io8 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



We would draw our readers' attention to the first 

 article in this number of Sciexce-Gossip. It is 

 specially written by a member of the party who are 

 now trying to reach the North Pole by balloon. 

 As we write, nothing certain has been heard of 

 their adventure, which must necessarily cause 

 their friends much anxiety. 



The interest in Polar exploration has, during 

 the past month, been greatly increased by the safe 

 return of Dr. Xansen. Although he has not 

 succeeded in reaching his goal, he brings home a 

 mass of valuable scientific observations. He 

 succeeded in considerably reducing the distance, 

 which has already been reached, from the North 

 Pole. 



Mr. Jackson, of the Jackson-Harmsworth Polar 

 Expedition, \rill make every effort to reduce Dr. 

 Xansen's approach to the Pole. He is admirably 

 equipped for the journey, and may possibly succeed 

 in reaching the North Pole. He has now Dr. 

 Nansen's experience to help his own judgment. 

 It is now thought that there is no land in that 

 region. 



There seems after all to be a chance of some 

 scientific observations having been made on the 

 total eclipse of the sun this month. It is reported 

 that Sir George Baden Powell's yacht, Otaria, is 

 returning from Nova Zembla with the astronomers 

 who accepted his invitation to make an expedition 

 for observing the eclipse. It is said they had a 

 clear sky and were most successful. 



We have received the " Proceedings of the 

 Liverpool Geological Society"' for 1S94-95, part 3, 

 vol. vii. This part contains several articles of 

 more than local interest. The members of the 

 Association have taken advantage of some new 

 railway cuttings to examine the more recent strata 

 in their district. 



Owens College, Manchester, has lost a member 

 of its scientific staff who will be much missed, in 

 Mr. Thomas Hick, B.A., B.Sc, Demonstrator in 

 Botany. A self-taught man, he graduated at the 

 London Universit}'. Always an indefatigable 

 worker, although for months past he knew his 

 disease must soon carry him o&, he attended his 

 duties at Owens College to within a fortnight of 

 his death. 



We, last month, omitted to mention the death of 

 Mr. Henry James Slack, the author of the well- 

 known book on "The Mar\-els of Pond Life," 

 which occurred at Forest Row, Sussex, at the age 

 of seventy-seven years. He was a well-known 

 microscopist, but also took interest in other 

 branches of science, especially astronomy. Mr. 

 Slack was the originator of the winter science 

 lectures, so popular on Sunday evenings in London, 

 under the auspices of the National Sunday League, 

 of which society he was for a time president. He 

 was also a past-president of the Royal Microscopical 

 Society. 



A ccRious instance of the dispersal of mollusca 

 by human agency is related in the " Jahresheft der 

 Naturwissenschaftlichen Vereines des Trencsener 

 Comitates," 1895-96, from which it appears that 

 the Collector Fennichel sent to the museum in 

 Budapest, a large number of shells of Helix pro/uga, 

 a member of the circum-Mediterranean fauna, 

 collected in the neighbourhood of Astrolobe Bay, 

 New Guinea, where it must, of course, have been 

 introduced at some time or other. 



The Pharmaceutical Society has recently tried a 

 test case under the Pharmacy Act of 1868, against 

 a London taxidermist, for selling cyanide of 

 potassium in killing-bottles, as used by entomo- 

 logists. The court gave its decision in favour of 

 the Society, and assessed the damages at £5, with 

 costs. Naturalists will therefore in future be 

 obliged to get their instruments of death from 

 their chemists, as it is illegal for taxidermists or 

 others not qualified to sell such poisons. 



In connection with the Liverpool meeting of the 

 British Association, from September i6th to 23rd, 

 the local committee have arranged for a loan 

 exhibition of objects, especially in view of illustrat- 

 ing the papers or demonstrations to be placed 

 before the meeting. The collection will be displayed 

 in the new museum, now nearly finished, for the 

 Zoological Department of University College, 

 Liverpool. Readers desiring to exhibit should 

 write to Professor Herdman, University College, 

 Liverpool. 



Messrs. Frederick Warne and Co., of London, 

 are issuing a new and important work upon 

 "Favourite Flowers of Garden and Greenhouse." 

 Although it is chiefly intended for horticulturists, 

 with instructions for growing plants bj- IMr. 

 William Watson, of Kew Gardens, ]\Ir. Edward 

 Step is to make the chief feature of the book 

 interesting with popular scientific accounts of each 

 plant. It is to be illustrated by 316 coloured 

 plates by ^NI. D. Bois, of Paris. It will appear in 

 weekly shilling parts, each containing six coloured 

 plates. 



If the extraordinary death-rate from heat 

 apoplexy which has during the past month afflicted 

 New York is any criterion of the intensity of the 

 temperature in that city, it must have been high 

 indeed. We doubt if the heat was so much the 

 cause of the afiliction as the custom of the people 

 constantly using ice and iced drinks. We hear of 

 the British-Egyptian Army in the Soudan at the 

 same period, working while the thermometer 

 registered 130' F. in the shade, but not of any 

 specially increased death-rate among the troops. 



The "Canadian Entomologist" for August 

 contains a sad instance of death whilst collecting 

 rare insects. John B. Lembert for some time past 

 had collected in the Yosemite Park, one of the 

 magnificent public reserves in Western America. 

 Lining all alone in the wild mountains of those 

 regions the years round, he was chiefly known by 

 correspondence and the value of his captures. On 

 April 19th last, a passing Indian found his mur- 

 dered body in the solitary cabin where he dwelt. Pelf 

 could not have tempted his murderer, for Lembert 

 had neither money nor valuables. , His death is a 

 great loss to American entomology, for although a 

 collector first. Lembert was a keen observer and 

 recorder of the habits and iife-history of insects. 

 His age is supposed to have been fifty-six years, 

 but he leaves no one to mourn for his loss. 



