results are more striking, and bring out more clearly the phenomena really observed on the planet's surface.

ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS.-The November number of Astronomy and Astrophysics, among many of its interesting articles contains one by Prof. Pickering on the lunar atmosphere, which will be read with much interest. Accompanying the article is an illustration of the recent occultation of Jupiter, at which time a dark band tangent to the moon's surface but on the planet was both observed and photographed. Prof. Coakley writes on the "Probable origin of Meteorites," the conclusions which he draws referring their origin to prehistoric lunar eruptions.

Prof. Hale, in addition to several articles on solar physics, describes generally the proposed new giant Chicago refractor, and from all accounts the observatory when finished and ready for work will be operated by simply pressing buttons; the observing chair will be entirely eliminated, the floor of the observatory, capable of motion in the vertical direction, serving the purpose. Mr. W. W. Campbell gives rather a lengthy account of his observations on the spectrum of the late Nova, and the result may be summed up in the words, "While the hypothesis of two bodies quite generally satisfies the observations, and has the further very great advantage of simplicity, there are a few not unimportant points furnished by the photographs which favour the existence of three or four bodies, two or three yielding bright line spectra and one a dark line spectrum.'

A NEW OBSERVATORY.-M. S. de Glasenapp recently announced to the French Academy of Sciences that a new astronomical observatory has been erected at Abastouman, in the government of Tiflis. The observatory has been called Géorgieioskaja, in honour of its founder, and it is situated at a height of 1393 metres above the level of the sea, its terrestrial co-ordinates being latitude + 41° 45′ 43′′ longitude, east of Paris 2h. 41m. 58.5s. At present it is provisionally supplied with a refractor of about nine inches belonging to the St. Petersburg University. Work has already been begun, and from all accounts the situation seems to be most favourable, many double stars measures having been obtained, which in ordinary circumstances are accounted very difficult objects with such an aperture. The observatory was opened on August 23 of this year. and up to November 5 as many as 4co double stars have been measured, omitting observations of the total lunar eclipse and of some phenomena of Jupiter's satellites.

GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES.

DR. KARL DIENER has returned to Vienna from his geological expedition in the Himalayas, which has resulted in important additions to the data available for a geological description of the great mountain system. In June the expedition commenced work in North Kumaon, crossing the Utadurrha Pass (17,600 feet), and after more than three months spent amongst the border ranges of Tibet, returned to India by the valley of Alaknanda. For a month the party never camped at a less height than 14,500 feet, and the highest summit reached was over 19,000 feet.

DR. NANSEN is threatened with a serious rival in Lieutenant Peary, who has obtained leave from the United States Navy for three years to be spent in Arctic exploration. The base of his projected journey would be the farthest point reached by him on his recent journey in Greenland, and "an incidental object" would be to reach the pole by travelling over the frozen surface of the sea which he believes to surround it.

FRIEDRICH HELLER VON HELLWALD, well known as a writer on geography and ethnology, died on November 1,aged fifty years. He was born at Padua, and grew up with an equal knowledge of German and Italian, a fact to which much of his ultimate success as an author may have been due. He was an officer in the Austrian army, but devoted most of his time to historical 66 Amerikanische research and literary work. His earliest work, Völkerwanderung," appeared when he was twenty-four years of age, and later he wrote on the Russians in Central Asia, the native people of various parts of Asia, the history of civilization, and other subjects. His "Die Erde und ihre Volker" formed the basis of Stanford's "Compendium of Geography and Travel." For many years Hellwald edited the geographical journal Das Ausland.

which I preside. I came across the words, "On character anl behaviour," and I thought that that looked like the kind of language which we employ in our instructions to her Majesty inspectors of schools. But it was not so. The subject to which the words had reference was "on the character 2501 behaviour of the wandering cells of the frog, especially in relation to micro-organisms." I feel that I must fall back up some more substantial links than that, and I fall back upon the fact that I have the honour to preside over certain institutions in which members of your society are engaged. There the Dean of the Royal College of Science at Kensington, Prof Huxley; and your foreign secretary, Sir Archibald Gerkie and, altogether, including those who examine for us from time to time, there are something like thirty members of the Rop Society who are connected with those institutions, and I con sider it a very high honour to be linked with institutions with which they are connected. Whether some of my friend, at Kensington look on their connection with the State in the same When I have the honour of going over light, I do not know.

