514 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
Around Pigeon Bay and at Mongonui the continued disturbance 
rendered the water muddy, owing no doubt to the nature of the 
bottom and the shape of the coast line. Coincident with these 
local disturbances we have telegraphic intelligence of heavy tidal 
waves on the Atlantic Coast of North America. Whether any 
connection exists between these events or not is matter of un- 
certainty. Dr. Hector, ata recent meeting of the Wellington 
Philosophical Society, advanced the opinion that the local tidal 
disturbances are due to the volcanic eruption which had been. 
experienced in the neighbourhood of the Straits of Sunda. It 
is, however, improbable that an eruption of however severe a. 
character in a locality so distant as Malaysia, and separated from 
us by the mass of Australia, could have affected the waters of 
the whole Pacific Ocean to such an extent, without producing 
very marked disturbances on the Australian Coast. As none 
have been recorded from any of the sister colonies, nor apparently 
on any part of the west coast of our own island, it would seem 
more likely that the disturbance is due to submarine movements 
in the Pacific to the far north of this. A broad volcanic belt or 
region extends from Java, east-north-east to the Sandwich Is- 
lands, and it is extremely probable that any such terrific out-. 
break as that which has so recently devastated the Straits of 
Sunda would manifest itself in other parts of this region as sub- 
marine earthquake shocks. A glance ata map will show that 
any wave originating in the neighbourhood of Java, and radiat- 
ing outwards from thence, with sufficient force to make itself 
felt on the east coast of New Zealand, would do terrific damage 
to the coasts of Australia and the islands to the north. It it 
originated in the sea south of Java, then we should have heard of it 
from West Australia, or Adelaide, or Hobart, all of which would 
probably have experienced it more or less intensely. Probably 
later and more specific intelligence from all the regions affected 
will enable us to localise the seat of the disturbance more 
accurately— ED. 
SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE, LINCOLN.—Dr. R. von Len- 
denfeld has been appointed Lecturer on Natural Science at the 
School of Agriculture, in the place of Mr. T. Kirk, who resigned 
some time ago. Dr. von Lendenfeld studied Natural Science 
under Professor E. Haeckel, and Professor F. G. Schulze, the 
great spongiologist, who wrote the report on the soft parts of 
Euplectella for the Challenger expedition; and he took his de- 
gree of Ph. D. at the University of Graz, in Austria. He has 
written an essay on the “ Flight of Insects,” referring chiefly to 
the anatomy and physiology of the wings of the dragon-fly, 
which was published by the Imperial Academy of Science in 
Vienna. In November, 1881, Dr. v. Lendenfeld came to Austra- 
lia for the purpose of studying the Coelenterata of the southern 
seas, and has published many essays on the subject in the Ger- 
man scientific periodicals. These essays contain several interest- 
ing discoveries, not only are many new species described which 
a 
