SEPTEMBER 1, 1899.] 
Mr. Alfred L. Jones, the Chairman of the 
School, stating that he will do all he can to as- 
sist the expedition, and expressing the hope 
that one result will be the establishment of a 
bacteriological laboratory in the colony. 
THE American word ‘scientist’ proposed by 
the late Dr. B. A. Gould is apparently becom- 
ing acclimatized in Great Britain. Though 
Nature has stated that the word is excluded 
from its columns it has occurred in the editorial 
notes. It will also be found in the Academy 
and in the London Times. The latter in the 
issue of August 15th even uses the word re- 
troactively speaking of ‘the great German 
scientists of the past.’ But the best testimony 
that the word must now be regarded as correct 
and classical English is the fact that it is to be 
found in ‘Mr. Thomas Hardy’s ‘Two on a 
Tower. 
THH issue of Nature for August 10th says: 
‘“¢We have received the number for July 21st of 
our American contemporary SCIENCE, which 
contains an elaborate article by Professor Un- 
derwood, headed ‘The Royal Botanic Gardens 
at Kew,’ in which the features of the garden 
and its position as a scientific institution‘ its- 
beautiful lawns, its delightful shade, its historic 
associations, its immense collections of plants, 
and its wonderful activity in the direction of 
botanical research ’—are described and dis- 
cussed with critical appreciation apropos the re- 
cent establishment of the Botanic Garden of 
New York and its capability to become ‘even 
more influential in democratic America than 
Kew has become throughout the length and 
breadth of the Queen’s dominions.’ It is grati- 
fying to have this acknowledgment of the work 
of Kew ; and the tribute paid to the versatility 
and ability of Sir William Thiselton-Dyer in 
promoting its devolopment and widening 
its influence will be everywhere endorsed. 
There are some blots on the escutcheon in the 
eyes of Professor Underwood, but we imagine 
there are many who will not see with him in 
all the instances he mentions. The crowding 
of the museum collections he notes is an appar- 
ent blemish, and one we may hope to see re- 
moved by the provision of increased room for 
the exhibition of the specimens. A somewhat 
SCIENCE. 
303 
jealous comparison of Kew and Berlin as cen- 
ters of botanical work is a jarring note in the 
article ; and Professor Underwood allows, we 
fear, German bias to weigh with him in making 
it, for instance, when he writes, ‘ the principles 
of plant distribution are not so thoroughly 
grasped at Kew as they have been brought out 
at the German Botanical Garden through the 
skill of Professor Engler and his associates.’ 
Yet Kew is the home of Sir Joseph Hooker !”’ 
WE learn from the London Times that the 
last issue of the Proceedings of the Asiatic 
Society of Bengal contains a paper by Mr. 
Oldham, the Superintendent of the Geological 
Survey of India, on the present system in that 
country by which every place keeps its own 
time. Mr. Oldham describes this asa barbarous 
arrangement, unworthy of a country pretending 
to civilization. A traveler going from one 
town to keep an appointment in another must 
find out how many minutes there is between 
the times of the two. To some extent a stand- 
ard time is used, for the railways adopt Madras 
mean time all over India, and the telegraph 
department does the same, but the Official Tele- 
graph Guide contains a table of 44 pages giving 
the difference between local and standard times. 
The adoption ofa single standard time for India 
would cause inconvenience because of the ex- 
tent of the empire from east to west ; in some 
places the difference would exceed an hour. 
This difficulty, Mr. Oldham suggests, would be 
met by adopting the system in use in Europe 
and North America of hour zones, by which 
the region is divided into belts running north 
and south, each 15° of longitude in width. 
Over each belt the same time is used, while in 
belts to the east and west a change of an hour for- 
wards or backwards is made. In India the lines 
could follow the boundaries of the chief adminis- 
trative divisions, as is done in the United States, 
Canada and Russia. After discussing various 
suggested standards of time, Mr. Oldham rec- 
ommends the adoption of the hour-zone system, 
using Greenwich as the starting point. This 
would give only two different times in India, an 
eastern time, exactly six hours later than 
Greenwich time, in use in Bengal, Assam and 
Burma, and a Western time, exactly five hours 
later than Greenwich, in use in the rest of India. 