the laboratories of iny friends, Prof. Thorpe and Prof. Rucker, I am inclined to doubt it. But as far as the present connection with the State goes, the Royal Society do most admirable service They act as unpaid judges for the administration of a sum of £4,000, which the State would find it very difficult to administer on its own account; and they do the work in so impartial and admirable a manner that no man in his senses could complain. There is one other link between us. There are present here a large number of men who are interested in the work of education; and I think they will agree with me that we have one great task before us. Between the Universities and the University Colleges with which most of them are connected and the great sphere of elementary elucation there lies a large region, at present unorganized and chaotic, which we want to organize and bring into working order as soon as possible. There are many men of science in these colleges who often greatly regret to find willing lads, with the highest scientific capacity, brought under their notice and care, whose only lack is a lack of adequate educational preparation for their work. It is that which we want to remedy, and if I am enabled to take however humble a share in remedying it, I shall be proud of the task. We want to engage in the task of the reclamation of waste; and one of the most serious of all wastes is the waste of intellect. For those lads who go to our colleges in every part of Great Britain and Ireland we want to hold out one great possible goal-the blue riband of science— the title of Fellow of the Royal Society. You at any rate in your scientific honours have no distinction of class, and, as your medallists to-day will testify, no distinction between one country and another. You regard all as equal when you adjudge your honours to the fittest men to bear them. I connect with this toast the name of your distinguished President, Lord Kelvin. It was truly said some nine years ago, when his claims were urged for the Copley Medal, there is scarcely a branch of physical science to the substantive advantage of which he has not contributed"; and I understand that while he has touched both the highest and the most abstruse subjects, he has not failed to condescend even to humble matters like the domestic water-tap. Among those of you who know far better than I do what Lord Kelvin has done, both for abstruse science and for the welfare of mankind, there can be no limit as to the value of his work to future generations. I am sure that he himself cannot possibly say how great the value of what he has done may be in the faroff future. But I understand from Sir Archibald Geikie that vour president has attempted to put a limit to the inquiries of the geologists, when they look into the hackward past. He has definitely said that in looking backwards they must not go beyond the moderate limit of twenty million years. I understand that this is a grievance on the part

their

of the geologists, but I hope that the President will not give unnecessary pain to his geological friends. In the draft of the preamble of your charter-it was drafted by Sir Christopher Wren-it was said Fellows of the Royal Society, by labours in the disquisition of nature, would try to prove theor selves real benefactors of mankind." I give you the toast of "The Royal Society," coupled with the name of Lord Kelvin, and I assert that your present President has done his part in proving himself a benefactor of mankind.

The Chairman, in replying, said,-I thank you very heartily for the kind manner in which you have received this toast. 1 feel the honour you do me, but I also feel my incapacity to say

hat ought to be said for so great an institution. I can nly say in my own way that I believe the Royal Society,

