1899] NEWS 253 



We have before now alluded to the educational collection of natural history 

 specimens and literature relating thereto, belonging to Mr. S. Prout Newcombe, 

 and at present displayed in the Free Library of St. George's, Hanover Square, 

 London. The space is now required by the library commissioners for the regular 

 purposes of the library. Mr. Newcombe now offers the collection to the London 

 County Council under the following conditions : — (1) The collection is to be kept 

 and exhibited always in a room to be named " The Natural History Reading 

 Room," which room is to be maintained in good order at the expense of the 

 Council, and the collection is to be kept separate and distinct from other than 

 natural history objects and literature; (2) the collection is to be transferred 

 to the Council for educational purposes, and not as a public exhibition ; (3) be- 

 fore the end of the present year the collection is to be removed temporarily to 

 the Shoreditch Technical Institute, and within a certain period thereafter to be 

 transferred to a suitable place in the county of London. The " suitable place " 

 may be the Chelsea Physic Garden, which, as we have already recorded, is to 

 be made available for science students. The Technical Education Board has 

 suggested the great hall of Aske's Schools, which would gradually be equipped 

 as a museum in connection with the cabinetmaking classes. Whatever plan be 

 finally decided on, we beg to urge that the exhibit should be made readily 

 accessible to the wider circles of the public, for whom it is intended, and that 

 no attempt should be made to give it a severely scientific or technical character. 



Mr. Edward Austin of Boston, an East India merchant, has bequeathed 

 400,000 dollars to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ; and 500,000 

 dollars to Harvard College, Cambridge. 



The Scientific American of February 4 reports on the results of the investiga- 

 tion of the late Mr. Keely's laboratory, which seem to show that the mysterious 

 motor phenomena produced by "this nineteenth century thaumaturgist" were 

 due to carefully concealed arrangements for the distribution of compressed air 

 from a three-ton sphere beneath the building. Wonders do sometimes cease. 



The 13th meeting of the "Anatomische Gesellschaft " will be held at 

 Tubingen from May 21 to 24. 



Professors Laguesse of Lille and Nicolas of Nancy have organised an "Associa- 

 tion des anatomistes " analogous to the German Anatomische Gesellschaft. 

 The first meeting was held in Paris in January. 



The American Society of Naturalists has elected Professor G. W. Farlow of 

 Harvard as its new president, and Professor T. H. Morgan of Bryn Mawr College 

 as secretary. 



The new president of the American Psychological Association is Professor 

 John Dewey of Chicago. 



An Anthropological Society has been started at Amsterdam. The president 

 is Dr. C. Winckler ; vice-president, Dr. E. Dubois ; secretary, Dr. Sasse, fils ; 

 treasurer, Dr. C. Kerbert ; librarian, Dr. J. E. Grevers. 



At a meeting of the Scottish Microscopical Society, on February 17, Dr. 

 Gregg Wilson read two short papers on Ceratodus. In the first it was shown 

 that the lung arises in the two-months-old form as a mid-ventral diverticulum 

 of the gut ; in the second it was pointed out that the development of the pro- 

 nephros bears a startlingly close resemblance to that of the newt. 



On February 14, at the Royal College of Surgeons, Sir William MacCormac 

 delivered the Hunterian Oration in the presence of the Prince of Wales, who is 

 an honorary F.R.C.P., and a distinguished company. While recognising that 

 Hunter was chiefly and finally a surgeon, he emphasised that his work was in 

 the first instance biological. Our enjoyable contemporary The Outlook recalls 

 a classic incident : " Interrupted one day in the midst of the dissection of a 



