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SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



SCIENCE GOSSIP 



Professor Alfred Cornu, of Paris will deliver 

 the Friday Evening Discourse at the Royal Institu- 

 tion on June 7th. The discourse will be in French, 

 and the subject will be " Phenomenes Physiques 

 des Hautes Regions de l'Atmosphere." 



The British Association meets this year at 

 Ipswich. The first general meeting will be held on 

 Wednesday, September nth, when the Marquis of 

 Salisbury will resign the chair, and Sir Douglas 

 Galton, the well-known writer on hygiene and allied 

 subjects, will deliver the presidential address. 



The Bristol Geologists' Association has issued 

 its programme of summer excursions, which are 

 five in number. The dates fixed are all on Sundays, 

 which gives the members a long day, as the start is 

 usually made by 9 a.m. The annual subscription 

 to this society is only one shilling. 



In our account of the sale of birds and eggs last 

 month (ante page 69), through an oversight it was 

 stated that the auctioneer withdrew the skin of a 

 great auk at 150 guineas, which should have been 

 350 guineas. It was afterwards privately sold for 

 £350 to the Edinburgh Natural History Museum. 



Greenland Shark off Scotland. — "The Annals 

 of Scottish Natural History " last published, records 

 the capture, in January last, of a Greenland shark 

 (Lcemavgus borealis) at about twenty-five miles north- 

 east of the Isle of May. It weighed one ton seven 

 and a half hundredweights, and was twenty-one feet 

 in length. Its stomach contained a seaman's boot 

 with a portion of a human leg. 



M. Moessard, of Paris, has recently invented 

 the Cylindrograph, or panoramic camera, by means 

 of which magnificent panoramic views can be 

 taken, embracing half the horizon without distor- 

 tion, on films from sixteen and a half inches to fifty- 

 five and a half inches long. This camera, svhich 

 can be supplied in England by Houghton and Son, 

 of High Holborn, possesses the advantage that if 

 one part of a landscape or building is in shadow, 

 whilst the other is well lighted, it is easy to give 

 the dark part two or three times the exposure of 

 the other 



The Royal Society held their first Conversazione, 

 on May 1st, in their rooms in Burlington House. 

 The second conversazione will be held sometime in 

 June; to this ladies will be admitted. The Marine 

 Biological Association, at Plymouth, sent some 

 marine organisms preserved in formic aldehyde, in 

 dilute solutions, this being specially useful for the 

 preservation of transparent organisms as museum 

 specimens. Another exhibit showed the action of 

 light on the under-sides of flat fishes. The flat 

 fishes exhibited were reared in a tank with a flat, 

 slate bottom and glass front. Those portions of 

 the under side of a fish which were not in contact 

 with the slate, and to which light was accessible, 

 this point being demonstrated by the exposure of a 

 photographic plate upon which the fish lay, had 

 become pigmented, whilst the remaining portions 

 were without pigment. 



An interesting feature at the conversazione of the 

 Royal Society, in May, was the results obtained by 

 Mr. W. T. Burgess from experiments proving the 

 extent to which flies may transmit infection of 

 disease from one person to another. It is needless 

 to add that harmless microbes were chosen for the 

 demonstration. 



Apropos of the value of specimens, we understand 

 that an extensive fraud has recently been discovered 

 in making up common species of humming-birds to 

 imitate others of great rarity By a skilful system 

 of dyeing the feathers, these have been successfully 

 passed off upon some experts as well as others, at 

 high prices. We hear the "manufactory" has 

 been in Paris. 



Dr. Ludwig Mond, who has already done so 

 much to promote scientific research in this country, 

 opened, on May 3rd, at the Owens College, 

 Manchester, the Schorlemmer Laboratory. Dr. 

 Mond said that the opening of the first laboratory 

 solely devoted to the study of organic chemistry, 

 connected with the only university in England 

 which could boast of a professor of that subject, 

 marked a distinct step forward in the development 

 of science in this country. 



Professor Dewar, on May 16th, brought to a 

 close a course of lectures at the Royal Institution on 

 " The Liquefaction of Gases." The Professor went 

 very fully into the historical aspects of his subject, 

 and justified himself against the charges brought 

 against him by Professor Olsweski, of Cracow, in 

 Austria. Liquid oxygen and liquid air were 

 exhibited to the large audiences by the pintfuls, and 

 we shall probably soon have the satisfaction of 

 seeing s -me liquid hydrogen. 



The recently constituted Union of Irish Field 

 Clubs will hold its first conference at Galway, from 

 July nth to 17th. Excursions will form part of 

 the programme, including visits to the lakes and 

 mountains of Connemara, and to the Arran Isles. 

 As we understand our Irish colleagues will welcome 

 English and Scotch visitors who are students of 

 natural science, or archaeologists, this will form an 

 excellent opportunity for visiting Western Ireland, 

 with especial facilities for travelling at reduced 

 rates and in good company. 



The circular issued by the Xetherland Zoological 

 Society on the subject of the second International 

 Zoological Congress to be held at Leyden, from 

 September 16th to 21st next, gives particulars of 

 sectional meetings. Full particulars may be 

 obtained from Dr. P. P. C. Hock, of Helder, the 

 general secretary. The Director of the celebrated 

 Leyden Natural History Museum, Dr. Jentink, is 

 to be President, and the Queen Regent of the 

 Netherlands is Patron. The subscription is £1 

 for members. 



At Whitsuntide, at least two London societies 

 take lengthened excursions. The Geologists' 

 Association, under the direction of Mr. E. A. 

 Walford, F.G.S., visits Banbury from Saturday 

 until Tuesday, the headquarters being the White 

 Lion Hotel. Mr. C. Davies Sherborn, F.G.S., of 

 540, King's Road, London, S.W., is the Hon. 

 Secretary of this vigorous society. The South 

 London Entomological and Natural History 

 Society has fixed a three days' excursion to the 

 New Forest. The forest should be looking 

 almost at its best, clothed in its new garb of 

 spring foliage and flowers ; some of the local 

 insects are due to emerge, especially among 

 coleoptera. 



