Notes and Comments. 263 



which has just recently removed from Fleet Street to Wigmore 

 Street and Covent Garden, and that John Dolland, who in 1750 

 founded the still-existing firm with its branches east and west 

 of Temple Bar, was a distinguished Fellow of the Royal Society, 

 and was awarded the Copley gold medal of that body in 1758. 

 Mr. Broadley also tells us that a balance made in 1757 by De 

 Grave, Short & Company, is still used by Messrs. Garrard, the 

 Court Jewellers: All who are interested in the development 

 of instruments will learn a great deal from those which are 

 figured on the various trade cards, and were sold at the sign 

 of the Azimuth Compass, the Golden Lion, or the Globe and 

 Sun. 



THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. 



The Origin of Life is the title of the Presidential Address 

 to the Birmingham and Midland Institute Scientific Society, 

 by Dr. John Hall-Edwards.* The author is evidently im- 

 pressed with the fact that Leduc ' proves that neither evolu- 

 tion, nutrition, sensibility, growth, organisation, not even the 

 faculty of reproduction, is the exclusive appanage of life, and 

 that the same physical forces acting upon the same chemical 

 elements are common to both the organic and inorganic worlds.' 

 He also refers to Dr. Bastian's experiments, when he ' con- 

 fined certain superheated saline solutions in hermetically 

 sealed glass vessels, which, after being exposed to daylight 

 for several months, were opened, and the slight amount of 

 precipitate examined under the microscope has been found to 

 contain living organisms. If these results can be substantiated, 

 we shall, I am afraid, have to swallow the bitter pill, and accept 

 spontaneous generation as a fact.' //. We suppose there 

 was some reason for printing the pamphlet on pages of the size 

 of those of a family bible, though, personally, we can see no 

 reason why it could not have been printed ordinary octavo 

 size. 



CARLISLE NATURALISTS. 



We have again to congratulate the Carlisle Natural History 

 Society upon the care with which its Transactions have been 

 produced. Volume II., for 1912, is before us, and every one 

 of its 256 pages bears upon the Carlisle district, and contains 

 original observations, devoid of talky-talky padding. The 

 editors are Messrs. Day, Hope and Murray. The first article 

 is an appreciative memoir on the late H. A. Macpherson, 

 M.B.O.U., with portrait, and is written by the Curator of the 

 Museum, Mr. Linnaeus Hope. Mr. J. W. Branson gives an 

 exhaustive account of the Minerals of Cumberland ; • Mr. 

 H. Britten, a lengthy account of the Arachnids (Spiders, etc.), 



* 16 pp. London : Rebman, Ltd. 6d. 

 1912 Sept. I. 



