18971 NEWS 69 



The Auckland Institute has decided to add a new hall, 50 feet square, to its museum, 

 on the east side of the ethnographical hall. It is intended to receive the statuary 

 presented by Mr T. Russell, C.M.G., which has hitherto found an incongruous home 

 among stuffed vertebrates. The space thus gained will be occupied by groups of the 

 larger mammals, and £100 offered by Mr Russell will be used to procure a group of the 

 larger carnivores. 



Little Barrier Island, on which an attempt is being made to preserve the indigenous 

 fauna and flora of New Zealand, has been placed under the control of the Institute, witb 

 a grant of £200 for the first year's expenses. Mr R. H. Shakespear has been appointed 

 curator, and it is hoped that he may be able to stop the depredations of collectors. 



Mi; H. C. Chadwick has been helping Mr J. J. Ogle at the Bootle Museum, and 

 has rearranged much of the zoological series with elucidatory diagrams. Many new 

 exhibition eases have been acquired, and in one of these the birds are to be rearranged, 

 after consultation with a specialist. The museum lends specimens to teachers for the 

 illustration of object-lessons, and the curator himself gives lectures, illustrated by the 

 lantern, which appear to be much appreciated by young people. 



According to the Halifax Naturalist, the Natural History Museum of Halifax, 

 which was handed over to the County Borough Council about eighteen months ago by 

 the Literary and Philosophical Society, has now found a permanent home in the old 

 mansion named Belle Vue. The geological and botanical collections are very extensive 

 and valuable, but zoology is as yet very imperfectly represented. The herbarium has 

 lately been much enriched by the fine Gibson collection of British plants, the gift of 

 Lady Trevelyan. The Curator, Mr Arthur Crabtree, is making a praiseworthy attempt 

 to render the Museum of general educational value by adequate labelling, and we 

 sympathise with him in his aspirations for a competent committee of management to 

 direct and second his efforts. As he remarks, the ordinary municipal committees may 

 be very admirable bodies, but they are not able to comprehend the requirements of a 

 Museum of Natural History. He needs a committee of naturalists, of which there is no 

 lack in Halifax, and his proposals deserve to be carried out immediately. 



We learn from V 'Anthropologic that the Museum of Moscow University has recently 

 received from the Commission of the Archives of Riazan a collection of skulls, mostly 

 prehistoric, of which the locality and conditions of finding are known in each case. 



The same journal informs us that, near Elissavetpol, in the Caucasus, there have 

 recently been found by seekers after copper, at a depth of 3 metres, a massive bronze 

 bracelet and a copper spear-head of quadrangular shape and 35 cm. in length. In the 

 same locality, on the banks of the Tchovdar, are traces of prehistoric mining. 



Some three thousand prehistoric objects in bronze, iron, bone, and pottery, have 

 been found on the site of ancient places of sacrifice of the Tchoudes at Gliadenevo, on 

 the left bank of the Kama, near Perm. 



At Chita in Trans-Baikal, the local branch of the Russian Geographical Society has 

 founded a museum, which already contains valuable natural history, archaeological, and 

 Buddhistic collections. 



On September 15, 1896, the National Museum of Costa Rica was definitely installed 

 in its new quarters, a two-storeyed building. A view of it is given in La Re\nsta Nucva 

 for October 1896. 



Referring to this museum in his always valuable " Current Notes on Anthropology " 

 (Science, March 19), Prof. D. G. Brinton says that few localities in America offer better 

 specimens of aboriginal pottery and stone-work. The most abundant remains were left 

 by the Guetares, a tribe of whose language and affinities we are still ignorant. 



Plenty of attempt has been made to introduce some study of common objects or of 

 nature into our elementary schools ; but the obstacle generally lies in the teachers. A 

 similar difficulty is felt in America, and to meet it the college of agriculture of Cornell 

 University has undertaken to help, free of expense, all teachers who may wish to be put 

 in the right way. 



The same subject has been fully studied by a committee of sixty, appointed in May 

 1896, by the Chicago Institute of Education, and this committee has appointed sub- 

 committees to prepare maps of the neighbourhood, to prepare printed outlines and 

 suggestions for teachers, to look after appropriate books in the Chicago libraries, to 

 supervise the work of instruction and keep touch with the individual teachers, and also 

 to establish an exhibit of appliances, to arrange cheap means of transport, and to see to 

 finance. 



Those who are advocating the extension of the study of experimental psychology in 

 this country will be glad to hear that it is 'proposed to establish a lectureship in that 

 subject, including the physiology of the senses, at Cambridge University. They will 

 not be so glad to hear that the salary is fixed at £50 per annum. Lecturing in an 

 experimental science is not much use ; one wants experiments, and for those one wants 

 apparatus and a laboratory. 



