September 24, 1896] 



NA TURE 



5'7 



■ilated, there is little In say al«nit the mining operations, so- 

 called. All is in the open. The hillside is broken out by 

 blasting, the ore is sorte<l by hand, and is then carried down lo 

 the ships in buckets on an aerial railway of wire rope, or by 

 trucks running on inclines. In the level parts near the river 

 locomotives are used, but the great motive power is supplied by 

 the gravity of the material itself. 



After leaving the anchorage oft' the Bilbao River, the Ormuz pro- 

 ceeded to Santander, where excursions were made a.shore. From 

 thence she went to San Sebastian, where members were landed, 

 and explored the neighbourhood. Finally, the ship was anchored 

 oft' St. Jean de Luz, from whence Biarritz and Bayonne were 

 visited, and finally the Ormuz reached Tilbury once more on 

 Saturday morning. September 12, after having had a most 

 successful fortnight's voyage. 



NOTES. 



Letters have been received from Prof. Sollas, by the Chair- 

 man and Secretary of the Coral Reef Boring Cuminittee of the 

 Royal Society, which show that, so far as the inain object of the 

 ex|>cdilion is concerned, the efi'ort has been an almost complete 

 failure. When the party had landed on Funafuti from the 

 Penguin, they selected the most promising site, as it appeared, 

 for a bore-hole. The apparatus was landed and set up, and a 

 borehole carried down to a depth of about 65 feet, when further 

 progress became impossible, for material like a quicksand was 

 struck which choked the bore-hole. \'ery little solid coral rock 

 was pierced. To pass over the steps then taken, it may be 

 enough at present to say that another attempt was ultimately 

 made nearer to the edge of the island, where there appeared 

 some hope of finding more solid coral rock. This boring was 

 carried down to 72 feet, and then similar difficulties prevented 

 further progress. The material struck was a kind of quicksand 

 containing " boulders " of coral. As fast as the sand was got 

 out, fresh material poured in, and the water pumped down the 

 tube, with a view of cleaning it, actually flowed out into the 

 surrounding bed, while the coral boulders made it impossible to 

 drive the tubes through the quicksand. So far as the reef was 

 pierced it appeared to be not solid coral, but more like a " vast 

 coarse sponge of coral with wide interstices, either empty or 

 sand-filled." It is very unfortunate that the efforts of the 

 Koyal Society, and the liberal aid of the Admiralty and of 

 friends and authorities in Sydney, should be so ill-rewarded ; 

 still, though the expedition has failed in its main object, it has 

 met with great success in all the others. Large collections have 

 been made : Messrs. Gardiner and Hedley have thoroughly 

 investigated the fauna and flora, both land and marine, of the 

 atoll. Dr. Collingwood has obtained inl'ormation of ethnical 

 interest, and Captain Field a series of .soundings, both 

 within and without the atoll, which Prof. Sollas states are 

 more complete than have yet been obtained, and must greatly 

 modify our views as to the nature of coral reefs. Of all these 

 matters it would be premature to speak, till Prof. Sollas has 

 returned and been able to give fuller particulars, and Captain 

 I'ield has reported to the Admiralty. 



The International Congress of Meteorology is meeting this 

 year at Paris, under the presidency of .M. Mascart. Several 

 committees or sections have been appointed. One of them has 

 discussed the expediency of an international system of observa- 

 tions to be carried on jointly with the national system. Another 

 has considered the desirability of more frequent international 

 signals, so as to give warnings of storms. The difticulty of 

 delaying the regular Irafiic was urged as an obstacle, and the 

 section, while desiring a system of circular telegrams at a fixed 

 hour between the national central oftices, pronounced in favour 

 of the reception of local reports at each central office in time for 

 international exchanges by i o'clock a.m., Greenwich time. 

 Among the proposals made at the Congress is one for the 

 NO. 1404. VOL. 54] 



establishment .if a station cm the coast of Finland, which would 

 issue reports on the break-up of the ice, the movements of ice- 

 bergs, marine currents, and the prospects of fisheries. 



The Home Secretary has appointed Mr. Thomas Pickering 

 Pick to be the Inspector of Anatomy for the Provinces, in 

 place of Mr. John Birkett, resigned. 



The sixty-eighth annual meetingof the .Association of German 

 Men of Science and Medical Men is at present taking place at 

 Frankfort-on-Main. Among the addresses to be delivered 

 during the gathering are: — "Biology and the Science of 

 Health," by Prof. Buchner, of Munich ; "The Practical Aims 

 of Military Hygiene," by Dr. Below, of Berlin; and "New 

 ',)uestions in Pathological Anatomy," by Prof. Wiegert, of 

 Frankfort-on-Main. Among the discussions is one on " The 

 Results of Recent Investigations on the Brain," to which Prof. 

 Flechsig, of Leipzig, will contribute a paper on " The Localisa- 

 tion of Mental Processes " ; Prof. Edinger, of Frankfort, one on 

 "The Development of the Brain Paths in Animals" ; and Prof, 

 von Bergmann, of Berlin, one on "Tumours of the Brain." 



We are sorry to learn, from the Ceylon Observer, that Dr. 

 Trimen, the Director of the Ceylon Botanical (hardens, is some- 

 what seriously ill. 



The death is announced, from Paris, at the age of seventy- 

 seven, of M. Hippolyte Fizeau. M. Fizeau was a member of" 

 the Academy of Sciences, and an authority on the velocity of 

 rays of light and of electrical currents. 



We regret to have to record the death, at the age of forty- 

 five, of Dr. G. Brown Goode. He died at Washington, Sep- 

 tember 6. Dr. Goode was a Member of the National Academy 

 of Sciences, and one of the original Fellows of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science at the time of in 

 corporation of the latter in 1874, and had, as our readers wil- 

 reinember, just been elected Vice-President of the Section of 

 Zoology at the Bufl'alo meeting. 



The death of Dr. Goode, and the absence of Prof. Langley 

 from the United States, prevented the fiftieth annual meeting of 

 the trustees of the Smithsonian Institution (which was to have 

 been held on September 7) from taking place. This was the first 

 time in the existence of the Institution that the annual meeting 

 had failed to be held. 



News has been received of the massacre, on August 10, by 

 natives of Guadalcanar of the Solomon Islands, of a portion of- 

 a party, detached from the Austrian war vessel Albatross, for- 

 purposes of scientific research. It is reported that Baron 

 Foullon, a geologist, a midshipman and two sailors were 

 killed, and six others wounded, four seriously. Efforts made 

 by the British Resident to recover the dead bodies were unsuc- 

 cessful. 



.\ Reuter telegram from St. Petersburg, dated September 

 17, slates that a telegram from Vladivostok announces that the 

 expedition for the exploration of Kamtchatka, under MM. Bog- 

 danovitch and Lemiakin, has made a thorough survey of the 

 die-trict between Chumikan and Ayan, discovering some rich 

 gold-fields of considerable extent. Gold of remarkably good 

 quality has been discovered in fourteen places in volcanic strata 

 on the banks of the river Aikashra. 



The correspondent of the Standard ^'i Rejkjavik, writing on 

 September 11, gives an account of the recent earthquakes in 

 Iceland. The first shock occurred on the evening of August 26, 

 and it was followed by another, somewhat less severe, the next 

 morning. These shocks were felt over the whole south-west of 

 the island, but were most violent in Rangarvalla Syssel, which 



