Mr. Henry Scherren's attractive and compendious little book stands rather apart from the rest. It aims, and aims successfully, at giving the young naturalist a pleasant idea of the invertebrates as a field of study. It is unfortunate that a wrong adjustment of the type on p. 49 has obscured the grouping of the cephalopods. The passage reads as if the second group no less than the first was subdivided into eight-armed and tenarmed species. The confusion is increased by a further accident on the following page, where the name of "the Pearly Nautilus" is attributed to the figure of "the Paper Nautilus," Argonauta argo, although it is

of technical names, but of Indian and English. Hence we learn that Mooweesuk is "the coon," and that Nemox is "the fisher," but whether the world has more than one coon or more than one fisher we are left wondering, and what in the world Mr. Long's "fisher" may be remains a problem, one of nature's riddles for Mr. Shepheard-Walwyn to solve.

It may be said of all these books, though their merits are various and their individual merit unequal, that they are good both to give and to receive.

properly given later on to the Nautilus pompilius figured and discussed on p. 56. Such mistakes are likely enough to arise so long as publishers entertain a superstitious dread that the popularity of a book will be impaired by the introduction of technical scientific names. Alone among our authors, Mr. Kerr has been allowed to set this superstition at defiance. The public are seemingly expected to hail with delight such names as Mooweesuk and Musquash, and Chigwooltz and Unk Wunk. Perhaps they are pleasantly resonant of Longfellow's "Hiawatha." Otherwise they are no easier to remember than Linnean Latin. Mr. Long understands this, and kindly supplies a glossary, not

T. R. R. S.

INDIAN METEOROLOGICAL MEMOIRS.1 IT T was only quite recently that there was noticed in these columns the volume containing the record of rainfall of each Indian station, printed in such a form that the reader could at a glance see the monthly, yearly, or monsoon fall for any year up to 1900. This important volume, published under the direction of Sir John Eliot, is now followed by another equally valuable, embodying all the pressure observations of each station for the whole period of observation up to the end of the year 1902. These pressures are all reduced to 32° F. and constant gravity (lat. 45°), but not for height above sea-level; the elevation of the cistern is, however, added in each

case.

Previous to the year 1889, the monthly means given are those of the mean of the ten and sixteen hours' monthly mean, but after that year the 8 a.m. monthly values alone are employed. At the foot of each table the necessary information is given for converting one series into the other, so that no difficulty should be encountered in this respect.

As an indication of the thoroughness with which this compilation has been attended, the attention of the reader may be directed to appendix i., which contains notes on the positions of the observatories and the character of the barometric observations. Appendix ii. includes further important data, for here are collected for each station such valuable notes as makers and kinds of barometers employed, periods of use, positions, corrections to Calcutta standard, &c.

The data included in this volume refer to 121 different stations, and the records in most instances date from the year 1875.

Another memoir that has just recently been published is one which deals with the movements of the upper clouds. The observations were made at six stations, namely, Simla, Lahore, Jaipur, Allahabad, Vizagapatam, and Madras, and were recorded by means of Fineman's nephescopes, a description and illustration of which are given in the text.

The period of observation extended over the years 1895-1900, and in this volume not only is a monthly summary of the data for each of these stations inserted, but also the results of a brief discussion, and a series of twelve plates illustrating the mean directions of the different classes of clouds for each month of the year.

The following are among the chief results which have been gathered from this series of observations, but it is pointed out that a more extended series at

1 Vol. xv., parti, Brief Discussion of the Cloud Observations Recorded at Six Stations in India. Pp. 112. Vol. xvi.. part i., Monthly Normals of Air Pressure Reduced to 32 F. and Constant Gravity 45. Pp. 184. (Published under the direction of Sir John Eliot, M.A., F.R.S.. K.C.I.E., Meteor. ological Reporter to the Government of India and Director-General of Indian Observatories.)

twenty or thirty selected stations is desired to corroborate these facts and conclusions.

The amount of cirrus cloud is small during the rainy season in Upper India, and increases rapidly southwards, reaching a maximum in southern India.

The amount or frequency of cirro-stratus cloud is large in the dry season in northern India, and decreases rapidly southwards to southern India, where it is very small, as indicated by the Madras and Vizagapatam observations.

The amount of cirro-stratus is much smaller in the wet than in the dry season in Upper India. It is very small in the peninsula, almost as small as in the dry season. It is, on the other hand, of frequent occurrence over the area represented by Jaipur and Allahabad, and more especially in Allahabad.

