August 13, 1896] 



NATURE 



OOJ 



The deaths are announced of Dr. Kanitz, Professor of Botany 

 in Klausenberg University, and Dr. Simony, formerly Professor 

 r>f Physiography at Vienna. 



OwiNO to a doubt having arisen as to whether the publication 

 of Clima/e and Health was aulhoriseii by the Act approjirialing 

 to the U.S. Department of Agriculture the grant for the fiscal 

 year ending June 30, 1897, that valuable repertory of statistical 

 and other information relating to climatology and its connection 

 with hygiene, has had to be discontinued. The special papers 

 intended for it will be published in separate bulletins. 



The opticians of Pennsylvania arc endeavouring to form a 

 State organisation, having for its objects, first, the elevation 

 and advancement of the profession and the mutual intercourse 

 and benefit of its members ; second, to encourage opticians to 

 perfect themselves in the study of optics and the scientific 

 adaptation of lenses in correcting errors of refraction ; and, 

 third, to discourage the haphazard and indiscriminate sale of 

 spectacles by irresponsible and ignorant persons. British 

 opticians might with advantage follow the lead of their Trans- 

 atlantic brethren. 



Tiiic fifteenth Congress of the Sanitary Institute will be held 

 at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, from September 2 to September 9. 

 An inaugural address will be delivered by Earl Percy, and 

 lectures will be given by Dr. A. Wynter Blyth and Sir Charles 

 A. Cameron. The Sections and their Presidents are: (i) 

 Sanitary Science and Preventive Medicine ; President, Prof. VV. 

 H. Corfield. (2) Engineering and .Architecture ; President, Sir 

 Andrew Noble. (3) Chemistry, Meteorology, and Geology ; 

 President, W. H. Dines. There will be conferences of port 

 sanitary authorities, medical officers of health, municipal and 

 county engineers, sanitary inspectors, and on domestic hygiene. 

 Excursions and visits to places of interest will be made during 

 the Congress, and particulars with reference to them will shortly 

 be made known. The Health Exhibition, held in connection 

 with the Congress, will be opened by the Duke of Cambridge. 



The summer meeting of the Institution of Junior Engineers 

 will be opened on Saturday at Edinburgh. After visiting the 

 I'orth Bridge and a number of industrial works, the members 

 will leave on Tuesday next for Glasgow, where many places of 

 engineering interest await their inspection. In the afternoon of 

 the same day the members will be received in the Municipal 

 Buildings by the Lord Provost and the Corporation, after- 

 wards being entertained to an excursion to visit one of the 

 new reservoirs of the Glasgow Corporation Water Works. 

 On Wednesday there will be an excursion to Dumbarton, and a 

 reception by the Provost and Town Council. An excursion will 

 take place on Thursday ; and on Friday various works will be 

 open for visiting, the selection being left with the members. In 

 the evening of Friday, the Institution's summer dinner will be 

 held at the Alexandra Hotel, Glasgow, the President, Mr. 

 Archibald Denny, in the chair, and Lord Kelvin the guest of 

 the evening. 



In the HiilUlin of the University of Wisconsin (Engineering 

 Series, vol. i. No. 9), Mr. G. A. Gerdtzen discusses in a very 

 complete manner the relative advantages of gas, steam, and 

 electricity for the supply of heat, light, and power for domestic 

 purposes. Electricity gives a perfect solution of the problem 

 considered apart from expense, but practically it is out of the 

 question for heating purposes. Although most of the European 

 work on the subject is mentioned and discussed, the chief interest 

 of the pa])er lies in the details of American practice. Stress is 

 laid by the author on the altered conditions due to the extensive 

 introduction of incandescent gas-burners. 



