An interesting account was given by the Rev. E. Jones, in the British Association, of his exploration of the Elbolten Cave, in Craven. The first chamber, the one examined, is between thirty and forty feet long, and from seven to thirteen feet wide. Relics, including remains of about a dozen men, were found in two strata. Among the objects discovered most worthy of notice were remains of a hearth, neolithic pottery, variously ornamented and coated with charcoal on the inside; pot-boilers made of rounded grit with marks of fire; pieces of silurian slates that may have been used for the sharpening of bone implements; and pieces of bone, one of which was undoubtedly used to ornament pottery.
A committee has been formed to place a marble bust of Richard Jeffries in Salisbury Cathedral. It is to cost $750, toward which subscriptions are invited.
M. Marey has succeeded in photographing the movements of an animal under water, taking proofs at the rate of fifty in a second, with exposures of from 1/2000 to 1/3000 of a second. A set of twelve photographs gives all the phases of the undulations which the medusa impresses upon its umbrella of a locomotor apparatus. Another series exhibits a squid leaping out of the water. A ray has been taken in profile while waving the edges of its flat body; and the curious mode of progression of a comatula has been taken.
A law was announced several years ago by M. V. Neyreneuf relative to the flow of sound through thin cylindrical pipes, which proved identical with the law declared by Poiseuille for the flow of liquids through capilliary tubes. In a later memoir the former author has sought to determine the sounds to be used and the precautions to be taken for giving their flow a well-defined character. He also describes experiments with pipes of varying lengths and diameters, and experiments upon the effect of the kind and substance of the pipe.
Mr. St. George Mivart has been appointed Professor of the Philosophy of Natural History in the University of Louvain, Belgium.
Prof. Marsh gave an account to the British Association of the gigantic Ceratopsidæ, or horned dinosaurs, which he had identified in the Laramie beds, near the Rocky Mountains. The Association gave him a vote of thanks for his instructive communication.
Dr. Frithiof Nansen, the Norwegian explorer whose achievement in crossing Greenland from the eastern to the western shore resulted in considerable additions to knowledge, is preparing to start in the spring of 1892 on an expedition the main object of which will be to reach the north pole.
It is shown by Prof. A. Milnes Marshall that there is great variability in nearly allied animals, and even in individuals of the same species. In proof, he refers to the difference between the French edible frog and the British frog, and says that the question as to which of these was the primitive form is a subject for interesting study.
Miss Marianne North, a distinguished English botanist, traveler, and artist, died August 30th. Her career may be said to have begun in 1869, when she started to travel with a view of illustrating the flora of some countries not then perfectly known. She visited on different excursions Teneriffe, Brazil, the West Indies, California, India, Ceylon, Borneo, Java, Japan, Australia, and the Seychelles, and brought back at various times during twelve years collections of drawings in oils and water-colors of the scenery, vegetation, and flora which she had studied in their several habitats. In 1881 she presented a series of 627 pictures to the nation, for which she erected a gallery in Kew Gardens at her own expense.
Thomas Carnelley, Professor of Chemistry in the University of Aberdeen, died August 27th, at the age of thirty-eight years. He was born in Manchester, England; had a brilliant career in Owens College; received the Dalton Chemical scholarship in 1872 for his original investigation of the vanadates of thallium; and gained it for another year, on examination; was private assistant to Prof. Roscoe, and, having studied abroad, became professor in succession at Owens College, the North Staffordshire School of Science, Firth College, Sheffield, University College, Dundee, and the University of Aberdeen. He prosecuted valuable researches in the extension and application of Mendeleef's periodic law; made chemical and bacteriological examinations of the air of dwellings, schools, etc., in Dundee and its district, which aroused interest in ventilation; and besides many contributions to English and foreign chemical journals, published a large book on certain physical constants of chemical compounds.
Signor Orazio Silvestri, a distinguished chemist and vulcanologist, recently died at Catania, Sicily, at the age of fifty-five years. He was an industrious student of the eruptions of Mount Etna, and founded the laboratory on top of the mountain at the height of upward of 13,000 feet.
Prof. Carl Frederik Fearnley, of the University of Christiania, an eminent Norwegian astronomer, died August 23d, in his seventy-third year. He was the author of numerous astronomical and meteorological publications, and had been Professor of Astronomy at the university since 1857.
