Consequent pressure of population or change in the availability of resources sets up migratory movements along natural lines dictated by land-form, water-flow, and soilcovering; conquest and delimitation ensue, and the straight boundary lines of the map, which come last, are, after all, natural relations to geographical facts associated with the whole body of the earth itself and its rotation. The grouping of dwelling-places around certain centres leading to the origin of towns may also, as a rule, be explained by geographical considerations.

Of the six continents which are usually recognised two stand out from the rest, distinguished by the simplicity of their great features and the clearness of the interdependence of the various relationships. These are North and South America, either of which forms an ideal subject for a geographical monograph.

We have mentioned the superiority of the new issue of "Stanford's Compendium" over the old; but there is one point of distinct inferiority. The old issue retained some traces of the original design, giving it a certain unity; the new is not so much a compendium as a series of

ing of the provinces of the Dominion. Unexpected comparisons and contrasts of the aptest kind with the course of history in other lands and other times continually delight the reader's mind and illuminate the story. But when from history the author enters geography the wheels seem to drop from his chariot, and he drives heavily. One could imagine that he wrote with effort, perhaps even with distaste. His comparisons lose point, and are sometimes inaccurate. Canada is not, as stated on p. 29, "above all others the land of abundance of waters." Finland or Sweden would, we believe. correspond better-certainly as well-to the definition, If any great river is to be celebrated for the length of its tributaries it should surely be the Amazon, the Congo, the Mississippi, rather than the St. Lawrence (p. 34). As to climate, we dispute the suggestion that tobacco cannot be grown in England (p. 47), and we must remember the success of Lord Bute's wine-making from grapes grown in the open air at Cardiff. The treatment of climate is otherwise not fully satisfactory. While no attempt is made to deny that the Canadian winter is

separate works. Dr. S. E. Dawson's "North America, Vol. i.," is not, strictly speaking, the first part of a geographical description of North America. It is the description of the Dominion of Canada and Newfoundland, written not from the standpoint of a geographer, but from that of an imperialist British subject and patriotic Canadian. The author infuses warm colour into his narrative, which, gratifying as it must be to the sentiments of the people of the British Empire, does not enhance the value of the work as a scientific treatise. Dr. S. E. Dawson is obviously not himself a geographer -his strength lies in his treatment of history. Having expressed our view as to what a geographical treatise on a continent should be, we need only add that "North America, Vol. i.," is written without regard to the guiding principles of geographical science.

We have seldom, if ever, read more satisfying or more graceful renderings of history than the chapters of this book dealing with the discovery, exploration and occupy

cold, the author seems more concerned to combat what he believes to be the average Englishman's exaggerated ideas on the subject than to describe the actual conditions. With regard to the French of Quebec (p. 295), which some people seem to have called a patois, the author observes: " English is not spoken in the same way over all the United Kingdom, but no one speaks of a Dublin or an Aberdeen patois, or for that matter of a London patois." We can assure him that some people do speak of the dialect (a word as displeasing as patois) of these parts, and many authors, with an eye to popularity, delight to exaggerate rather than minimise such differences. The tunnel at Sarnia, 6025 feet long (p. 391), cannot be termed "one of the greatest in the world, unless the standard of greatness is put very low, and the number of great tunnels made very large.

These are instances which do not seriously detract from the value of the book to the general reader; but Canada is so great, and its natural resources are so vast,

that comparisons of the kind would be quite unnecessary even if they were sound. A somewhat serious defect is the occasional imperfect revision, giving rise in the nonhistorical sections to repetition and to vague or even inaccurate phrases, such as the description of a boundary as a "perpendicular line" (p. 453) when a meridian is meant. We note a few omissions: nothing appears to be said of the extreme danger of the Magdalen Islands, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, to shipping; of the devastation of the forests in many parts of the country by fire; or of the high "benches" or river-terraces of British Columbia, which to a geographer form, perhaps, the most striking feature of that wonderful province.

