404 Scientific Intelligence. 



III. Miscellaneous Scientific Intelligence. 



1. The Shaler Memorial Expedition to Brazil and Patagonia, 

 1908-09, J. B. Woodworth in charge. [From a letter to the 

 Editors, dated Curilyba, Parana, Brazil, August 6, 1908.] — The 

 members of the Shaler Memorial Expedition to Brazil reached 

 Rio de Janeiro on the 8th of July. Since that time they have 

 journeyed southwards through the states of Sao Paulo and Parana 

 under the guidance of Dr. Derby, Director of the Geological Sur- 

 vey of Brazil, in a reconnaisance of the conglomerate formations 

 of the Permo-Carboniferous, with a view to selecting areas for a 

 more detailed study of the supposed glacial deposits of that 

 terrane. On entering the state of Parana, in a railway cut 

 between Itarare and the Rio Jaquaricatee, the writer was shown 

 two bowlder beds in which well striated and scrubbed pebbles 

 and stones w T ere at once discovered ; fragmental materials in all 

 respects like those in the Pleistocene till beds of the glaciated 

 area of North America and of the Permo-Carboniferous beds of 

 South Africa and Australia. The work, in conjunction with Dr. 

 Eusebio P. de Oliveiro, Assistant Geologist of the Geological 

 Survey of Brazil, will now be directed in part along the border 

 of these deposits and the Devonian and Pre-Devonian crystalline 

 terranes, to the finding, if possible, of a glaciated floor such as 

 that already known in India, South Africa and Australia. 



J. b. woodworth. 



2. British Association for the Advancement of Science. — The 

 seventy-eighth annual meeting of the British Association, held at 

 Dublin during the week beginning with Sept. 2, was remarkable 

 for its size, 2270 members being in attendance. It was also nota- 

 ble for the interest aroused by several of the addresses, as partic- 

 ularly that of the President, Dr. Francis Darwin, (Nature, Sept. 

 3) on the movements of plants, and that of Prof. John Joly on 

 radium and its parent uranium as the source of the earth's internal 

 heat (ibid., Sept. 10). It is announced that the meeting of the 

 Association in 1909 is to be held at Winnipeg from Aug. 25 to 

 Sept. 1; that of 1910 at Sheffield and of 1911 at Portsmouth. 



Obituary. 



M. Antoine Henri Becquerel, the eminent French physicist, 

 whose discovery of the so-called "Becquerel rays" prepared the 

 way for the important subject of radio-activity, died on August 

 25 at the age of fifty-six years. 



M. E. E. N. Mascart, a second eminent French physicist, whose 

 work lay chiefly in the departments of optics, electricity and 

 magnetism, died on August 26 at the age of seventy-one years. 



Arthur Lister, of Leytonstone, England, well known for his 

 work on the Mycetozoa, died on July 19 at the age of seventy- 

 eight years. 



Prof. Alexis Hansky, of the Pulkowa Observatory, was 

 drowned at Simeise in the Black Sea on August 11 ; although 

 but thirty-six years old, he had already made important contri- 

 butions to Solar Physics. 



J. F. Nery Delgado, President of the Geological Commis- 

 sion of Portugal, died on August 3 in his seventy-fourth year. 