an institution, has up to the present time persevered in tell doing, and had been successful in its efforts. The Loyal Society has certainly endeavoured to carry out the objects fits institution-namely, to inquire into natural knowledge and he improvement of it. The mode of carrying out that object as carefully considered, no doubt, by those who founded the Royal Society; and they determined to hold regular meetings, artaking somewhat of the character of a debating society--aeetings where discussions could be raised by questions preented, and the truth arrived at thereby. That object has been arried out from the inception of the Society to the present day; nd the society has been imitated by other societies over a arge part of the civilized world. Indeed, the Royal Society self only followed in the path of other learned societies in taly, which had determined that by personal discussion of questions in regular meetings truth might be arrived at which therwise might be lost. We often find complaints that meetings of scientific societies are unsatisfactory. We have even complaints hat the important duty, the publication of their proceedings for he rest of the world, is not altogether ideally perfect. Some who desire the progress of science above all, and heartily wish success to the Royal Society, think that the society ought to be 1 body for merely recording and indexing the work that has been done all over the world. That is a part of the work of the Royal Society which is not neglected. The council has had most anxious, careful, and laborious consultations from year to year with reference to this work-not only as to the publication of its own transactions and proceedings, but as to the cataloguing and indexing of the proceedings of scientific bodies and scientific workers all over the world. One very important part of the work of the society consists of the cataloguing of all cientific papers published; and a very dry and fatiguing subject t is to work upon. The difficulty here is embarras de richesses. To get the titles only of these papers is itself a truly Herculean ask. If the Royal Society had not only capacity, but had also great funds at its disposal, it would make short work of this task. It would not only index, it would publish the papers: and would put them in such a form that any one could find his own particular subject at once, and the particular volume and page in which it was treated. This is an exceedingly difficult subject, but the first necessity is funds, and if those were supplied all the rest would follow. The publishing and indexing, however, is not the only work of the society. The life and soul of its work is in its meetings and discussions, and whoever has not felt the stimulus of attending those meetings has hardly yet found out the spirit of scientific enquiry. For myself, I say the fact that we can attend meetings of the Royal Society, and hear papers on subjects very far removed from the subjects of our every-day work, is a stimulus which is of the highest value. The worker who has heard what other people are doing goes back to his work with something which may help him in it, which, at any rate, brightens his life, and makes the drudgery and heavy work necessary for success in any scientific investigation less irksome and dry. For myself I may say that my connexion with the Royal Society, extending Ever a great many years, has been one of unmixed benefit and leasure, and has given to me some of the happiest of those pictures of knowledge and memory the possession of which constitutes so much of the delight of life. Mr. Acland remarked upon my having been hard upon the geoloists. I do not think that I have actually been so. I do ot believe in one science for the mathematician, another for the hemist, another for the physicist, and another for the geologist. All science is one science; and any part of science which places self outside the pale of the other sciences ceases for the time eing to be a science. The sooner it returns to the pale of the ther sciences the better; and when all are working for a comon good the better it will be for the progress of each. Prof. Huxley, in proposing the next toast, said that he had to -course on the merits of the gentlemen to whom medals had ten awarded. There was one the adequate treatment of whose erits would occupy the whole available time; and yet Mr. a v Lefevre wished him to say something about his capacity become a legislator and also to give an opinion upon geogical time He would answer the first interrogvion by telling a ry. When he was a very young man a solicitor in large practice covered in him what that gentleman believed qualities that would inmand success at the Bar, which he had never discovered

unearned increment.

for itself; the appreciation of its value had arisen entirely fron surrounding circumstances, the chief being the wisdom and integrity of some eighty successive councils. A complete list of the awards was published every year. Going back one hundred years from 1887-he had a reason for not taking a later datethe century began with John Hunter, and finished with Joseph Hooker. Between them was a galaxy of the heroes of science, French, German, Scandinavian, Italian, American, and English; and, although one star might differ from an other star in glory, none was unworthy of its place in the constellation. The present council had not fallen below the standard of its predecessors; there was no biologist, no scientific physician, no anthropologist, no archæologist to whom the name of the illustrious Rector of the University of Berlin, Rudolph Virchow, was not familiar. No one had done more to put pathology on a scientific foundation; no one had done more for critical anthropology, especially in connection with archeology. Without venturing on the dangerous field of politics, he would add that these merits were, to his mind, greatly enhanced by the fact that Virchow had never merged the citizen in the philosopher, but amidst great difficulties and with undaunted courage, he had taken an active, a disinterested, and a thoroughly independent course in the Legislature of his country. The next medal in order of age was that founded by Count Rumford at the commencement of this century, on equally cosmopolitan principles, but limited in scope to the physico-chemical sciences. In these sciences hardly anything had attracted popular attention more of recent years than the marvellous power which spectroscopy had placed in our hands to discern the chemical composition of bodies which were millions and billions of miles away; and, for anything we knew to the contrary, these minute and careful inquiries into the constitution of stars might be post-mortem examinations. In the accurate examination of stars by the spectroscope, he understood from others that Dr. Dunér, of Sweden, had laid secure foundations for all future investiga tions. The Royal medals were founded by the Sovereign some sixty-odd years ago, were now maintained by her Majesty, and were confined to British subjects. There were two medals every year, and they were usually allotted one to physical and chemical science, and the other to biological science. They were usually given to younger men; and it was so in his own case forty years ago. The value of the medal was inexpressible to him. In his younger days, if a man took to science, it was thought he was going to the bad. The receipt of the medal made an entire revolution in the minds of his friends; and he was a respectable person from that time. On the present occasion the first of these medals was awarded to the present Director of the Astronomical Observatory in Oxford, Prof. Pritchard, and he was told that there was no observatory in the three kingdoms in which so much admirable work of observation was being done. Only a short time ago the Royal Astronomical Society awarded its gold medal to the Director of the Oxford Observatory. He was further told that the director was tackling what he understood was one of the most difficult pieces of astronomical work-parallax determination; and that he had already printed off more stars than anybody else. Besides this, he was hard at work on the great international chart of the heavens. It was obvious that this gentleman must be in the

