236 NATURAL SCIENCE. March, 



Penrose, Jr., Associate Professor of Economic Geology ; C. R. Van Hise, Non- 

 resident Professor of Pre-cambrian Geology ; C. D. Walcott, Non-resident Pro- 

 fessor of Palacontologic Geology ; W. H. Holmes, Non-resident Professor of 

 Archacologic Geology ; George Baur, Assistant Professor of Palaeontology (Biological 

 Department); Edmund Jussen, Decent in European Stratigraphy. If other depart- 

 ments of knowledge are represented on anything like the same scale, this will be the 

 most completely equipped University in the world. The geological professors 

 propose to start a monthly magazine, which will be issued under the auspices of the 

 University. 



We much wish that space allowed us to print in full the strong circular-letter 

 of protest addressed by Dr. John Young to Lord Kinnear, as chairman of the 

 Scottish Universities Commission, on the " omission of Geology from the subjects 

 for which it is proposed to endow chairs in Glasgow University." At present the 

 teaching is not the duty of any Professor in the University, and it has been carried 

 on by means of lectures, by Dr. Young himself, under the Honyman-Gillespie 

 Endowment. For twenty-seven years Dr. Young has divided the Natural History 

 chair into two subjects — Zoology and Geology — and he says sorrowfully, '" I have 

 given the best years of my life to minimise the evils of a duplicate commission, or, 

 rather, professorship, and it is hard indeed to find that my earnest appeal on behalf 

 of my chair, my emphatic evidence that I cannot keep pace with two sciences — either 

 of which is enough for one man's energy — have evoked no hint of help from a Com- 

 mission appointed to improve the teaching in the Scottish Universities." The 

 University has, strangely enough, divided the History chair into Civil and Ecclesias- 

 tical, but ignores the claims of Geology. Dr. Young concludes : — " I fervently 

 hope that before I demit office, Zoology and Geology may be adequately provided 

 for, and my successor spared the weary task which has been mine for so many 

 years." 



In a new storey recently added to Firth College, Sheffield, Professor Denny is 

 provided with accommodation for the work of the Biological department to the 

 extent of a laboratory and museum combined, and a lecture theatre communicating 

 with it. The dissecting benches at present available for work seat about thirty 

 students. It is satisfactory to find the number of students steadily increasing every 

 year. In the development of a teaching museum Professor Denny has so far devoted 

 the very limited fund at his disposal to the acquisition of osteological preparations 

 and embryological models, which already fill the museum cases provided. The 

 rooms are fitted with electric light throughout. Hitherto the biological work of the 

 College has been carried on in the museum of the School of Medicine. 



We notice that the President and both Secretaries of the Geological Society 

 this year are graduates of St. John's College, Cambridge. For a long time this 

 college has been prolific of geological students — indeed, we believe we might say 

 that it has produced more geologists than all the other Cambridge Colleges together. 

 This is probably owing in the main to the influence of Professor Bonney, when 

 tutor of the college. Of the University honours in geology, all the Sedgwick Prizes 

 except one, and all the Harkness Scholarships except two, have been won by Johnians. 



On February 14 the President of the College of Surgeons, Mr. Thomas Bryant, 

 delivered the Hunterian Oration on the occasion of the centenary of the death of 

 John Hunter. Mr. Bryant paid a high tribute to Hunter's efforts to establish 

 surgery as a science, and referred to his wide knowledge of zoology and comparative 

 anatomy. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of York honoured Mr. Bryant by 

 attending. 



We learn from the Atlienaum that a Natural History department is being 

 arranged in the Imperial Museum at Constantinople. 



