478 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 510. 



therefore continued their grants of £350 for 

 two years, and the' directors obtained from a 

 gentleman interested in the work sufficient 

 funds to carry on the observatories, in the 

 same manner as hitherto, till October of this 

 year. The committee issued their report a 

 few months ago, but as in it they only recom- 

 mended a continuance of the old grant of 

 £350, the directors sent a letter to the First 

 Lord of the Treasury asking for an additional 

 grant of £600 to defray that part of the annual 

 expenditure which has up to this time been 

 met by subscriptions. In reply the treasury 

 refused an additional grant, but offered to pay 

 the £350 recommended by the Committee of 

 Inquiry direct to the Scottish Meteorological 

 Society on behalf of the Ben Nevis Observa- 

 tory, instead of making this sum a charge on 

 the meteorological grant. The continuance 

 of the observatories could only be undertaken 

 on a guaranteed income of £1,000 a year. The 

 Treasury has only offered £350 a year, and the 

 directors have therefore no choice but to close 

 the observatories. 



We learn from the Bulletin of the Ameri- 

 can Geographical Society that the Paris 

 Geographical Society has just issued, under 

 the legacy of Eenoust des Orgeries, the first 

 number of the ' Documents Scientifiques de la 

 Mission Saharienne,' by F. Foureaii, chief of 

 the expedition. It contains the astronomical 

 and meteorological observations of the expedi- 

 tion, and will be followed by reports on topog- 

 raphy, geology, biology, ethnology, and 

 archeology. The accounts of the winds and 

 thunder-storms and some other phenomena are 

 especially minute. This legacy is to be ap- 

 plied to the aid of expeditions planned to 

 bring the interior of Africa under the in- 

 fluence of France and make a homogeneous 

 whole of her actual possessions in Algeria, 

 Senegal and the Congo. 



A Welsh national conference of delegates 

 appointed by the Welsh county councils to 

 discuss the questions of afforestation in the 

 principality met recently at Swansea, Sir 

 Charles Philipps, the chairman, says the Lon- 

 don Times, in referring to the great im- 

 portance of the study of forestry, said that the 

 object of that meeting was to consider how 



best to advise the county councils. After 

 reference to the report of the departmental 

 committee of 1902, the speaker said that there 

 was in Wales an enormous area which could 

 be profitably afforested, and pointed to the 

 fact that afforestation gave employment to 

 ten men, where sheep farming would only give 

 employment to one. It was necessary that 

 professors of the subject should be appointed 

 at the universities and that practical demon- 

 stration areas should be set apart. One of 

 the latter had been already established on high 

 meadow-land in the Forest of Dean. The 

 view was expressed, in course of discussion, 

 that the establishment of a central school of 

 forestry for Wales was of the utmost im- 

 portance, and that such a school would become 

 self-supporting after a few years. It was at 

 length resolved that the members should urge 

 on their respective councils the great impor- 

 tance of the study and practical application 

 of forestry by providing lectures to be given 

 at suitable centers and bursaries, enabling 

 students to attend these lectures; also that a 

 central school of forestry be established with 

 example plants of three or more acres, and 

 demonstration areas of suitable extent, and 

 that the necessary expense be defrayed by the 

 county councils on the basis of their respec- 

 tive ratable values, the whole amount now 

 asked for not to exceed £5,000. It was further 

 resolved to communicate what was being done 

 to the government department, in the hope 

 that a grant from the state would be made 

 towards their efforts. 



It is stated in the Bulletin of the American 

 Geographical Society that Mr. Shimpei 

 Kamase has presented to the society's library 

 an excellent photograph of his relief map of 

 the Japanese Empire, which is attracting much 

 attention in the Transportation Building at 

 the St. Louis Exposition. This map, about 

 100 feet in length by 50 in width, is so large 

 that clear idea of relief features is given with- 

 out very great exaggeration of the vertical 

 scale. The exaggeration is threefold — suffi- 

 cient, of courses, to distort in some measure 

 the mountain features, but it does not give the 

 observer the grossly-erroneous impression of 

 the topography that is conveyed by not a few 