We must, however, make it perfectly distinct that so far as the matter in this book is concerned the omissions are trifling, and the selection of facts most judicious. Dr. S. E. Dawson handles themes regarding which a Canadian might justly be excused if he were to indulge in a little exaggeration; and if the writer of this notice had never seen Canada, he would have supposed that there was some exaggeration here. But a journey from Quebec to Nanaimo, with visits to various points in the Kootenay and on the shores of the Great Lakes, has convinced the critic that in every estimate of natural wealth, and in every appreciation of the law-abiding enterprise of the Canadian people, the author has under-stated rather than overstated the facts. If a passing tourist of no very imperialistic tendencies felt the pride of a citizen of the British Empire rising within him with each mile of the magnificent railway which is the benefactor of every province in the Dominion, he cannot but be surprised at the moderation of tone adopted by an heir of that fair heritage in writing an account of its actual and potential greatness.

Yet the book is not planned in harmony with the principles of geography, and that, after all, is the aspect to which attention must be called in the pages of a scientific journal. The illustrations are good, and characteristic, as the specimens here reproduced show, and the maps very fair, although not so numerous or so well selected as we could wish. There are practically no physical maps, for the sketch of the Archæan nucleus on p. 24 is a mere diagram, and the " Meteorological Map" shows only mean annual isotherms, which give no clue to the climate, and rainfall areas, which are difficult to grasp as a whole. There is certainly no lack of cartographic material in Ottawa, as the beautiful physical maps in the "Handbook of Canada," issued in connection with the recent meeting of the British Association, prove. HUGH ROBERT MILL.

THOMAS JEFFERY PARKER, F.R.S. THOMAS JEFFERY PARKER, whose death on November 7 last we chronicled on December 23, was the eldest son of the late William Kitchen Parker, F.R.S., the world-renowned comparative osteologist. He was born at 124 Tachbrook Street, London, S.W., on October 17, 1850, and received his elementary education at Clarendon House School in the Kennington Road, under Dr. C. H. Pinches. In 1868 he entered the Royal School of Mines as a student, taking the Associateship in Geology in 1871, together with the Edward Forbes medal and prize of books for distinction in biology. Thus qualified, he became for a short period science master at Bramham College, Yorkshire; but in 1872, on a special invitation by Huxley, he returned to London to fill the office of demonstrator under him at South Kensington, and that he held until his appointment in 1880 to the chair of Biology in the University of Otago, Dunedin, N.Z. During his period of demonstratorship he also held the office of Lecturer in Biology in Bedford College, London, and officiated as examiner in Zoology and Botany to the University of Aberdeen and as an

