118 
SCIENTIFIC GLEANINGS. 
May, 1891. 
The Kew Committee of the Royal Society are prepared to examine, 
at the Kew Observatory, photographic lenses, for the purpose of 
testing them and of certifying their performance. 
On April 3rd the hamlet of Adil-Djevas, in Armenia, was 
destroyed by an earthquake ; 146 houses were destroyed and 240 other 
buildings were much injured. Hundreds of lives were lost. 
The Royal Geographical Society have made the following 
awards:—To Sir James Hector, M.D., F.R.S. (Director of the 
Geological Survey, &c.,of New Zealand), Royal Medal; to Dr. Fridtjof 
Nansen, Royal Medal; to Mr. William Ogilvie, the Murchison grant; 
to Mr. W. J. Steains, the Back grant (one year) ; to Lieut. B. L. Sclater, 
R.E., the Cutlibert Peck grant; to Mr. A. E. Pratt, the Gill memorial. 
Mr. Cottam, F.R.A.S., has issued a smaller edition (15 xl2 inches) 
of his magnificent “ Charts of the Constellations,” which will be found 
of great value to beginners in the study of astronomical science. A 
separate chart is devoted to each constellation, whilst three key maps 
exhibit the relative positions of the various constellations. There is some 
valuable introductory matter. Mr. Edward Stanford is the publisher. 
The Council of the Society of Arts, acting under the provisions 
of the Benjamin Shaw Trust, have offered two gold medals, or two 
prizes of £20 each, to the executive committee of the Congress of 
Hygiene and Demography, for any inventions or discoveries of date 
subsequent to 1885, exhibited at, or submitted to, the Congress, and 
coming within the terms of the Trust. Under the conditions laid 
down by the donor, these prizes are to be offered for new methods of 
obviating or diminishing risks incidental to industrial occupations. 
An interesting paper appears in “ Nature ” of April 16th, 1891, on 
“ The Wheat Harvest in Relation to Weather,” in which the 
general law of wheat production in England, as stated in the Times 
some years ago, is most ably discussed. The law referred to is as 
follows:—“ The yield of wheat is proportional to the summer tem¬ 
perature, with the modifying conditions of rainfall, prevalence of 
cloud, character of the weather at blossoming time and during the 
harvest, and the state of growth at the commencement of the 
summer.” The article concludes thus:—“ The wheat yield in England 
follows the summer rainfall inversely. Good wheat years are those 
of hot, dry summers. Bad wheat years are those of very wet, 
sunless summers.” 
A Geological Discovery in the South of England, of apparently 
great importance, has been made, and ought to be recorded in these 
pages. Iu the north-east of France, and in the neighbouring Belgian 
province of Hainault, a pliosphatic chalk is worked, of which probably 
40,000 tons are every year imported into this country. Consequent 
on the preparation of a new edition of the Geological Survey Memoir 
on the Geology of London, the officers of the Survey have been care¬ 
fully scrutinising the area to be described. A specimen from the 
neighbourhood of Taplow attracted the attention of Mr. Strahan on 
account of its unusual characters. This led to its examination by an 
expert, Mr. J. Hort Player, formerly a citizen of Birmingham, 
who ascertained that it was composed of a mixture of phos¬ 
phate and carbonate of lime in nearly equal proportions, together 
with a little fluoride of calcium, a common associate with phosphate 
of lime. The proportion of phosphate of lime ranged from 18 to 35 
per cent., and it then became apparent that a phosphatic chalk little, 