full vigour of youthful energy, and therefore he treated with contempt a rumour that had reached him that the director was in his eighty-fourth year. They would join with him in wishing Prof. Pritchard a long continuance of the health and strength which were turned to such splendid account. The second of these medals was awarded to Dr. Langley, of the University of Cambridge, for the long-continued and very valuable physiological researches. There was a familiar phenomenon observable before sitting down to dinner, and known as watering of the mouth. If it were possible to determine the exact condition of that operation in physiology the exact knowledge would be a key to an immense range of the secrets of Nature. It was these problems that Dr. Langley had been investigating, and he had come nearer to their solution than any one else. The Davy medal was awarded to a distinguished French savant, M. Raoult, whose work was considered of the highest importance; and he rejoiced that the recipient of the medal was present. The Darwin medal was instituted in honour of one of his best and dearest friends, and it was now conferred upon a man who was one of the stanchest friends he had had for the last forty years. He might fairly appeal to Sir Joseph Hooker's present activity, put him down also among the young men, and thereby save the credit of the council in the matter of its own regulation. To those who knew the Life and Letters of Darwin," talk about Sir Joseph Hooker's right to the Darwin medal was as futile as the attempt to judge Manlius in sight of the Capitol. He knew no more remarkable example of life-long devotion, of stores of information laid open, of useful criticism, and of still more useful encouragement, by one man to another, than that exhibited by Sir Joseph Hooker in this picture. It might be that even the man whose motto was "It's dogged as does it," and who so pa. tiently laboured for half a lifetime at the great fabric of the origin of species, might have fainted by the way without this friend's aid. And assuredly Hooker's great study of geographical distribution was a most important factor in Darwin's work. It lay in the eternal fitness of things that Wallace and Hooker should receive the Darwin medal; and that these oid young-men should give it a heightened value for the young young men to whom it would hereafter pass.

Prof. Raoult returned thanks, speaking in French.
Dr. Langley responded for the other medallists and himself.
Sir James Paget briefly proposed "The Guests."

The Swedish Minister, in responding, said-The honour to be your guest and to participate with you in the celebration of this interesting day cannot be more thankfully felt than by me, who still has to consider this favour, above all, as a compliment to the country where you have selected this year your Rumford medallist. This distinction to my fellow-countryman, Prof. Dunér, whose merits Prof. Huxley has so eloquently explained to you, is a new link in the long chain of tokens of sympathy and appreciation from this society to scientific Scandinavians, a chain of which one of the oldest links is the creation of the Linnean Society. More than a hundred years have passed since, and in the meantime many systems have been altered; and, especially in the last twenty years, those alterations have so closely followed the one upon the other that we laymen have been accustomed to believe we were entitled to ask every new morning, "What great discovery will this day bring?" In one department, however, scientific men as well as laymen cannot admit the possibility of any alteration, and that is in our conviction and belief that this country occupies a prominent place in the universal scientific movement-a proof of which, among many others, is the fact that no other institution in the world encourages as much as does this society other countries' scientific researches.

Mr. Alma-Tadema also responded, remarking in the course of his speech that there was no art without science, neither was there any science without art: and that art coloured life as the sun colours the flowers of nature.

AZOIMIDE.

A FURTHER communication concerning azoimide, the interesting compound of hydrogen and nitrogen, NH, discovered two years ago by Prof. Curtius, is contributed to the current number of the Berichte by Drs. Noelting and Grandmougin of Mulhausen, in conjunction with Herr O. Michel. As described in our note of vol. xliv. p. 600, Drs. Noelting and Grandmougin have previously shown that azoimide may be obtained by indirect means