May 7, 1885] 
W. Pengelly, F.R.S., Prof. W. Turner, F.R.S. Secretaries : 
G. W. Bloxam, F.L.S. (Recorder), J. G. Garson, M.D., Walter 
Hurst, B.Sc., A. MacGregor, M.B. The First General Meet- 
ing will be held on Wednesday, September 9, at $8 p.m. pre- 
cisely, when the Right Hon. Lord Rayleigh, M.A., D.C.L., 
LL.D., F.R.S., F.R.A.S., F.R.G.S., will resign the chair, 
and the Right Hon. Sir Lyon Playfair, K.C.B., M.P., Ph.D., 
LL.D., F.R.S. L. & E., F.C.S., President-Elect, will assume 
the Presidency, and deliver an address. On Thursday evening, 
September 10, at 8 p.m., there will be a Soirée ; on Friday 
evening, September 11, at 8.30 p.m., a discourse by Prof. W. 
Grylls Adams, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S.; on Monday evening, 
September 14, at 8.30 p.m., a discourse on ‘‘ The Great Ocean 
Basins,” by John Murray, F.R.S.E., Director of the Chad/enger 
Expedition Commission ; on Tuesday evening, September 15, 
at 8 p.m., a Soirée; on Wednesday, September 16, the con- 
cluding General Meeting will be held at 2.30 p.m. The lecture 
to working men will be on the ‘‘ Nature of Explosions,” by Mr. 
H. B. Dixon, M.A., F.C.S., Fellow of Trinity College, 
Oxford. 
WE understand that the Marquis of Lorne is likely to succeed 
Lord Aberdare as President of the Royal Geographical Society. 
Sir JouN LuBpock responded to the toast of ‘‘ Science” at 
the Royal Academy dinner on Saturday evening, and in doing 
so adduced one more argument on behalf of science as a training 
and discipline even from the standpoint of art. He claimed for 
the workers in science that the careful habit of observation and 
study in which they are necessarily trained enable them to derive 
peculiar enjoyment from the creations of artistic genius ; and he 
might have suggested in this connection the great advantage to 
the artist himself of a preliminary training in practical scientific 
work. 
Sir FREDERICK BRAMWELL has evidently a very high ideal 
of the training necessary to qualify a civil engineer for the per- 
formance of the duties of his calling. At the anniversary dinner 
last week he told his audience that the ideal engineer—‘‘ I am 
glad to say in many cases the real engineer—of the present day 
is one who has a scientific knowledge as the foundation for his 
technical training, and frequently that scientific knowledge is of 
a very extended character. Mechanics, it need hardly be said, 
are essential, but, in addition, many branches of physical science, 
such as heat, light, sound, hydraulics, pneumatics, magnetism, 
electricity, are all now within the knowledge of the accomplished 
engineer. Moreover, although I do not suggest that every 
engineer should be a chemist, it is quite certain that he should 
not be without some chemical instruction, even if it be confined 
to that which is needed to warn him that the time has arrived 
when he should seek sound chemical advice.” 
Dr. NoETLING, of the University of Kénigsberg, has been 
despatched by the Prussian Academy of Sciences to Lebanon, 
to study the geology of the Greater Hermon. 
THE Italians have lost no time in erecting a meteorological 
station at Massowah, which they have occupied quite recently. 
EarLy in the afternoon of the 2nd a loud detonation was 
heard from Mount Vesuvius, and two new craters, from which 
lava issued abundantly, were opened on the southern side 
at a height of about 200 metres above the upper station of the 
funicular railway. The lava flowed in the direction of Pompeii 
and Torre del Greco. The stream descends in a straight line 
for about half a kilometre, and then, turning sideways, is 
directed towards the crater of 1872. The new craters present 
the appearance of a great cleft. The lava has not spread beyond 
the side of the mountain, and according to the latest telegram 
the eruption is not increasing. 
NATURE 
hal 
Art half-past 1 o’clock on the morning of the Ist inst. two or 
three rather violent shocks of earthquake were felt at Vienna, 
accompanied by a rolling noise, and causing a great clattering of 
furniture. Shocks of far greater violence were experienced in 
Styria, where many houses were damaged and some persons 
were killed. In the we tern districts the shocks were of a slight 
character. The phenomenon appears to have extended south- 
ward as far as Gratz and westward to Bavaria. A shock was 
also felt at Monte Carlo at 10 minutes to 3 on the morning 
of the 2nd. The shock was strongest in the districts of Conda- 
mone and the Cap d’Aile. 
THE Annual Gener: Meeting of the members of the Iron 
and Steel Institute commenced yesterday. The Bessemer medal 
for the year was presented to Prof. Richard Akermann by Dr. 
Percy, F.R.S., the newly-elected President, who gave his 
inaugural address. The meeting will be continued to-day and 
to-morrow. The following is a list of some of the principal 
papers :—On the blast furnace value of coke from which the 
products of distillation have been collected, by Mr. I. Lowthian 
Bell, F.R.S.; on the manufacture of steel, by Sir Henry 
Bessemer, F.R.S.; on the mechanical properties of steel, by 
Dr. H. Wedding ; on the microscopic structure of steel, by Dr. 
Sorby ; on the causes of failures in steel plates, by Mr. W. 
Parker, of Lloyd’s; on a new description of wrought-iron 
castings, by Mr. T. Nordenfelt ; on natural gas, and its utilisa- 
tion for manufacturing purposes in the United States, by Mr. A. 
; Carnegie ; on a modified type of the Siemens gas-producer, 
whereby the gases are enriched and the bye-products recovered, 
by Mr. J. Head. We propose to draw attention to the scientific 
points in some of these papers next week. 
Pror. W. OpDLING will give the first of two lectures on 
Organic Septics and Antiseptics, at the Royal Institution, on 
Saturday, May 16. 
THERE is an excellent programme for May at the Royal 
Victoria Hall and Coffee Tavern, Waterloo Bridge Road, S.E. 
The science lectures on Tuesdays will be given by Dr. Dallinger, 
on wonderful things we do not personally see, onthe 12th ; and by 
Prof. Perry on the spinning tops of Japan and other countries, 
on the 19th. Owing to the depression in trade and wishing to 
put enjoyable entertainments within every one’s means, the 
management have decided to lower the prices of admission 
during May. 
THE Russian Geographical Society has awarded, this year, its 
great Constantine medal to M. A. S. Woeikoff for his important 
work, ‘‘The Climates of the Globe, and especially of 
Russia.” Analysing this work in the ‘‘ Annual Report for 
1884” of the Society, Dr. Robert E. Lenz shows how original 
itis in its fundamental idea. Instead of representing the 
climates as they result from the averages of climatological ele- 
ments, as is usually done in meteorological works, M. Woeikoff, 
like Dr. Hann in his ‘‘ Handbuch der Kli natologie,” but with 
much more fullness and detail:, tries to explain the local 
alterations which the general meteorological laws are submitted 
to in various countries in consequence of the topographical 
features of these last; and he verifies his conclusions with 
regard to each country by comparing them with those arrived at 
as to the climates of neighbouring countries, and establishes thus 
the elements of a comparative meteorology. The extensive 
travels of the author in Asia and America have enabled him to 
recognise the leading meteorological features of the climates he 
describes and to become acquainted, by personal knowledge, 
with the topographical features of each separate region. The 
first twenty-two chapters of this volume, 640 pages, are devoted 
to a detailed analysis of the chief meteorological elements : the 
heat received from the sun ; the dynamical and thermical conse- 