assistant examiner in Physiology to the Science and Art Department. Parker was of a distinctly artistic tem perament, æsthetic, musical, well-read, and possessed of marked literary ability, which asserted itself to a conspicuous degree in his little book upon his father, published in 1893, an altogether ideal filial biography-a good work by a good man. He early cultivated the critical faculty, as a direct result of the study of Matthew Arnold, whose writings he knew by heart; and with the great power of application and strength of character which he displayed during active work, there can be little doubt that he would have succeeded in any of the higher walks of life. He would have made a mark in literature, and as a caricaturist draughtsman would have achieved renown; and there is little doubt that his choice of biology for his life's calling was largely due to the charm and influence of his father's career and to his early association with Huxley, who knew him from childhood and became the object of his veneration. Both as a teacher and investigator Parker was untiring and thoroughly trustworthy. Though easily roused to enthusiasm he rarely became excited, and his cool deliberation came welcomely to the aid of the troubled student, to whom if in earnest his attention knew no bounds. His published papers exceed forty in number, and though mostly zoological they embody important work and observations in botany. Parker was the first appointed of the little band of biological professors sent out from home in the '80's, who now fill the Australian and Novozelandian chairs, and his second paper published in New Zealand dealt with a new species of Holothurian (Chirodota Dunediensis), as it were in anticipation of the later determination by himself and his contemporaries at the Antipodes to devote their attention to the indigenous fauna, rather than to refinements in histology and the like which could be better studied at home. The work already achieved by this body of investigators, with Parker at their head, is now monumental, and none of it more so than Parker's monographs "On the Structure and Development of Apteryx" and "On the Cranial Osteology, Classification, and Phylogeny of the Dinornithidæ," in themselves sufficient to have established his reputation. His lesser writings, although they deal with a wide range of subjects, show interesting signs of continuity of ideas, as for example in the association of his early observations on the stridulating organ of Palinurus, made in London in 1878, with those upon the structure of the head in certain species of the genus (one of the most charming of his shorter papers), made on the voyage to New Zealand, and upon the myology of P. Edwardsii, which, in co-operation with his pupil Miss Josephine Gordon Rich (now Mrs. W. A. Haswell), he in 1893 contributed to the Macleay Memorial volume. And the same may be said of his work on the blood-vascular system of the Plagiostomi. Soon after his arrival at the Antipodes, Parker instituted a series of "Studies in Biology for New Zealand Students," and chiefly with the aid of his pupils, these have been continued, either in their original form or in that of theses for the higher degrees of the University of New Zealand, a contributions to the publications of the Museum and Geological Survey Department of that colony. Botanical as well as zoological topics were thus taken in hand, the series, like that of a companion set of "Notes from the Otago University Museum," which he from time to time contributed to the pages of NATURE, containing important observations of general biological interest. Of Parker's books, it is sufficient to recall his "Lessons in Elementary Biology," now in its third edition and recently translated into German, undoubtedly the most important and trustworthy work for the elementary student which has appeared since Huxley and Martin's epoch-marking "Practical Instruction in Elementary Biology," published in 1875. Parker's book, in sharp contrast to his previous "Zootomy," which is

a severely didactic and somewhat uneven laboratory treatise, is a book for the study, beautifully balanced and poetic in idea. It has a charm peculiarly its own, and to ponder over it is to appreciate to the full the honest, loving, sympathetic temperament of its author, and the conviction which he was prone to express that in the progress of scientific education there lies the panacea for most human ills, mental and corporeal. Great though the merits of these books, Parker five years ago essayed a more formidable task, in the resolve to prepare in conjunction with his friend Prof. W. A. Haswell, F.R.S., of the Sydney University, a general text-book of zoology. This work of 1400 pages, in two volumes, as recently announced in NATURE, will be noteworthy for the large number and excellence of its original illustrations; and from a passing knowledge of its contents, I am of opinion that it will do much towards relieving English text-book writers of the opprobrium begotten of a too frequent content with mere translation and continental methods. And when we consider that Parker was not spared to see this great work in circulation, it is heartrending to relate that, though ailing and weak, he had since arranged with his co-author and publishers for the production of a shorter text-book to be based upon it, and had prepared the preliminary pages of yet another elementary treatise to have been entitled "Biology for Beginners," while as a next subject of research he had begun to work out, in conjunction with Mr. J. P. Hill, Demonstrator of Biology in the Sydney University, a series of Emeu chicks, including those collected by Prof. R. Semon during his expedition into the Australian Bush. The thoroughness of Parker's best work was its most distinctive character, and when tempted to generalise he always did so with extreme caution and consideration for others, fairly presenting all sides of an argument. As he remarked of himself with characteristic modesty, in a letter written in 1894 commenting upon his chances of securing a chair of Zoology at home then vacant, "I don't profess to be brilliant, but I am vain enough to think that I have the gift of exposition and can do a straightforward research so long as it does not involve anything about the inheritance of acquired characters." Far-reaching generalisation and random rhetoric had no charm for him, nor was he tempted into over-ambition and haste so oft productive of slip-shod and ill-conditioned results. As a writer and lecturer he was always logical, cautious, temperate, content could he but spread, extend, and help systematise our knowledge of observed facts, convinced that if this be done properly their ultimate teachings become self-evident. His work is of that order which marks the growth of real knowledge and the consequent bettering of mankind; and the thought that there has thus early passed from the ranks one so good and earnest, so well fitted by nature for the responsible task of training the young and susceptible, fills us with sorrow.