Alto-cumulus cloud is a cloud of frequent occurrence in northern India throughout the whole year. It is of rare occurrence in the peninsula from November to May, and of occasional occurrence from June to October at Madras.

Cumulus and cumulo-nimbus are of frequent occurrence in the dry season at Simla, Jaipur, Vizagapatam and Madras, more especially at the two lastnamed coast stations, and are, in fact, the most characteristic clouds of the Indian area. They are of frequent occurrence in the wet season, more especially at the peninsular coast stations and at Jaipur and Allahabad.

It is noteworthy that cumulus and cumulo-nimbus are of much less frequent occurrence in the wet than in the dry season at Vizagapatam and Madras. The former type of cloud is also comparatively rare at Allahabad and the latter type of cloud at Jaipur in the dry season.

With regard to the directions of movements of the different types of clouds at the different seasons of the year, the maps in the volume illustrate the results most clearly. Reference may here, perhaps, be made only to the directions of the cirrus and cirro-stratus during the wet and dry seasons, and the following table sums up the information for the six stations.

It will be seen that the movements of the two kinds of clouds in both seasons are practically the same in Upper or north-west India, but differ very considerably

when the stations are more south.

It may further be noted that in the more northern stations the air movement as observed by the upper clouds is very steady in the direction from almost due west to east, and this is more especially so during the dry season from November to May.

During this small number of years of observation it was detected that the mean direction of the cirrus movement varied slightly in the same months or seasons of different years. This variation, as Sir John Eliot states, is almost certainly real, and represents a phase in the upper air movement over a considerable area. Previous to these cloud observations it had been estimated on theoretical grounds that the south-west

monsoon currents reach up to an average elevation of 10,000 to 15,000 feet, no actual measurements having been made. Sir John Eliot here points out that the most remarkable feature of the present cloud observations is the great variability or unsteadiness of the cloud movement during this period up to the elevation of the highest cirrus at Allahabad, in the centre or axis of the trough of low pressure. From cloud measurements made by photogrammeters at Allahabad during the wet seasons (June to September) of the years 1898 to 1900, it was deduced that the variable or unsteady movement in the monsoon trough extended" to a probable elevation of 30,000 feet at least, and perhaps even to 40,000 feet, and that the regular movement in the higher atmosphere from west to east is either suspended or occurs at a much greater elevation than in the dry season.

The important results obtained by determining the movements of the air currents at different heights by means of the observations of clouds indicate that the use of kites and unmanned balloons will perhaps prove a valuable auxiliary.

The appearance of these two important memoirs so recently after the one to which reference has already been made will give the reader some notion of the activity displayed by the Indian Meteorological Department under the distinguished direction of Sir John Eliot, and of the valuable researches which it contributes to meteorological science.

W. J. S. L.

THE FOOD AND DRUGS ACTS.1 ΤΗ HE two Parliamentary papers mentioned below, although widely different in character, are, at bottom, intimately connected with a common question, namely, the effective administration of the enactments dealing with the adulteration of food and drink.

The Food and Drugs Acts are now upwards of a third of a century old. They have been considered and reconsidered by Parliament at various times even down to the year 1899, and in the consideration have had to run the gauntlet of much deliberate obstruction from faddists, federations, and that class of freefooders which regards any legislative interference with the buying and selling of anything of the nature of food, however bad, as noxious economic heresy, and That a restriction of the free play of competition. the Acts contain compromises, inconsistencies, and anomalies is well known to those who have anything to do with their administration. Nor has the judgemade law by which these anomalies have been interpreted tended to their smoother working; indeed, it has caused them to be absolutely inoperative in certain directions. How imperfect the Acts are is strikingly exemplified in the two papers before us.

The first, and in a sense the most important, of these is the final report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into arsenical poisoning from the consumption of beer and other articles of food or drink. It will be remembered that in the latter part of 1900 there occurred a serious epidemic of poisoning which was traced to arsenical contamination of beer at numerous breweries through the use of brewing sugars manufactured by a single firm in the neighbourhood of Liverpool. The arsenic was introduced into these sugars by way of a highly arsenical sulphuric acid supplied by a firm of chemical manufacturers in 1 Final Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into Arsenical Poisoning from the Consumption of Beer and other Articles of Food or Drink. Parliamentary Paper. Cd. 1848. 1903.

