October 22, 1896] 



NA TURE 



597 



1 isi, in his fifty-lhird year ; and M. Tisseranil, the distinguished 

 Director of the Paris Observatory, who died on Tuesday. 



The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia has con- 

 ferred the Hayden Memorial t'leological Award for 1896 on 

 I'lof. Giovanni Capellini, of the University of Bologna. 



\ SLIGHT earthquake occurred on the l6th inst. in North- 

 west Italy. .\ small shock was felt at several places in Southern 

 Piedmont and in Liguria, but no (iamages have been reported. 

 The disturbance was observed liy Prof. GuidoCora in Costigliole 

 d'Asti, and he informs us that the shock took place at 7. 18 a.m. ; 

 il was undiilatory, in the direction from north to south, and 

 lasted only a few seconds. 



Mr. Wili.i.\M Whitaker, K R.S., who joined the Geo- 

 logical Sur\ey of Great Britain in 1857, has just resigned his 

 |)Ost on the staff. For many years he has acted as District 

 .Surveyor in superintending the survey of the southern counties 

 • if Kngland. The loss of his experienced services will be much 

 felt by his colleagues, to say nothing of the loss of an ever- 

 cheery comjjanion. We trust he may long live to labour in 

 thecauseof geology. 



The Paris correspondent of the Times reports the occurrence 

 of a serious explosion, on Saturday last, in a building where for 

 two months M. Raoul Pictet, the distinguished chemist, has 

 l)een manufacturing acetylene. One of the steel tubes, 3 feet 

 long, used for storing the new gas, exploded. Such was the 

 violence of the explosion that the building was blown up, and 

 the windows of all the neighbouring houses were shattered. It 

 has been ascertained from the fragments that the tube which 

 burst, and which was practically full, was returned from 

 Brussels on the 13th mst. along with seventy-four empty ones. 

 The exact cause of the explosion is at present unknown. 



We regret to see announcements of the deaths of Dr. David 

 Garber, Professor of Mathematics and .•\stronomy in Muhlenburg 

 College, Allentown, Pa.; Dr. Theodor Margo, Professor of Com- 

 parative Anatomy and Zoology in the University of Budapest ; 

 Dr. Kochard, formerly President of the Paris Academy of 

 Medicine ; Dr. VV. H. Ross, fi>rmerly Professor of Anatomy in 

 the .Mobile Medical College, Alabama ; Dr Callender, Professor 

 of Neurology in the Vanderbilt University, Nashville. 



The following gentlemen have been nominated by the 

 Council of the London Mathematical Society for election as 

 the Council and officers for the ensuing session : — President, 

 Prof Klliott, F.R.S. ; Vice-Presidents, Major Macmahon, 

 R..V., F.R.S., M. Jenkins, and Dr. Hobson, F.R.S. ; 

 Treasurer, Dr. J. Larmor, F.R.S. ; Secretaries, R. Tucker 

 and A. E. H. Love, F.R.S. ; other members, Lieut. -Colonel 

 Cunningham, R.E., H. T. Gerrans, Dr. Glaisher, F.R.S., 

 Prof Greenhill, F.R.S., Prof Hill, F.R.S., Prof. Hudson, 

 A. B. Kcmpe, F.R.S., F. S. Macaulay, and D. B. Mair. At 

 the annual general meeting of the Society, which will be held 

 on November 12, Major Macmahon will take .is the subject of 

 his valedictory address, "The Combinatory .\nalysis." On 

 the same evening the De Morgan medal will be presented to 

 S. Roberts, F.R.S., who will be the fifth recipient of the medal. 



Conjointly with the Leigh Browne Trust, the Humani- 

 tarian League has arranged a .series of five " Humane Science 

 Lectures," to be given .11 St. Martin's Hall, Trafalgar Square, 

 W.C. The programme is as follows : October 27, " The 

 Need of a Rational and Humane Science," by E. Carpenter; 

 November 17, "Natural Selection and Mutual Aid," by 

 P. Kropotkin ; December 8, "The Humane Study of Natural 

 History," by J. Arthur Thomson; January 19, "The Treat- 

 ment of Criminals," by Rev. Dougla.s MorrLson ; February 9, 

 *' -Suggestion : its place in Medicine and Research," by Dr. 

