272 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Sept. 



cast oa them by an eminent scientist that their "atmosphere" is 

 unfavourable to scientific study. Both are making rapid strides 

 in this direction. 



At Cambridge, under the kind guidance of Prof. Stokes, 

 himself one of the most eminent of living physicists, and of the 

 patriarchal Sedgwick, and his able assistant Seeley, I saw the 

 improvements which in late years have been made in the means 

 of study in natural and physical science, and which tend, with 

 other changes, to give greater effect to the regulations in favor of 

 the natural science tripos. Still more recent movements in this 

 direction are the appointment of a university professor of pure 

 physiology, and the movement in aid of a university professorship 

 and demonstratorship of experimental physics, towards the build- 

 in"-s and apparatus for which, the Chancellor, the Duke of 

 Devonshire, has offered a contribution of £6,3U0. 



WHAT OXFORD IS DOING. 



Oxford has, however, taken the lead of its sister University in 

 this matter, and I shall therefore notice more in detail what I 

 had the pleasure of seeing there in the way of provision for 

 practical science teaching. 



The new museum, now of world-wide reputation, is not merely 

 a museum in the more modern sense of the term, but a series of 

 scientific laboratories and class-rooms, attached to a magnificent 

 library and museum. The museum proper had been largely 

 increased and improved in its collections since my last visit in 

 1865 and its great central glass-roofed court, more than 100 feet 

 square, with its surrounding galleries, is now well filled with 

 specimens in Geology and Zoology. On the south and west 

 sides the museum is encompassed with class-rooms and labora- 

 tories in geology, chemistry and physical science. On the north 

 side are the laboratories and class-rooms in physiology. Prof. 

 Phillips was absent, owing to an attack of illness, and in his 

 department I saw only assistants engaged in laboriously piecing 

 too-ether the huge bones of the Cetiosaurus, a gigantic reptile 

 with thigh bones more than five feet in length, of which a 

 mao-nificent skeleton has recently been discovered in a quarry not 

 far from Oxford. I had, however, the pleasure of seeing the 

 students at work in the laboratory of practical chemistry, under 

 Prof. Brodie, and of examining the admirable arrangements of 

 Prof. RoUeston for practical work in physiology. Among other 