Final Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the Board of Agriculture and Department of Agriculture and other Industries and Technical Instruction for Ireland to inquire and report upon the desira1899 for Butter. Parliamentary Paper. Cd. 1749. bility of Regulations under Section 4 of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act

1903.

Leeds which had been used in their production. This occurrence was attended with serious consequences, and caused such widespread alarm that it was deemed expedient that a Royal Commission should issue to ascertain the amount of the sickness and death attributable to poisoning by arsenic, and to consider by what safeguards the introduction of arsenic into articles of food or drink can be prevented.

In their first report the Commissioners dealt with the immediate question which led to their appointments, and made certain recommendations with the view of strengthening the hands of the Inland Revenue Authorities in preventing a recurrence of such a catastrophe as that which occurred in the autumn of 1900.

In their second and final report the Commissioners state in the outset what action they took to ascertain what became of the large stock (more than 700 tons) of arsenicated glucose and "invert" remaining at the works of the firm who made it, and also what became of certain arsenicated table syrups (14 tons in amount) which they had placed on the market. It is satisfactory to know that all the contaminated glucose and "invert" sugar was got rid of for purposes unconnected with food, particulars regarding each sale and the undertakings entered into respecting the use of all sugars sold being communicated to the Commission and to the Local Government Board.

As regards the extent of the epidemic, it appears from the evidence of witnesses and from information obtained from medical officers of health that the total number of persons who suffered was certainly not fewer than 6000, and probably considerably more. It is impossible to determine the number of fatal cases with any approach to accuracy. From the returns of the medical officers of health it appears that these were at least seventy, that is to say, there were seventy cases in which arsenical poisoning was entered in the death certificate as the cause of death, or was found to be a cause as the result of a coroner's inquest. These, in the opinion of the Commissioners, do not represent the total number of cases. Deaths occurring before the discovery of the cause of the outbreak were frequently certified as due to "chronic alcoholism " and " cirrhosis of the liver," and in some cases were attributed to Addison's disease and to locomotor ataxy. Other 66 'alcoholic," peri

deaths were recorded as due to 66

59

pheral," or " multiple neuritis

Not the least valuable result of the inquiry has been to bring together a series of detailed descriptions by competent medical observers of individual cases of poisoning, of different clinical types which they have distinguished, of particular symptoms met with at different stages of the malady, and of pathological changes observed post mortem. These descriptions form valuable material for reference and comparison, and merit careful attention.

The Commissioners are of opinion that a considerable proportion of beer brewed in some parts of the country before 1900 contained noteworthy quantities of arsenic, mainly derived from malt and from brewing sugars. It is also evident that before 1900 the degree to which beer had been liable to receive arsenic from malt must have varied greatly in different parts of England. Malt has been shown to have been subject to arsenical contamination in much greater degree when the fuel used on the kiln has been gas coke than when oven coke or anthracite has been employed. It would seem that the fact of greater prevalence of alcoholic neuritis among beer drinkers in Manchester and Liverpool before 1900, when compared with other places, is to be ascribed to the larger proportion of arsenic contained in much of the malt there used, due to the character of the fuel employed in kilning. That malt of this character will give rise

to arsenical poisoning was shown by the occurrence of an outbreak in Halifax in 1902, the circumstances of which were carefully inquired into by the Commission.

Incidentally, the Commission has accumulated interesting and valuable information on the question of individual susceptibility to arsenic, on the mode in which it accumulates in human tissues, and on the ways in which it is eliminated. Arsenic was detected in sweat, in the epidermic, scales which are freely shed in the condition known as keratosis, in the nails and in hair. It appears that epidermic tissues, which consist principally of keratin, have a special affinity for arsenic, and that the effect of arsenic upon nerve tissue may be related to the fact that nerve sheaths consist largely of keratin.

With regard to the suggested relation between the disease known as "beri-beri "-a disease mainly characterised by peripheral neuritis-and arsenical poisoning, the Commissioners are of opinion that such clinical, etiological and chemical data as they have been able to collect lend no support to the idea of such relation.

Much of the evidence laid before the Commission related to the relative value of different methods of estimating small quantities of arsenic in brewing materials and in food and drink generally. Indeed, there has sprung up quite a plentiful crop of literature on the subject within the last three years, and one effect of the inquiry has unquestionably been greatly to improve our analytical methods of detecting and estimating minimal quantities of arsenic. On the whole the Commission is inclined to recommend the method of comparison of mirrors, obtained either by the so-called Marsh-Berzelius method or by the electrolytic method as worked out by a departmental committee appointed by the Board of Inland Revenue.