 NO. 1408, VOL. 54I 



Milne Bramwell. The general title, under which the lectures- 

 are grouped, is explained in the following extract from the 

 prospectus. "The various departments of science are ever 

 growing rapidly in extent, so rapidly thai their correlation 

 lends to fall behind, and in some directions to be overlooked ; 

 yet this correlation is not only an end, bul a means of scientific 

 progress. The objects, methods, and results of each depart- 

 ment should tend to the advance of science as a whole, physical 

 and menial, and only when thus directed will they conduce to- 

 permanent human welfare. An uncorrelated department of 

 science tends to lose either life or balance. To illustrate this, 

 and to show methods of research which do not violate the 

 essential unity of nature, and the excellent result to be obtained 

 by such methods, is one of the aims of the proposed course of 

 lectures." 



FiKTY years ago last Friday, on October 16, 1846, the first 

 surgical operation under the influence of ether was performed 

 in the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, by Dr. John C. 

 Warren, the anaesthetic being .idministered by Dr. W. T. G. 

 Morton, who had already proved its anassthetic properties in 

 tooth extraction. In commemoration of the introduction of this 

 blessed relief to suffering humanity, the current number of the 

 British Medical Journal contains a very interesting account of 

 the circumstances attending the discovery and use of ether as 

 an anaesthetic, and of the subsequent introduction of chloroform 

 into general use. The credit of having practically proved for 

 the first time the possibility of abolishing sensation so entirely 

 that a painful operation could be done without being felt, belong 

 to Horace Wells, a young dentist of Hartford, Connecticut, who 

 had a tooth extracted while under the influence of nitrous oxide 

 gas on December 11, 1S44. Morton followed with the use of 

 ether in 1846, and in the next year Sir James Simpson com- 

 municated his discovery of chloroform to the Medico-Chirurgical 

 Society of Edinburgh, in a paper entitled " Notice of a New- 

 Anaesthetic Agent as a Substitute for Sulphuric Ether," the first 

 operation under its influence being performed on November 15, 

 1847. To Simpson also belongs the credit of having made 

 anaesthesia triumph over the violent opposition with which it 

 was assailed. In addition to a general history of anaesthetics, 

 the British Medical Journal contains an account, by Dr. 

 \V. Squire, of the first operation under ether in Great Britain, 

 and a retrospective article by Dr. Dudley W. Buxton. 



Two interesting instances of birds apparently profiting by 

 experience are related by Dr. R. Williams in the Zoologist. 

 The proprietor of a certain wood, having found that the wood 

 was a nesting stronghold of blackbirds and thrushes, made 

 systematic raids on their nests in consequence of the damage 

 done by the birds to his fruit. The result was that both the 

 blackbirds and thrushes departed from their usual habit in the 

 choice of nesting sites, and, instead of building in the thickets 

 and small fir-trees with which the wood abounded, they built 

 their nests upon the ground. The second case refers to the 

 common sandpiper, which usually nests on patches of gravel 

 thrown up by a river, and more or less covered with docks and 

 other weeds. On one occasion when the sandpipers had built 

 their nests and commenced to sit, the river near Dr. Williams' 

 house overflowed its banks, and the nests were destroyed. On 

 the subsidence of the water, the birds built again on their old 

 sites, only to have their nests again swept away by another 

 flood. In the next season the sandpipers neglected the eligible 

 riparian building sites, and nested away from the river. The 

 observations indicate that the birds remembered former 

 calamities, and made use of their dearly-bouglit experience by 

 choosing positions inaccessible to the highest flood. The birds 

 continued to nest at some distance from the river for three 

 sea.sons, after which they resumed their former nesting-places 

 close to the water. 



