236 NA TURAL YSCIENCE. Marcu, 
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 Palzontologic Geology; W. H. Holmes, Non-resident Professor of 
Archeologic Geology ; George Baur, Assistant Professor of Palzontology (Biological 
Department) ; Edmund Jussen, Docent 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. 5 
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 Professur 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 Atheneum that a Natural History department is being 
arranged in the Imperial Museum at Constantinople. 