A considerable section of the report deals with the various ways in which foods are liable to become contaminated by arsenic, and the precautions which should be taken by manufacturers to exclude it. In the greater number of cases the introduction of arsenic would appear to be due to the use of mineral acids, more particularly sulphuric and hydrochloric acid, in the preparation of ingredients of food. Arsenic may also be introduced in the mineral or organic colouring matters which may be employed to improve" the appearance of food preparations.

The subject of malt naturally receives much attention. Although the exclusion of small quantities of arsenic from it has proved to be a matter of considerable difficulty, it is satisfactory to know that all the evidence goes to show that it is now commercially practicable to produce malt which either may be con sidered free from arsenic or in which the amount of arsenic is certainly less than 1/250th grain per pound. Considerations of space preclude us from attempting to show how it has been proved that access of arsenic to malt may be obviated or diminished. No doubt this section of the report will receive from those commercially interested in the matter the attention which its exhaustive treatment merits.

In the concluding sections of their report the Commissioners deal with the present means of official control over purity of food, more especially in relation to arsenic, and discuss the general question as to what improvements are, in their opinion, needed in the official control over the purity of food.

As this is, perhaps, the most generally important outcome of their deliberations, and bears directly upon the question of the efficacy of the machinery which supervises the working of the Food and Drugs Acts, we propose to reserve the consideration of their recommendations to a subsequent article.

STATE AID FOR AGRICULTURE.1

MR. T. S. DYMOND, who has charge of the agri cultural education in the county of Essex, has published a valuable little pamphlet on the State aid given to agriculture in Denmark and Hungary, _two countries with which he is personally familiar. Both countries can show great gains to the farming industry during the past ten or twenty years, mainly the result of improved education and organisation, but they present an interesting contrast in the way the work has been done. In Denmark the initiative has come from the individual; the State has simply stepped

in and assisted whatever institutions for education and research had been started by the people themselves. It is true the Government has founded and liberally endowed the Royal Agricultural and Veterinary College at Copenhagen, and also maintains the higher research stations, but to the cooperative societies and other commercial developments, which have done so much for Danish agriculture, it gives little or no direct help.

In Hungary the conditions are very different; the whole organisation has been created from above; not only has the State founded an extraordinarily complete department for education and research, but it has not hesitated to enter boldly into business and provide financial assistance to the farmers in distressed districts. It develops horse and cattle breeding by the help of great State farms, it has created a flourishing fruit industry, founded credit banks and cooperative societies, and generally adopted the paternal" standpoint of fostering the farming interests wherever its assistance could be effective. Despite the great success of its efforts, Mr. Dymond considers that there are not wanting signs of State aid having gone too far in Hungary and having become State interference, resulting in a certain measure of discouragement to the enterprise of individuals.

Turning to our own country in the light of these examples, Mr. Dymond would limit the assistance of the State to education and research; the whole genius of the English farmer is opposed to State aid in his business matters. As Mr. Dymond points out, many parts of the country already possess considerable, if but slightly appreciated, facilities for agricultural education; farmers can get their sons educated at very low rates, their manures analysed, their seeds tested, they can obtain expert advice of all kinds as cheaply as in any foreign country. Only if you cross the county boundary none of these good things may be available, and an immense waste is going on through the want of system and the localisation in particular counties of the work that is being done.

Mr. Dymond argues for more central direction, and urges that the Board of Agriculture, which financially assists so much of the work, should assume a certain measure of control and bring the whole country into

line.

Appositely enough, on the heels of Mr. Dymond's pamphlet comes the annual report of the Board of Agriculture on the distribution of grants for education and research in 1902-03. From this we learn that the Board gives substantial financial aid, 8ool. a year with an extra 200l. for the maintenance of a farm, to seven colleges of university standing in England and Wales, and also grants smaller sums to eight other schools or colleges, the total expenditure amounting to 8yool. per annum. This, however, represents only a portion of the whole expenditure on these institutions; so far as can be made out from the report, the 1 "Continental State-aid for Agriculture." By T. S. Dymond. (Chelmsford, 1903.)

