SOUTH AFRICA: 1905, 631 
clue to the sudden and mysterious fractures of steel in connection with a develop- 
ment of perfect cleavage. He trusted that what he had said micht convey to his 
hearers the fact that steel metallurgy was not, as often supposed, a matter of 
boiling pig iron and slinging ingots, because its scientific consideration involved 
the highest flights of chemistry, physics, and opaque microscopy. In fact, it might 
well be that the answer to the question, ‘ What is steel?’ would be involved in 
the answer to the question, ‘ What is crystalline matter ?’ 
A. E. Surerey, F.R.S. : Fly-borne Diseases, Malaria, ke. 
The popular title of the lecture delivered by Mr, A. E, Shipley at Pretoria was 
‘The Infinite Torment of Flies.’ The lecturer began by referring to certain 
diseases, such as plague, cholera, &c., which are mechanically conveyed by flies 
from the sick to the healthy, and then passed on to consider those pathogenic 
organisms which pass some part of their life-history within the body of flies, gnats, 
&c. He discussed the habits of the disease-carrying Diptera, and described the 
various phases the parasites pass through both in man and in the insects ;-and he 
dwelt upon the biting apparatus which enables the flies, &c., to pierce the 
integument. Filariasis, malaria, yellow fever, sleeping sickness, and nagana were 
separately described, and hints were given as to the best way to combat these. 
In conclusion Mr. Shipley described the various tick-borne diseases —piroplasmiasis 
—the etiology of which has been so largely worked out in South Africa, 
Artuur R. Hinks, M.A. ; Zhe Milky Way and the Clouds of Magellan. 
The stars in general, and the coarse clusters, the gaseous nebulie, and fifth- 
type stars, are strongly condensed on the Milky Way and in the greater Cloud of 
Magellan. he spiral nebule avoid the Milky Way, but crowd into the greater 
Magellanic Cloud to meet the Milky Way constituents with which they are 
associated nowhere else. This striking distribution has suggested that the key to 
the structure of the universe will be found in the Magellanic Cloud. If we adopt 
this view, we must suppose that the universe is an organic whole, and that 
separative forces have kept the stars and spiral nebule apart except in one place. 
But the distributions are not so symmetrical about the poles of the Milky Way 
as to preclude the alternative hypothesis, that stars and spiral nebule are in 
independent clouds, more or less in one plane, but not organised in one system. 
2% The lectures by Professor Ayrton at Johannesburg and Sir William 
Crookes at Kimberley were privately printed in extenso. Mr. Randail-MacIver’s 
lecture is published as a Report to the Association (vide page 301), 
Ve 
South Africa Medal Fund. 
ExrcutivE ComMMITTEE, 
Sir George Darwin, K.C.B. (Chairman). | Dr. Horace ‘I’. Brown, F.R.S. 
Professor J. Perry, F.R.S, (Honorary | Professor W. A. Herdman, F.R.S, 
Treasurer). Major P. A. MacMahon, F.R.S, 
A. Silva White, Esq. (Honorary | H. R. Mill, I'sq., D.Se. 
Secretary). F. W. Pavy, Esq., M.D., F.R.S, 
Colonel A. C, Bigg-Wither. Professor I. B, Poulton, PRS, 
In commemoration of the visit of the British Association to South Africa, a 
fund was raised, on the initiation of the President, for the endowment of a Medal 
and Scholarship or Studentship for South African Students. 
