ApKlL 29, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



709 



During last year the number of tests made 

 in the engineering and physics departments 

 was 1,330, and the fees received amounted to 

 £350, a sum of £536 being also received for 

 researches undertaken in the laboratory; in 

 the nine months of 1902 during which those 

 departments were open the tests numbered only 

 269 and the fees were £69. In addition, many 

 applications were made for tests which the 

 laboratory was unable to undertake, owing to 

 lack of equipment; among these were tests on 

 wire and wire ropes, on rubber, on the tensile 

 strength of metals after special hardening, on 

 cement and stone, on very high-speed anemom- 

 eters, and on alternate-current instruments of 

 all kinds. In the engineering department the 

 need of a powerful testing machine was greatly 

 felt, and work had constantly to be declined 

 which would have been accepted if such a 

 machine had been available. 



But while the work of the laboratory ■ has 

 prospered, its financial position gives rise to 

 grave anxiety. The receipts for 1903 were 

 £10,200 and the expenditures £10,306, the de- 

 ficiency thus being £106. In the preceding 

 year the receipts were £9,314 and the expenses 

 £9,235, the balance being £79. In addition, 

 £1,036 was spent in 1903 on equipment out 

 of the accumulations transferred from the 

 Kew committee. Thus the laboratory is spend- 

 ing more than its income, and in the opinion 

 of the executive committee a further increase 

 of expenditure will be necessary in the present 

 year. By drawing on the available balance 

 of £2,379 it will be possible to go on for 

 another year, but the committee feels that the 

 time has come when the financial position must 

 be reconsidered. This is the more necessary 

 since the period for which the grant of £4,000 

 was originally made ends next September, 

 though the Eoyal Society has arranged with 

 the treasury that it shall continue till April, 

 1905, and that a scheme for the future shall be 

 considered by the treasury. The committee 

 holds that an increase of funds is necessary 

 even to maintain the work as at present, and a 

 further increase of work for which there is a 

 demand is to be carried out. It also thinks 

 that, for the sake of permanence, the positions 

 of the senior members of the staS should be 



made more secure, and that the stipends now 

 paid to the assistants — with one exception £200 

 a year — are not commensurate with the work 

 and are insufficient to retain for long the serv- 

 ices of suitable men, while in addition the 

 staff is now too small. It points out that simi- 

 lar institutions in other countries obtain more 

 assistance from the state; in particular, the 

 Eeichsanstalt in Berlin alone gets £16,000, 

 and the annual grants to the various institu- 

 tions at Oharlottenburg, which together cover 

 the ground covered by the National Physical 

 Laboratory, comes to about £40,000. 



THE BERMUDA BIOLOGICAL STATION FOR 

 RESEARCH. 



Harvabd University and New York Uni- 

 versity again unite with the Bermuda Natural 

 History Society in inviting zoologists and bot- 

 anists to spend six weeks in the temporary 

 biological station located, as last year, at the 

 Flatts, Bermuda. 



Venerable George Tucker, Archdeacon, president 

 of the Bermuda Natural History Society. 



Hon. W. Maxwell Greene, Consul U. S. A., vice- 

 president of the Bermuda Natural History So- 

 ciety. 



F. Goodwin Gosling, honorary secretary of the 

 Bermuda Natural History Society. 



E. L. Mark, director of the Zoological Labora- 

 tory, Harvard University. 



C. L. Bristol, professor of biology, New York 

 University. 



The Bermuda Islands are about seven hun- 

 dred miles southeast of New York. They are 

 nearly due east from Savannah, due south 

 from Halifax, and due north from Porto Eico, 

 being about equidistant from these three 

 points. Since their discovery, in the seven- 

 teenth century, they have belonged to Great 

 Britain, which maintains an important naval 

 and military station there. 



The climate is mild during the whole year, 

 not being subject to the extremes that are 

 found either in the temperate or tropical re- 

 gions. The summer temperature is rarely 

 higher than 85° P., and the winter rarely be- 

 low 50° P. In the summer light breezes are 

 almost constant end help to make the climate 

 quite as comfortable as at many seaside re- 

 sorts. 



