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SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



We understand that with the end of this year 

 Mr. James Britten, F.L.S., ceases his connection, 

 as editor, with " Nature Notes," the organ of the 

 Selborne Society. 



The October number of the "Observatory" is 

 illustrated by a portrait of Mr. W. F. Denning, 

 whose name has been made famous by his work of 

 so many years as practical observer of meteors, as 

 well as in other branches of astronomy. 



The German Society of Men of Science and 

 Physicians will hold its next meeting at Diissel- 

 dorf, in 1898, under the presidency of Professor 

 Waldeyer, of Berlin. The secretaries will be 

 Professor Mooren and Dr. Von Vichoff, of Diissel- 

 dorf. 



We regret to hear that in consequence of urgent 

 medical advice, Sir William H. Flower, K.C.B., 

 F.R S., will not be able to preside, as arranged, at 

 the next International Congress of Zoology, to be 

 held at Cambridge in August, 1898. Sir John 

 Lubbock, Bart., F.R.S., has been elected President 

 in Sir William's place. 



Professor Oliver Lodge, F.R.S., will deliver 

 the first of a course of six Christmas Lectures 

 (specially adapted to young people) on " The 

 Principles of the Electric Telegraph," at the Royal 

 Institution, on December 28th. The remaining 

 lectures will be given on December 30th, 1897, and 

 January 1st, 4th, 6th and Sth, 1898. 



One of the most remarkable effects produced 

 by photography is nightly shown on the immense 

 screen at the London Palace Theatre of Varieties, 

 by the so-called " Biograph." It represents the 

 appearance of the approaching landscape as seen 

 from the front of a railway engine travelling at sixty 

 miles an hour. The long series of these moving 

 pictures is to be numbered among the wonders of 

 modern science. 



About half a century ago, tnere was taken a 

 cream-coloured variety of the common marbled- 

 white butterfly. The specimen has ever since 

 remained in the collection of that well-known 

 authority on the ichneumon flies, the Rev. T. A. 

 Marshall, who has retired from the Church, and 

 gone to live in Corsica. Mr. Marshall consequently 

 placed his collections in the hands of Mr. Oliver 

 Janson, of Great Russell Street, London, for sale. 

 We hear the cream-coloured variety realised £zi. 



We have received an illustrated reprint of a 

 paper read before the British Archaeological 

 Society, by Dr. Benjamin Winstone, upon " Some 

 Primitive Ornamentation found on Prehistoric 

 Pottery." The paper has scientific value from an 

 ethnological point of view, as it compares certain 

 types of ornament on the rough earthenware of 

 prehistoric people of the continents of Europe and 

 North America. There is actual identity in some 

 of the patterns used on both sides of the Atlantic, 

 and their origin forms the basis of Dr. Winstone's 

 useful paper. 



The death is announced of the Hon. Ralph 

 Abercromby, the eminent meteorologist and 

 authority on cloud formations. He was born in 

 1842. 



Professor Gerald Lippmann, Paris, has been 

 awarded the principal medal of the Royal Photo- 

 graphic Society for his work in colour photography 

 by the interference method. 



The valuable collection of vertebrata made by 

 Mr. A. C. Savin from the forest bed, Norfolk, has 

 been purchased by the trustees for the British 

 Museum of Natural History. 



The Council of the Linnean Society of New 

 South Wales, Sydney, is prepared to consider 

 applications for the position of Macleary Bacterio- 

 logist. The salary is /500 a year. 



We have to announce the death of Dr. R. P. H. 

 Hardenham, who, since October, 1859, has been 

 Professor of Physiology at Breslau. He is the 

 author of important works on experimental phy- 

 siology, the most valuable being on " Secretion." 



Dublin scientific circles will sadly miss the 

 Rev. Samuel Houghton, M.D., F.R.S., who is also 

 dead. Dr. Houghton was long connected with 

 Trinity College, Dublin, and was for twenty years 

 Secretary of the Royal Zoological Society of 

 Ireland. He was born at Carlow in 1821. 



Captain E. Y. Watson, of the Commissariat 

 Department, was unfortunately shot through the 

 head in the Indian frontier fighting, and died on 

 November Sth. Entomologists have lost in him 

 one of their most promising workers. It was only 

 quite recently that Captain Watson issued a re- 

 vision of the Hesperidae, or skipper butterflies, of 

 the world. 



From M. E. Seriziat, 70 bis Quai Claude-Lorrain, 

 Nancy, we have received a circular relating to 

 " Lepidopochromy," or the art of reproducing 

 butterflies by the fixation of their colouring matter 

 on paper. On the circular is a very beautiful 

 example of the art, which, though not new, has 

 been greatly perfected. The price is 2ofr. per 

 hundred pictures. 



It is with regret that we chronicle the sudden 

 death, at the early age of 49 years, of Sir James 

 Ramsay-Gibson-Maitland, Bart., F.L.S., F.Z.S., 

 F.G.S., of Sauchie and Craigend, Stirling. Edu- 

 cated at St. Andrew's University and Sandhurst, he 

 was an authority on pisciculture and a member of 

 several fishery boards. His celebrated and suc- 

 cessful fish-culture establishment at Howietown 

 was the pioneer of scientific rearing and hybridiza- 

 tion of the Salmonidae in this country. 



The Royal Society has awarded a Royal medal 

 to Sir Archibald Geikie, F.R.S., for his many 

 valuable and original researches in geology ; also 

 a Royal medal to Professor Charles Vernon Boys, 

 F.R.S., on account of his studies of quartz fibres and 

 investigation of their properties. The Copley medal 

 goes to Professor Carl Gegenbaur, Foreign Member 

 R.S., forhisresearches in comparative anatomy; the 

 Rumford medal to Professor Philipp Lenard and 

 to Professor W. Conrad Rontgen for investigation 

 of the phenomena produced outside a highly ex- 

 hausted vacuum tube through which electrical 

 discharge is taking place ; the Davy medal to 

 Professor Henri Moissan, of Paris, the discoverer 

 of the commercial method of producing acetylene 

 gas as an illuminant ; and the Darwin medal to 

 Professor Giovanbattista Grassi, of Rome. 



