1899] LOCAL COLOUR LN UNLVERSLTLES 343 



in some feature of their organisation be eminently adapted to their 

 social milieu. A predominantly classical university at Birmingham 

 might commend itself to those who believe in taking a cold to cure a 

 fever, but there is little reason to believe that it would be practically 

 effective. It would be like making a special feature of mining at 

 Aberdeen, or of polar exploration at Khartoum, or of commercial 

 education at St. Andrews, or of marine biology at Moscow. With these 

 sentiments it was with much pleasure that we read the first paragraph 

 of the Rectorial address delivered on the 6th of March by Professor 

 Karl Brandt at Kiel. 



That the University of Kiel, he said, is a university by the sea, 

 has had as a natural result that many members of the professoriate 

 have turned their attention to the problems which the sea always 

 presents. Especially has this been the case since 1870, when the 

 Kiel Commission was charged with the scientific investigation of 

 German seas, to the end that their practical exploitation might be 

 more effective. " Not only for zoologists, botanists, and oceanographers, 

 but for chemists, physicists, physiologists, histologists, and hygienists, the 

 sea which lies before us presents valuable material for investigation. 

 And the fact that a number of the University teachers are also con- 

 nected with the Marine Academy has brought representatives of various 

 disciplines, which might otherwise have had little real touch with salt 

 water, face to face with the manifold relations between man and the 

 sea. Our University, which formerly had rather the character of a 

 ' Schleswig-holsteinische Landsuniversitat,' has been gradually becoming 

 the marine university of Germany." And it is well known that the 

 first great scientific marine expedition of Germany, the " Planton 

 Expedition," was manned from Kiel. Professor Brandt's words seem 

 to us exceedingly wise, and while we rejoice that adequate recognition 

 is given to the resources of the sea in St. Andrews and Liverpool, to 

 navigation in Glasgow, to bacteriology in London, to geology and 

 good-breeding in Edinburgh, and so on surely all round, we still think 

 that the question may be profitably asked, whether our universities have 

 as yet sufficiently realised the importance of acquiring that local colour 

 which is so strongly justified on scientific and artistic grounds, in short, 

 by common sense. 



The Metabolism of the Sea. 



Professor Karl Brandt speaks hopefully of the progress of research 

 in regard to what may be called the metabolism of the sea. The 

 long-continued observations by chemists and biologists have given us 

 some sort of picture of the circulation of matter in " agriculture," and 

 the same is being attempted for the much vaster areas of " aquiculture." 

 The careful studies made by Susta on the carp of the fish-pond and 