Parker matriculated at the London University in June 1868, and passed the Intermediate Science Examination in 1877 and the final B.Sc. in 1878, while the D.Sc. was but a matter of formal application in absentia in 1892. He was in 1888 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1880 an Associate of the Linnean Society of London, resigning the Associateship for the Fellowship of the latter but a short time before his death.

He was

an active member of the New Zealand Institute, to which he communicated several papers, and he became in turn Secretary and President of its Otago branch. Before these bodies and elsewhere in New Zealand he delivered addresses which will linger in the memory of his hearers and those who have read them. There may be especially mentioned an address delivered before the Otago University Debating Society on September 17, 1892, upon "the weak point in our university system," in reality an eloquent appeal for post-graduate study. Proceeding

to classify an average assemblage of students into "the able, the mediocre, and the stupid," he remarked that "the only duty of members of the university towards the third class appeared to be that of imposing a sufficiently severe entrance examination to keep them from wasting their own time and their parents' money, in the vain attempt to train to purely intellectual pursuits an organism which nature intended to make its way by virtue of muscle and mother wit." A more ingenious defence of an examination system could hardly be imagined. It is preceded by the shrewd remark that "the republic of science and letters is an aristocratic, not a democratic republic." Parker was evidently of opinion that what the world terms breeding and feeding count for a great deal in the end, and the whole context of his address is apposite to the share he took in the work of organisation of the University of New Zealand, which led at least to a humanising of its syllabus in biology. And for any one desirous of a knowledge of Parker at his best in a popular function, a speech delivered on the occasion of the prize-giving at the Otago Boys High School on December 13, 1894, may be recommended, as a perfect example of the kind of thing appropriate to such an occasion, so oft provocative of the mere "airy nothing." Parker was, further, a Corresponding Member of the Zoological Society of London and of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, a Member of the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow, and we believe he was President-elect of the Biological Section of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science for the present year. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society; and, ever ready to help in a good work, he became one of the original assistant editors who, under the generous leadership of Frank Crisp, in 1879 elevated the Society's Journal to its present important status.

The key-note of Parker's life-work is his connection with Huxley, and in testimony to his devotion to his great chief ("the General," as he loved to call him) there remains the delightful dedication of his "Lessons in Elementary Biology." Parker entered Huxley's service as Demonstrator in Biology at South Kensington in 1872, immediately after the conclusion of the memorable course of instruction there given, now historical as having marked the introduction of rational methods into the teaching of natural science. In the conduct of that course Huxley, as is well known, secured the aid of leading British biologists of the time. It was, however, reserved for Parker to fill the more important role of lieutenant in the development of the Huxleian system and to assist in carrying it beyond the experimental stage. At the time of his appointment laboratory appliances were lacking, and a practical teaching museum based on the type-system was a desideratum. Under instructions to supply these needs, Parker in due course entered upon the task with a will, his only materials a free-hand and an early set of proofs of Huxley and Martin's "Elementary Biology" (with the final revision of which he was largely entrusted, since the junior author was leaving for Baltimore), and in carrying the task to a successful issue he founded the first practical biological museum or teaching-collection on the now generally adopted type-system, the prototype of all those subsequently established at home and abroad, in some cases even to the measurements of the furniture. The Huxleian method of laboratory instruction in the course of its development at headquarters has witnessed no change on the zoological side at all comparable to the inversion in the order of the work originally prescribed-i.e. the substitution of the anatomy of a vertebrate for the microscopic examination of a unicellular organism as the opening study, and this we owe entirely to Parker. As one privileged at the time to play a minor part, I well recall the determination in Parker's mind that the change