The following are among the exhibitions at present open, or 

 which will be opened in various parts of the world before the 

 NO. 1398, VOL. 54] 



end of the century. 1S96 : Odessa, Industrial and Fine .\rts ; 

 Prague, International Pharmaceutical ; Cannes, International ; 

 Rouen, National and Colonial ; Geneva, National ; Berlin, 

 Industrial ; Kiel, Maritime and Fisheries ; Mexico, IntSr- 

 national ; Exhibition at Para ; Exhibition at Johannesburg ; 

 New York, Electric ; Barcelona, Industrial Arts ; Denver 

 (Colorado), International Mining and Industrial ; Vienna, Agri- 

 cultural Machinery ; Nijni-Novgorod, National ; Innsbruck, 

 Hygienic ; Lyons, Exhibition of Natural Hygiene ; London, 

 Motors and Automatic Carriages. 1897 : Brussels, Inter- 

 national ; Hamburg, International Horticultural ; Rio Janeiro 

 Exhibition ; Guatemala, Central American ; Exhibition at 

 Brisbane; Exhibition at Stockholm; Montreal, International ; 

 Nashville (Tennessee), International Industrial and Fine Arts. 

 1S98 : Amsterdam, Universal; Exhibition at .St. Paul, Brazil; 

 Exhibition at Turin. 1899: Exhibition at Adelaide. 1900 : 

 Universal Exhibition at Paris. 



By the death of Mr. H. J. Slack, at the advanced age 

 of seventy-eight, science has lost one of its most keen journa- 

 listic champions. In years when headway had to be made 

 against prejudice and even antagonism, his enthusi.asm inspired 

 many younger workers, and he saw in the spread of science one 

 of the great factors of social progress. For many years he edited 

 the Intellectual Obse>~ver, which passed later into the Student, a 

 journal which to him w.as largely a labour of love, and which, 

 by its attractive form, had a wide educational value. His own 

 researches were mostly in microscopy, and he was successively 

 Secretary and President of the Royal Microscopical Society. 

 Forty-six papers are ascribed to his name in the Royal Society's 

 Scientific Catalogue; and his work entitled "The Marvels of 

 Pond Life," passed through three editions between 1861 and 

 1878. In 1879, as President of the National Sunday League, 

 Mr. Slack organised popular lectures for Sunday evenings in 

 London, and did much to inaugurate that movement in further- 

 ance of a rational Sunday, which has now gone so far as to 

 receive parliamentary recognition. He was one of those who 

 combined devotion to science with a broad sense of public 

 needs ; for him, science had its duties as well as its rights ; and 

 few can have come in contact with him without being the better 

 for his cheerful and unflagging zeal in the causes which he had 

 at heart. He was born on October 23, 1818, and died in his 

 house at Forest Row, Sussex, on June 16, 1S96. 



A Bill to legalise the use o» weights and measures of the 

 metric system in this country was read for the first time in 

 the House of Commons on July 30. The Bill is as follows : — 

 " I. (i) Notwithstanding anything in the Weights and Measures 

 Act, 1878, the use of a weight or measure of the metric system 

 in trade shall be lawful, and nothing in section nineteen of that 

 Act shall make void any contract, bargain, sale, or dealing by 

 reason only of its being made or had according to weights or 

 measures of the metric system. (2) A person using or having in 

 his possession a weight or measure of the metric system shall not 

 by reason thereof be liable to any fine. (3) For the Third 

 Schedule to the Weights and Measures Act, 1878, shall be 

 substituted the Schedule to this Act. II. Section thirty-eight 

 of the Weights and Measures Act, 1878, is hereby repealed, and 

 the Board of Trade shall verify copies of metric standards in the 

 same manner as if they were copies of Board of Trade standards, 

 and the provisions of that Act relating to the verification of local 

 standards shall apply accordingly. HI. In section forty of the 

 Weights and Measures Act, 1878, the expression 'local 

 standards of weights and measures' shall include local metric 

 standards and the provisions of that Act relating to local standards 

 shall apply accordingly." The Schedule to the Bill gives a series 

 of equivalents of metric and imperial weights and measures. 

 The Bill will not be proceeded with this Session. 



