Januaby 3, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



39 



At the meeting of the Cardiff City Observa- 

 tory committee on November 30, says Nature, 

 it was announced that arrangements are busily 

 proceeding for the installation of a seismo- 

 graph at the observatory on Penylan Hill. 

 The seismograph is being provided by the 

 Cardiff Naturalists' Society, its up-keep being 

 undertaken by the city council. It is hoped 

 that the instrument may be installed early in 

 the new year, arid that Professor Milne will 

 be able to attend the opening. Professor 

 Milne has urged the establishment of a seismo- 

 graph at Cardiff, which will form a triangle 

 with the existing stations at Birmingham and 

 Shide. 



It is stated in Symon's Meteorological 

 Magazine that the commonwealth of Australia 

 has inaugurated a meteorological bureau for 

 the whole continent, with its headquarters in 

 Melbourne, and Mr. H. A. Hunt has been ap- 

 pointed the first commonwealth meteorologist. 

 The new bureau will have control of the 

 weather service over an area scarcely less than 

 that of the United States or the Dominion of 

 Canada, and very much larger than that of 

 India. 



A NUMBER of government bureaus and sci- 

 entific societies of Germany have united to 

 establish a series of meteorological stations ex- 

 tending through western Anatolia and Meso- 

 potamia, situated at Marash, Urfa, Mesereh, 

 near Kharkut; Kalat Shergat and Babylon. 

 It is expected that these stations will supply 

 information concerning the meteorological 

 conditions of the high plateau and mountain 

 land of the Taurus system and of the plateau 

 and steppes as well as the alluvial region of 

 the Euphrates and Tigris. 



Captain Benaed, the commander of the 

 Jacques Cartier, a vessel now being equipped 

 for a Polar expedition which is expected to 

 leave France at the end of March, has given 

 some particulars of the enterprise to the press. 

 It appears that the expedition has been 

 organized by a group of French students of 

 oceanography, the object being the observation 

 of facts belonging to that branch of science, 

 as well as maritime meteorology, the discovery 

 of new fishing grounds, and the exploration of 



territory believed to contain valuable mineral 

 deposits. There is no intention to break the 

 Polar record, but merely to explore an almost 

 unknown region, opening up a new field of ac- 

 tion to the owners of fishing fleets and to the 

 French mining industry. Scientific observa- 

 tions will be made in the bays of Novaya, 

 Zemlya, the Matotchkin Shar, and the Kara 

 Sea, which will benefit not only France but 

 all Europe. 



The Royal Meteorological Society, in order 

 to encourage the teaching of facts regarding 

 weather and climate in schools, are inviting 

 elementary teachers and others to send in 

 essays in the form of an original nature-study 

 lesson on weather or climate (not exceeding 

 1,500 words in length), together with a brief 

 synopsis of five other lessons to cover the 

 whole subject of climate and weather. If 

 essays of sufficient merit are received, three 

 prizes will be awarded of £5, £3 and £2, re- 

 spectively. 



We take the two following notes from the 

 Joiornal of the American Medical Association : 

 " The Vienna papers announce that forty-five 

 grains of radium have been extracted from 

 ten tons of ore given the Vienna Academy of 

 Sciences by the government. The Austrian 

 government refuses to sell the ore to for- 

 eigners." " The German railroads have or- 

 dered that the vision of employees must be 

 tested henceforth with the colored plates orig- 

 inated by Professor W. Nagel, of Berlin, in 

 place of the Holmgren skeins and yarns, 

 hitherto used for the tests." 



According to the London Times the British 

 Weights and Measures Association has pre- 

 sented to the Chinese Minister in London a 

 petition signed by 100 British firms doing 

 business in China. By an imperial edict is- 

 sued in Peking on October 9 the Board of 

 Revenue and Commerce was ordered to intro- 

 duce a uniform system of weights and meas- 

 ures throughout the Chinese empire and to 

 fix the standards within six months. The 

 petition asks that the standards to be adopted 

 as the base of the new uniform system should 

 be uniform with or multiples and sub-multiples 

 without fractions of, the English standards. 