"Annual Report on the Distribution of Grants for Agriculture and Research in the Year 1902-3." (London: The Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, 1903.)

county councils concerned contributed 29, 127., which does not in all cases include capital expenditure and outlay on the farm. The total expenditure of all the county councils in England and Wales on agricultural education amounted to 87,732l. in 1901-02, and if we consider the distribution of this money, the manner in which comparatively minor matters, like poultry and bee-keeping and manual processes, bulk in the account, a very strong case is made out for more central control, for at present the Board of Agriculture only inspects the expenditure of one-third of the whole sum. The weak side of the Board's outlay is seen in the "special grants for experiment and research." The total allotted is 864l. 6s. 1d.; is this magnificent sum importance of English agriculture or of the value of to be taken as an index of the official opinion of the research? The distribution, too, is curious; 225l. is for repetitions of Dr. Somerville's interesting manure and mutton experiment, 84l. 6s. 1d. is for trials of maize growing, 50l. for experiments on wheat; the Somerset County Experimental Farm, with the astonishing proviso that care shall be taken to keep Agricultural Research records in future, gets 10ol., as does the "Aberdeen Association." Rothamsted, which we were told in the Times last year is being starved for want of funds, gets just nothing at all. There seems a want of proportion somewhere.

ROBERT ETHERIDGE, F.R.S.

66

IN the death of Robert Etheridge geological science has lost a distinguished worker who was actively engaged for upwards of fifty years.

Born in Herefordshire on December 3, 1819, he settled in early years in Bristol, and was for some time employed in a business house.

His scientific career commenced in 1850, when he was appointed curator to the Museum of the Philosophical Society in that city. This post he held for thoroughly acquainted with the local geology, extendseven years, during which period he made himself ing his observations into the region beyond Gloucester and Cheltenham, and becoming an active member of the Cotteswold Naturalists' Field Club. Through the influence of Sir Roderick Murchison (who had in 1834 published an "Outline of the Geology of the Neighbourhood of Cheltenham ") he was in 1857 appointed one of the paleontologists to the Geological Survey, working at first under J. W. Salter, and assisting Huxley at the Royal School of Mines by giving demonstrations in paleontology.

In 1859 he published his first work, entitled "Geology: its Relation and Bearing upon Mining, being the substance of three lectures which he had delivered before the Bristol Mining School.

Geological Survey, he was occupied chiefly in arrangDuring the earlier portion of his service on the ing and naming the Invertebrata of the Secondary and newer strata, and after Salter had retired the Paleozoic fossils also came directly under his charge. Later on, when Jukes questioned the age and relations tions to re-investigate its palæontology and stratiof the Devonian formation, Etheridge received instrucgraphical divisions, and the results of this arduous and important task were published in 1867 in a memorable paper Somerset and North Devon, and on the Palæonto"On the Physical Structure of West logical Value of the Devonian Fossils."

The list of his published papers is not a long one, but he contributed articles on the Rhætic beds of Aust, Westbury-on-Severn, Watchet and Penarth, and on the dolomitic conglomerate of the Bristol area. His work on the Geological Survey was mainly in the lists of fossils which he prepared for numerous memoirs

from 1858 to 1881. In 1875 he revised and edited a third edition of John Phillips's "Geology of the Yorkshire Coast." For many years he devoted all his spare time to the preparation of a list of British fossils, stratigraphically and zoologically arranged. Of this great work the first volume, dealing with the Palæozoic species, was published in 1888. Two other volumes, on the Mesozoic and Cainozoic fossils, have remained in MS. In all more than 18,000 species were catalogued.

In 1881 Mr. Etheridge, greatly to the regret of his colleagues on the Geological Survey, was appointed assistant keeper in the geological department of the British Museum, and this post he held with much advantage to that institution for ten years, when he retired from the public service.

He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1871. In 1880 the Murchison medal of the Geological Society was awarded to him, and in the same year he was elected president of that Society. The two addresses which he delivered at successive anniversary meetings of the Geological Society were voluminous papers on the analysis and distribution of the British Palæozoic and Jurassic fossils.

These essays, which were based on his great catalogue, formed a foundation for a subsequent elaborate book (published in 1885) on Stratigraphical Geology and Palæontology." This work, ostensibly issued as part ii. of a second edition of John Phillips's "Manual of Geology, Theoretical and Practical," was almost wholly re-written and very much enlarged by Mr. Etheridge, so that very little of the original text remained. No less than 116 tables of organic remains were incorporated, and very full particulars were also given of the strata in various parts of the British islands.