was desirable, and in Huxley's that it was not. Again and again did Parker appeal in vain, until at last, on the morning of October 2, 1878, he triumphed. Dyer and Vines were Parker's more immediate associates in the early work of development of the Huxleian laboratorysystem; and among the persons who studied under him as it progressed now occupying prominent positions in the biological world, may be named F. E. Beddard, A. G. Bourne, G. C. Crick, J. J. Fletcher, Patrick Geddes, Angelo Heilprin, C. H. Hurst, C. Lloyd-Morgan, Daniel Morris, R. D. Oldham, H. F. Osborn, W. B. Scott, T. W. Shore, Oldfield Thomas, and H. Marshall Ward. Parker's first paper ("On the Stomach of the Fresh-Water Crayfish") and his first book (“Zootomy") were alike a direct outcome of the undertaking, and the scheme for his "Lessons in Elementary Biology," formulated while still he was in London, was similarly begotten of his experience during its development, which oft formed the topic of conversation as he and I in the late '70's sat working side by side. Nor must it be forgotten that Parker rendered Huxley commendable aid in the production of his wonderful book on "The Crayfish." I venture to think that in recognition of all this Parker has established a claim to distinction in connection with the educational work of his great master second to that of none other; and when it is remembered that the unparalleled activity among botanists and zoologists during the last two decades has rendered it impossible for one man to efficiently teach the two subjects from a professorial chair, in the manner originally laid down under the Huxleian dispensation, Parker's name will occupy a unique position in the history of this, as that of the only man prominently associated with its inception who taught both subjects to the end of his career.

To the task of founding the Huxleian teachingcollection, moreover, is due Parker's interest in the work of the preparator, which led to his being the first person to successfully prepare and mount in a condition fit for prolonged display cartilaginous skeletons in a dry state. Under Parker's curatorship the Otago University Museum advanced by leaps and bounds, and while to his reputation as a teacher and investigator he thus added distinction as a conservator and administrator in zoology, he attained also a. reputation in botany both as a manipulator and discoverer. He came upon the botanical platform at the time when Alfred Bennett and Dyer were at work upon the English translation of the third edition of Sachs's monumental "Lehrbuch der Botanik," and when the methods of that great man, already introduced into Britain by McNab, were by these botanists and their associates becoming established. For Parker, however, carrot-drill had little charm, while to his æsthetic nature glycerine and gold-size were messy and distasteful. He was at the time repeating the work of Nicholas Kleinenberg on Hydra, busy with osmic acid and cocoa-butter, and the well-known results of his labours led him to apply the method to the treatment of plant tissues, with the result that through a short paper communicated to the Royal Microscopical Society in March 1879, he ranks as one of the first to apply the modern dry methods of micro-chemical technique to vegetable histology. As a discoverer in botany he will remain memorable for having first directed attention to the existence of sieve-tubes in the marine algæ (Macrocystis) in a short communication to the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute for 1881.

Truly is his a great record, worthy his noble character and his association with a Huxley! but while the world will cherish his memory for that which he achieved, those who knew him feel that by his death something more than a link with the historic past has gone, and that they have lost a true friend, a noble man, an example. In the autumn of 1892 Parker came home on a visit. Soon after his return his wife died, and this event probably helped

to bring on an illness which showed itself formidably about two years ago. Recurrent attacks of influenza, the last of which rendered him prostrate for three months, told severely upon his health and strength; but despite all, following the example of his beloved father, he worked on whenever he could, patient under suffering and affliction the like of which has killed many a man, beautiful in his unselfishness and lack of ostentation, loving, and sympathetic. On October 26 last, he had recovered sufficiently to start on a journey of some forty miles to visit a friend at Shag Valley, in company with his eldest sister, who for several years had lovingly shared his anxieties and administered to the needs of his three boys. While half-way onwards he became so prostrate that a halt was necessary, his friends deeming it advisable to take him towards home again. He reached only as far as Warrington, where he became weaker and comatose, and passed peaceable away on Sunday, November 7, at one a.m. He was buried there two days later, in the presence of sorrowing friends, a few among the many by whom he was universally beloved. G. B. HOWES.

NOTES.

