1896. NEWS OF UNIVERSITIES, ETC. 213 



As announced in our last number, the Museums Association met in 

 Glasgow from July 21 to 24, and was even more successful than we predicted. The 

 presidential address of Mr. Paton gave a history of the Municipal Museums of 

 Glasgow, which, as well as the Hunterian Museum at the University, were visited 

 during the meeting. H. Coates and A. M. Rodger described the arrangement of the 

 Perthshire Natural History Museum. E. M. Holmes, of the Pharmaceutical 

 Society's Museum, dwelt on the difficulties of discovering type-specimens in 

 many Botanical Museums. Dr. G. Bell Todd's paper on " Colour Tinting 

 and its application to Microscopic Work" had no connection with museum 

 technique. H. Bolton exhibited labels that he had drawn up for the Salford 

 Museum (see Natural Science, vol. viii., p. 140), in order to explain the geological 

 systems, and some discussion took place as to the possibility of issuing sets of labels 

 suitable for more than one museum. F. A. Bather satirically enquired how museums 

 might best retard the advance of science, suggesting many answers from the 

 experience of most of us. In a second paper he advocated the use of electrotypes in 

 Natural History Museums, and exhibited electrotypes of various fossils, which had 

 been prepared by Messrs. Dellagana, of 106 Shoe Lane, E.G., and which met with 

 general approval. G. W. Ord struck rather a new vein in explaining how chemical 

 science and industry might be explained by museum methods ; he was treated as the 

 youthful enthusiast, or the prophet in his own country, but Glasgow might do worse 

 than put Mr. Ord's ideas into concrete form. W. E. Hoyle read a letter, written 

 long ago by Huxley, to the Natural History Society in Manchester, in answer to 

 their enquiries as to the best form for a museum. Dr. Sorby's lantern slides con- 

 structed from actual marine animals, some of which had been exposed in the Museum 

 at Sheffield for a year, were exhibited by E. Howarth. J. Rankin reported on the 

 present state of the marine station at Millport. An account, by Clara Nurdlinger, 

 of a visit to Miss T. Mestorf, the directress of the Schleswig-Holstein Museum of 

 Antiquities at Kiel, was read by W. E. Hoyle, and gave rise to an interesting dis- 

 cussion as to the employment of women in museums ; the experiences of various 

 curators had been as various as il donne e viobile. T. White advocated the use in 

 museums of such reflectors for electric light as are employed in the picture galleries 

 of well-known dealers. 



The Berlin Academy of Sciences has made the following grants : — Professor 

 Weierstrass, for the publication of his works, M.2,000 ; Professor Klein, for apparatus 

 for researches in crystallography, M.118 ; Dr. Burger, for zoological explorations in 

 the Andes, M.3,000 ; Professor Fiitterer, for geological explorations, M. 1,000; Dr. 

 Tornquist, for geological explorations in Vicenza, M. 1,500 ; Professor Wernicke, for 

 a photographic atlas of sections of the brain, M.2,000. 



A UNION, whose aim is the thorough geological exploration of the northern 

 portion of German East Africa, has been founded in BerHn under the title, " Irangi 

 Gesellschaft." An expedition under its auspices, headed by Lieutenant Werther, 

 and accompanied by two geologists, starts for that locality shortly, and will remain 

 there some fifteen months. 



The citizens of Munich have collected M. 71, 200 for the Academy of Sciences in 

 that city, to be devoted to the promotion of research. 



The last part of the Proceedings of the Bath Natural History and Antiquarian 

 Field Club (vol. viii., no. 3), just received, contains the forty-first annual " Summary" 

 for the session 1895-96, and shows the club to be in a remarkably flourishing con- 

 dition. Natural History, however, occupies a very small part of its attention, and 

 the extent to which even its prominent members are versed in the most elementary 

 principles of the subject may be inferred from a question of the president, who is 

 reported to have innocently enquired (p. 266) whether any of the Upper Lias fishes 

 in the Moore Collection belonged to species still existing at the present day ! We 



