i66 



NATURE 



[August 5, 1909 



The British Medical Journal announces the death of 

 Prof. A. Fraser, occupant of the chair of anatomy in the 

 Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin. 



From an obituary notice by Herr von Konkoly, appear- 

 ing in the Astrorioinische Nachrichten, we learn' with 

 regret of the death of Herr Eugen von Gothard, known 

 throughout the astronomical world for his brilliant re- 

 searches on the spectra of comets, nebulae, novse, and 

 other celestial objects at his private observatory at 

 Hereny, Steinamanger, Hungary. In 1892 von Gothard 

 photographed the spectrum of Swift's comet on the same 

 plate as the spectrum of the base of a Bunsen flame, and 

 thereby showed the two spectra to be identical so far as 

 the fourth band. He also obtained illuminating spectra 

 of Nova Persei in 1901, and did a great deal of experi- 

 mental work on the construction of various astronomical 

 instruments. At the time of his death, May 29, von 

 •Gothard was only fifty-two years of age, a fact which 

 makes the loss of a devoted worker, possessing exceptional 

 abilities, more keenly felt by all those interested in the 

 progress of astrophysical science. 



Prof. F. H. Se.ires has resigned the directorship of 

 the Laws Observatory, of the University of Missouri, to 

 ■become superintendent of the computing division at the 

 Mount Wilson Solar Observatory. This post he assumed 

 on August I, and asks that all correspondence, pamphlets, 

 &c., shall be addressed to him at the Solar Observatory, 

 Pasadena, California. 



The Baly medal, awarded by the Royal College of 

 Physicians of London every alternate year to the person 

 who shall be deemed to have most distinguished himself 

 in the science of physiology, has been awarded to Dr. 

 Emil Fischer, professor of chemistry in the University of 

 Berlin ; and the Mo.xon medal, awarded every third year 

 to the person who shall be deemed to have most dis- 

 tinguished himself by observation and research in clinical 

 medicine, has been awarded to Sir W. R. Gowers, F.R.S. 



The recorder of the Engineering Section of the British 

 Association has sent us a copy of the provisional pro- 

 gramme of the proceedings at Winnipeg, in which the 

 following papers appear in addition to those mentioned 

 in the article on July 15 : — the National Transcontinental 

 Railway, Duncan MacPherson ; improvements in the naviga- 

 tion of the St. Lawrence, Lieut. -Colonel William P. 

 Anderson ; great engineering works on the Canadian 

 Pacific Railway, J. E. Schwitzer ; losses from high-tension 

 overhead lines due to brush discharge, E. A. Watson ; on 

 the calculation of the charging currents in three-core cables 

 and overhead transmission lines supplied with three-phase 

 currents, E. W. Marchant. 



Reuter messages state that two severe earthquake 

 shocks were experienced in Mexico City at 4.20 a.m. and 

 4.25 a.m. on July 30. Half the city is said to have been 

 destroyed by the earthquake. Chilpanzingo and Chilapa 

 are reported to have been destroyed. Earthquakes are 

 also reported as having occurred at intervals for fourteen 

 hours at Iguala and Guerrero. At Acapulco not a single 

 building escaped some damage ; in this locality the most 

 disastrous shock occurred during the afternoon of July 31, 

 when the water in the harbour is said to have receded 

 33 feet and then to have risen with great force, causing 

 much damage. Seventy-three shocks were felt during the 

 three days July 30 to August i. 



The second International Congress for the Repression 

 of Adulteration in Food, Chemical Products, Drugs, 

 Essential Oils, Aromatic Substances, Mineral Waters, 

 NO. 2075, VOL. 81] 



&c., is to be held in Paris on October 17-24. There are 

 likely to be representatives present from every civilised 

 country, and official delegates have been appointed by 

 many Governments. The particular object of the congress 

 is to define what operations are permissible in the handling 

 of food, and follow upon the definitions accepted at the 

 congress held in Geneva last year. The Society of the 

 White Cross of Geneva originated the idea of holding 

 these international congresses, and four congresses have 

 been arranged ; the third will be held probably at The 

 Hague in 1910, and the fourth in London in 1911. The 

 work of this year's congress will be held in three 

 sections : — the first, on alimentary technology, will be 

 presided over by Prof. Muntz, director of the chemical 

 laboratories of the National Agronomic Institute, Paris ; 

 the second section, dealing with hygiene, will be presided 

 over by Prof. Landouzy, of the faculty of medicine in 

 the Paris University ; and M. Guignard, director of the 

 School of Pharmacy, Paris, is the president of the third 

 section, which will be concerned with crude drugs, essential • 

 oils, chemical products, and mineral waters. Prof. Bordas 

 is the president of the executive board, and M. Maurice 

 Riviere, 16 Place Vend6me, Paris, the treasurer. Mr. 

 Loudon M. Douglas, 3 Lauder Road, Edinburgh, is the 

 honorary secretary for the United Kingdom, and men of 

 science and others in this country proposing to attend the 

 congress are asked to send an intimation of their inten- 

 tion to him. Subscriptions, which vary in amount accord- 

 ing to the character of the membership, should be sent 

 direct to the treasurer. 



No. I of vol. xvii. of the Proceedings of the Royal 

 Physical Society, Edinburgh, is devoted to the presidential 

 address of Mr. William Evans, in which our present know- 

 ledge of the fauna of the Forth area is discussed at con- 

 siderable length. 



We have been favoured with a copy of the report of the 

 Colombo Museum for 1908, in which the director, Dr. H. 

 Willey, emphasises the fact that the scope of that institu- 

 tion is restricted to the products, natural and artificial, of 

 the island of Ceylon. Special attention is directed to a 

 collection of bronzes and stone implements, several of which 

 are figured, found by the Archaeological Survey in 1907, 

 and deposited in the museum last year. 



We have received from the author, Dr. E. Balducci, a 

 copy of a paper, issued in the Fuhblicazoni de R. Istitiito 

 dt Sttidii Superiori Practici e di Perfezionamento in 

 Firenze, on a forest-hog from the Upper Congo, for which 

 the new name Hylochoerus gigliolii is proposed. No men- 

 tion is made of H. ituriensis from the same region, named 

 in 1906 by Dr. P. Matschie in the Annals of the Congo 

 Museum, but there can be no reasonable doubt that the 

 supposed new species is identical with that form. 



To vol. v., part vii., of tHe Annals of the South African 

 Museum, Dr. R. Broom communicates further particulars 

 with regard to the milk dentition of the aard-vark. The 

 full dental formula he believes to be ?.f, c.\, /.+/«. J. 

 Dr. Broom accepts, provisionally, the opinion that 

 Orycteropus is not an edentate ; but there is at present in- 

 sufficient evidence to determine its true affinities. It is 

 suggested that the above-mentioned dental formula is in- 

 herited from an early ancestor, and that the genus may 

 consequently be allied to the Mesozoic mammals, a number 1 

 of which, he states, may probably have had a similar | 

 formula. 



At the conclusion of an article on the sense of direction 

 in man, published in the July number of the. Revue des 