FEW men of science appear in the list of New Year honours. George Brown, C.B., Consulting Veterinary Surgeon to the The honour of Knighthood has been conferred upon Prof. Board of Agriculture; Mr. Ernest Clarke, Secretary to the Royal Agricultural Society; Dr. John Struthers, late President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh; and Dr. John Hatty Tuke, President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. Prof. Gardiner, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Glasgow University, has been promoted to be Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (K.C.B.), and Prof. D'Arcy Thompson, British delegate at the recent Conference on the Bering Sea Fisheries, has been appointed a Companion of the same Order (C.B.). Mr. James Dredge, one of the editors of Engineering, has been made a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (C. M. G.), for services in connection with the Brussels Exhibition; and Major R. H. Brown, of the Egyptian Irrigation Department, has been given the same honour.

MR. ALEXANDER AGASSIZ, as we learn from his recently issued report on the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, U.S.A., for the past year, has planned to pass the greater part of the present winter in studying the coral reefs of the Fiji Islands. He will be accompanied by Dr. Woodworth and Dr. Mayer as assistants. The steamer Yaralla has been chartered in Sydney for the expedition. In addition to the usual apparatus, for photographic purposes, for sounding and dredging, and for pelagic work, Prof. Agassiz takes with him a complete diamond-drill outfit, and hopes to find a suitable locality for boring on the rim of one of the atolls of the Fijis. The boring machinery will be in charge of an expert sent by the Sullivan Machine Company, from whom the machinery is obtained. The Directors of the Bache Fund have made a large grant towards the expenses of this boring experiment.

THE Sydney meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science opens to day, under the presidency of Prof. A. Liversidge, F. R.S. A large number of papers are down for reading before the various sections, and we hope to give some account of them later. The evening lectures are by Prof. W. Baldwin Spencer, on "The Centre of Australia"; Sir James Hector, K. C.M.G., F. R. S., on "Antarctica and the Islands of the Far South"; and Prof. R. Threlfall and Mr. J. A. Pollock, on "Electric Signalling without Wires."

WE regret to announce the death of Major-General Edward Mounier Boxer, F.R.S., for many years Superintendent of the

Royal Laboratory at Woolwich. General Boxer was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society so long ago as 1858.

THE deaths are announced of Mr. Arthur Kammermann, astronomer at the Geneva Observatory; Dr. Eugen Zintgraff, African explorer; and Dr. Max Graf von Zeppelin, zoologist at Stuttgart.

A LIFE of Pasteur, written by Prof. and Mrs. Percy Frankland, will very shortly be published by Messrs. Cassell and Co. The volume will form the latest addition to the Century Science Series.

PRINCE ROLAND BONAPARTE has been elected a Correspondant of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences and of the Bologna Academy of Sciences.

THE new number of the invaluable Minerva Jahrbuch der gelehrten Welt has for the frontispiece a fine reproduction of a portrait of Dr. Nansen.

THE Paris correspondent of the Times states that the statue of Jules Simon, to be executed by M. Fremiet, will probably be erected in the Place de la Madeleine, near which he lived, and will supersede the fountain now standing there.

WE learn from Science that a resolution has been introduced

in the House of Representatives appropriating 20,000 dollars for the representation of the United States at the International Fisheries Exposition to be held at Bergen, Norway, from May to September of next year.

THE British Institute of Public Health will be styled in future the Royal Institute of Public Health, and Her Majesty the Queen has accepted the office of patron. The Council of the Institute has conferred the Harben Gold Medal for 1898 upon Lord Playfair, and has appointed Prof. W. R. Smith the Harben Lecturer for the year 1899.

INVITATIONS are being sent out for the forthcoming International Congress of Zoology. A Committee of Reception has been formed in Cambridge, where the Congress will meet on August 23, 1898. An International Congress of Physiologists will be held at the same time in Cambridge. It is proposed at a later date to distribute further information on the more important subjects which will be brought forward for the consideration of the Congress.

