greatest influence on the 

 progress of French industry in the preceding six years, was this 

 year in the gift of the Comite des Arts mecaniques, who have 

 voted it to F". G. Kreutzberger, the inventor of numerous 

 improvements in machinery. M. Effront has been awarded the 

 Prix Parmentier of 1000 francs for his works on alcoholic 

 fermentations. The prize of 1000 francs for an oil motor has 

 been gained by the Priestman motor. M. Lefevre has obtained 

 the prize of 2000 francs for a publication useful to chemical 

 industry, by his remarkable " Traite des matieres colorantes," 

 reviewed in these columns on April 30 (vol. liii. p. 603). The 

 Prix Melsens, for the author of an application of physics or 

 chemistry to electricity, ballistics, or hygiene, has been awarded 

 to Dr. Castaing for his works on ventilation. The prize of 

 2000 francs for an incandescent lamp of one-candle power, 100 

 volts, 1/20 ampere, has not been awarded, but an cmowageiiioit 

 of 1000 francs has been given to MM. Javaux and Nysten, and 

 a similar sum to M. Solignac. The prize of 2000 francs, for 

 the best investigation on the ccmiparative jihysical and chemical 

 constitution of agricultural land in France, has also not been 

 awarded, but 1500 francs have been granted to MM. Beuret 

 and Brunet, and 500 francs to M. Waldmann. Grants of 1000 

 francs have been made to Prof. Zipcy and M. Jaffler as emour- 

 ageiiicnts in connection with the prize of 2000 francs for 

 pisciculture. 



The great sea-wave which accompanied the recent earth- 

 quake in Japan appears to have been even more destructive to 

 life and property on the north-east coast than was at first 

 reported. A dispatch received by the Japanese Legation, from 

 Tokyo, says: — "The loss of life and property caused by the 

 tidal wave, which visited the northeast coast of Japan on June 15, 

 is as follows, according to the official returns received up to the 

 22nd of that month. In the Prefecture of Aomori 346 lives 

 lost, 840 houses washed away ; in the Prefecture of Iwate, 

 23,309 lives lost, 5920 houses washed away ; in the Prefecture 

 of Miyagi, 3344 lives lost, 715 houses washed away. Besides 

 the above, the number of persons injured is as follows: 213, 

 23,840, 1 184 in the above Prefectures respectively." 



Dr. Brown Goode makes the following comparison in a 

 Report of the U.S. National Museum, lately issued : — "There is 

 not a department of the British Government to which a citizen 

 has a right to apply for information upon a scientific question. 

 This seems hard to believe, for I cannot think of any scientific 

 subject regarding which a letter, if addressed to the .scientific 

 bureaus in Washington, would not receive a full and practical 

 reply. It is estimated that not less than 20,000 such letters are 

 received each year. The Smithsonian Institution and National 

 Museum alone receive about 6000, and the proportion of these 

 from the new States and Territories, which have not yet developed 

 institutions of learning of their own, is the largest. An intelli- 

 gent question from a farmer of the frontier receives as much 

 attention as a communication from a Royal Academy of Sciences, 

 and often takes more time for the preparation of the reply." It 

 is little to the credit of British Governments that Dr. Goode's 

 comparison should be so much to our disadvantage. 



AccORlMNi; to the last report of the British Consul at the 

 Pirteus, a Pasteur Institute has been in existence in Athens for 

 more than a year. During this period 201 cases have been 

 treated, with only one death ; in that case the patient had 

 delayed submitting himself to treatment for fifteen days after 