The stratigraphical knowledge which Mr. Etheridge acquired in his early days at Bristol, and afterwards with the field officers on the Geological Survey, qualified him to give expert advice on economic questions relating to coal, water-supply, &c. In consequence his assistance was frequently sought by engineers and others. During recent years he was engaged as geological adviser to the promoters of the Dover coalboring, and was occupied on matters connected with it until but a short time before his decease.

A man of untiring energy and vigour, he seemed personally never to grow older, and it was not until lately that he lost his upright bearing, but he never lost the cheery, kindly disposition which endeared him. to all his friends and associates.

He died after a few days' illness, the result of a chill, on December 18, soon after he had completed his eighty-fourth year. A good portrait of him was inserted by Lady Prestwich in the "Life and Letters of Sir Joseph Prestwich." H. B. W.

NOTES.

It is announced that the committee of the Parisian Press Association has decided upon the award of the prize of 100,000 francs placed at its disposal by M. Osiris. The committee has resolved to divide this sum between the two inventions which have in recent times most contributed to the honour of French science. The sum of 60,000 francs has been awarded to Mme. Curie for the continuation of her researches into radium, and 40,000 francs to M. Branly for his labours in connection with wireless telegraphy.

THE sum of 30,000 francs has been placed at the disposal of Prof. d'Arsonval by the Matin, of Paris, in order to enable him to continue his researches in connection with the properties of radium.

AMONG the numerous special kinds of radiation recently discovered, not the least interesting are the n-rays of M. Blondlot. These rays, which were first discovered in the radiations from incandescent bodies, pass readily through aluminium, glass, black paper, and other substances, but are arrested by lead or by moistened paper. They were at first studied by means of their action upon small electric sparks, but a more convenient means of observing them is due to their action upon feebly illuminated phosphorescent bodies, the luminosity of which is increased when the Blondlot rays fall on them. In a more recent paper, M. Blondlot has found that bodies in a state of strain, such as tempered steel and unannealed glass, give off these rays spontaneously and continuously at the ordinary temperature, and in the current number of the Comptes rendus M. A. Charpentier shows that these rays are also emitted by the human body, especially by the muscles and nerves. He points out that this effect may prove to be of the greatest importance in the case of the nerves, as up to the present no external reactions of the nervous system have been observed, and a new field of studies in physiology and medicine is thus opened up.

DR. OSANN, of Berlin, has been appointed professor of mechanics at Clausthal, and Dr. Kippenberger and Dr. Georg Frerichs have been appointed professors of chemistry in the University of Bonn.

THE Venetian Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts, offers prizes of 3000 lire under the Querini-Stampaglia foundation for monographs on the following subjects:-The lakes of the Venetian district, treated from a physiographic and biological standpoint; the works of Manuzi as a critic of Greek and Latin literature; the origins of Venetian painting; and advances in the projective geometry of algebraic surfaces of two dimensions in space of n dimensions. Under the Cavalli foundation, a similar prize is offered for an essay on the effects of modern social and economic conditions, &c., on landlords and farmers, with Under the especial reference to the Venetian provinces.

Balbi Valier foundation an award of the same amount is offered for advances in medicine or surgery for the period 1902-3, and under the Minich foundation a prize of 3000 lire is offered for embryological researches on the development of the larynx, the trachea, and the lungs in vertebrates and birds. The last day for sending in essays for the Stampaglia prize, on the Venetian lakes, and the Balbi Valier and Minich prizes is December 31, 1903; for the remaining prizes the essays are due at the end of subsequent years.

IN the course of excavations on the Lulworth Castle Estate, in Dorset, a number of bronze relics have been found, and have been sent to the Dorset County Museum on temporary loan. The most important object is a bronze sword, 24 inches long, and, though broken, it is in a fine state of preservation. Other relics are a socket celt, a gold or heavily gilt bronze finger ring, a socket gouge, a hilt of a sword, an object which is believed to be one of the fittings of a car, supposed harness fittings, and a bronze crook.

THE following telegram was received from Mr. W. S. Bruce, leader of the Scottish Antarctic Expedition, at the offices in Edinburgh on December 17:-" Buenos Ayres. Scotia Stanley. December 2. Refitting here. Hydrograph surveyed 4000 miles unexplored ocean; 70° 25′ south, 17 to 45 W.; 2700 fathoms trawled there; wintered Orkneys; detailed survey. Mossman and five men continue first-class meteorological, magnetical, biological station. Ramsay died August 6. All others robust; Scotia splendid.