THE personal estate of the late Mr. Alfred Nobel has been valued at 434,0937., of which amount 216.9017. is in England. After a number of personal bequests have been made, Mr. Nobel's will stipulates that the capital of the whole of the remaining realisable property is to form a fund, the interest from which is to be annually divided in five prizes to those who during the preceding year have done most for the benefit of humanity. The interest is to be divided into five equal parts, which are to be awarded in prizes as follows: (1) To him who within the department of natural philosophy has made the most important discovery or invention; (2) to him who has made the most important discovery or improvement in chemistry; (3) to him who has made the most important discovery within the department of physiology or medicine; (4) to him who in literature has produced the most excellent work in an idealistic direction; and (5) to him who has worked most or best for the fraternisation of the nations and for the abolition or diminution of standing armies, as also for the promotion and propagation of peace. The prizes in physics and chemistry are to be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences, for physiological or chemical work by the Carolinian Institution in Stockholm, for literature by the Academy in Stockholm, and for the propagation of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Parliament. The will continues :

"It is my express will that at the distribution of prizes no regard is to be paid to any kind of nationality, so that the most worthy competitor may receive the prize whether he is a Scandinavian or not."

THE Russian Institute of Experimental Medicine, at St. Petersburg, held its seventh annual meeting on December 20, 1897. The Institute consists of six scientific sections and one practical section, and during the past year no less than 120 persons took part in its regular work, which is carried on in the departments of biological chemistry, physiology, bacteriology, pathological anatomy, general pathology, and epizootic diseases. Sixty-five papers-some of them of high scientific value-were published by the scientific staff of the Institute. In addition to this, no less than 25,000 bottles of diphtheria serum, 800 bottles of anti-streptococcus serum, and 300 bottles of anti-staphylococcus serum were sent out from the Institute during 1897-making a total of 138,000 bottles of antidiphtheria serum, and 15,000 bottles of malleine and tuberculine that were distributed within the last three years. persons bitten by rabid animals, 277 were under treatment, the percentage of deaths having been only o7. The serum treatment of the bubonic plague, the prophylactic measures against it, and the preparation of anti-plague serum were the subject of special work during the year, and its results were summed up in a paper which was read at the annual meeting by Prof. A. A. Vladimiroff.

Of

THE following are the arrangements for lectures during These lectures will be open January at the Imperial Institute. free to the public, without tickets, seats being reserved for Fellows of the Imperial Institute and persons introduced by them. Monday, January 10, "Western Australia: its growth and possibilities," by Mr. H. C. Richards, M.P.; Monday, January 17, "South Africa, from the Cape to Ngamiland," by Mr. H. A. Bryden; Monday, January 24, "New Brunswick-Past and Present," by Mr. C. A. Duff-Miller; Monday, January 31, "Through the Gold Fields of Alaska to Bering Straits," by Mr. Harry de Windt.

AT the recent annual meeting of the Paris Academy of Medicine (says the Lancet) a report was presented upon the prizes awarded in 1897. The François Joseph Audiffred prize, which consists of 24,000 francs to be awarded to him who shall have, in the opinion of the Academy, discovered a really curative or preventive remedy against tuberculosis, has not been awarded. The offer holds good for twenty-five years, starting from April 2, 1896. Another prize not awarded was the Chevillon prize of 1500 francs offered to the writer of the best work upon cancerous affections-but a consolation prize of 500 francs was given to Dr. Livet for his work on the subject.

MR. JOHN W. BARBOUR, writing from Bangor, Co. Down, Ireland, informs us that an albino lark-believed to be a skylark-was shot in that district on December 27, 1897.

MR. B. WOODD-SMITH calls our attention to the following paragraph, which appeared in the Whitby Gazette of December 17 :--" A splendid meteoric display was witnessed in the eastern heavens on Sunday night [December 12], shortly before eight o'clock. The meteors, which appeared of various colours, were of great brilliance, and illumined the sky with an effulgence greatly surpassing that of the clear and almost full moon shining at the time. About the time of the display, a sound like that of thunder was heard." Further information with reference to these observations would be of interest.

DR. R. F. SCHARFF records, in the Irish Naturalist, the discovery of some remains of the wild horse (Equus caballus) in Ireland. The remains consist of the occipital part of a skull