304 



SCIENCE- G OS SI P. 



COXTIUHUTED BY THE REV. J. BI. COBBETT, 

 B.A. OXON. 



An interestiDg event in the world of science last 

 month was the formal admittance of the Prince of 

 Wales to the Fellowship of the Royal Society. 



The lectnre on this occasion was given by Sir 

 William Crookes on the " Constitution of Matter." 

 His discovery of the radiometer was the Jirst 

 success in his efforts in this direction. He made 

 manifest to his audience the existence of some- 

 thing-, potent indeed, but almo.st inconceivably 

 minute, compared with which the molecule and 

 even the atom is large, "those little indivisible 

 particles which are sui^posed to constitute the 

 physical basis of the universe." They are named 

 electrons, but are identical with what the lec- 

 turer former^ called "radiant matter," with the 

 " satellites " of Lord Kelvin and the " particles " 

 of Prof. J. J. Thomson. Thej^ do not behave as 

 gases, but are more like a fog or mist, carried 

 about by a current of air, to which they give 

 temporary conducting power. They can, however, 

 pass through solid matter such as a metal, can 

 turn vanes like a wind, and cause many substances 

 to glow with an intense light. 



The Prince of Wales has presented to the 

 Zoological Society a pair of vulpine phalangers 

 {TricJiosimts vnlpecnla), of which the female is 

 remarkable as being a perfect albino. Another 

 notable addition consists of a litter of three Eed 

 River hogs (Pota?iioc/iaeras penwillatiis)hovn in the 

 Society's Gardens. 



There was a very large assemblage on Feb. 7th 

 in the theatre of the Royal Institution, Albemarle 

 Street, W., to hear Professor Ray Lankester's 

 lecture on the okapi, the hornless giraffe of the 

 Semliki Forest. Lantern slides of the animal, 

 from the specimen mounted in the Mammalian 

 Gallery of the Natural History Museum, were 

 shown, and the strange coloration, uniform on the 

 body, with striped legs, described. This, the 

 lecturer held, was protective. In the same way 

 the anatomical characters of the skull were dealt 

 with. The ruminant dentition was explained. 

 Special reference was made to the resemblance of 

 the canine teeth of the okapi to those of the 

 giraffe in being bifoliate, a character, so far as is 

 known, found in no other family. Illustrations of 

 the five-horned giraffe from Mount Elgon, the rhino- 

 - ceros, antelopes, deer, and oxen, with restorations 

 of extinct horned animals, were shown on the 

 screen, and the nature of the horns explained. 

 Those of rhinoceroses were agglutinated hairs ; 

 oxen, sheep, and antelopes carried horny sheaths 

 or solid bone-cores ; the antlers of deer were bony 

 growths ; and the horns of the giraffe were bony 

 cores covered with skin. The lecturer remarked 

 that it was doubtful whether the okapi had lost its 

 horns or was on the way to acquire them. 



Dr. F. W. P.wy, F.R.S., has been elected: 

 President of the National Committee for Great- 

 Britain and Ireland of the International Congress 

 of Medicine, in place of the late Sir W. MacCormac, 

 Bart. 



Dr. Arthur Evans, of the Ashmolean Museum,, 

 gave a lecture on February 4th at the English School 

 at Athens on his important discoveries at Cnossus in 

 Crete and in the palace of King Minos. Dr. Evans 

 has returned to Crete in order to resume his re- 

 searches. 



The Philosophical Faculty of the L^niversity 

 of Konigsberg has conferred the honorary degree 

 of Docto'r on Mr. B. P. Grenfell and Mr. A. S. Hunt,, 

 both Fellows of Queen's College, Oxford, for the 

 great services rendered by them in the field of 

 Egyptian archaeological research. 



Several large collections of butterflies and 

 moths were disposed of last month by Mr. Stevens, 

 Among them were four specimens of the " great 

 copper " butterfl}' {Polyommatus dispar). There 

 was also a collection of North American insects 

 formed by Captain Geddes, of Toronto. There 

 were a number of " lots " of the bird-winged 

 butterflies of the genus Onithoptera, many of 

 which are remarkable for their strongly contrasted. 

 coloration. 



Dr. Symes Thompson, Gresham Professor of 

 Medicine, recently delivered the first of a series of 

 lectures on immunity from disease. He said that 

 Vjy preserving a high level of health, people could 

 do a great deal in avoiding disease. On the other 

 hand, various fevers and small-pox were by no 

 means limited to unhealthy people. The lecturer 

 went on to advocate revaccination. Though one 

 was fortunately able to be beforehand with the 

 small-pox bacillus, in diphtheria it was at present 

 necessary to wait till the disease was well advanced 

 before antitoxin could be used. 



The Russian scientific expedition to Tibet under 

 Lieutenant Kotzloff, which recently returned ta 

 Moscow, spent two and a half years altogether in 

 Central Asia, covering during this period a distance 

 of over 8,000 miles. Astronomical observations 

 were made at forty different points. A meteoro- 

 logical station was established in Tsaidam, and 

 records obtained for thirteen successive months. 

 The zoological, botanic, and geological collections- 

 are extremely interesting, ancl wei'e bi'ought on the 

 backs of fifty camels to the frontier station of 

 Urga. From the central region of the Great Gobi 

 Desert a thousand geological specimens have been 

 collected. 



At a meeting of the Geological Society on 

 Wednesday, February 5th, at Burlington Llouse, 

 Professor T. G. Bonney, F.R.S., read a paper on 

 the relation of certain breccias to the physical 

 geography of their age. The lecturer described 

 the principal beds in Britain, Ireland, and on the 

 Continent, and said that the fragments of which 

 the breccias were made up were angular or nearly 

 . so in form. They were sometimes stratified, and 

 sometimes occurred between beds of finer material. 

 They fringed old land masses, from which they 

 were in all probabilit^y derived, and from which 

 they extended outside for a few miles. These 

 brecciated masses were products of bare rocky 

 hill-slopes, disintegrated by frost, falling in a talus- 

 at the foot, and after being consolidated cai-ried 

 on bv torrential rains or snow. 



