October. 1896. NEWS OF UNIVERSITIES, ETC. 279 



vision for natural history objects might be made later. But as the present Town 

 Council refuses to take any action, the matter is in abeyance till November, when it 

 may be brought before the Council then to be elected. 



Marshall Field, the founder of the Field Columbian Museum, has promised 

 $2,000,000 to that institution in the event of the city agreeing to remove it from 

 Jackson Park to the new Lake Front Park. 



Among the specimens added to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons 

 during the past year are the following : — The dissected legs and feet of a case of con- 

 genital absence of the tibia in man, presented by H. H. Chilton ; four groups of the 

 barnacle, Lepas fasckularis, which forms for itself a iloat of cement bubbles around 

 the minute floating body to which the stalk is at the outset attached, presented by 

 Professor C. Stewart ; a skeleton and dissections of various organs of Lepidosiren 

 paradoxa; various organs of the chimpanzee, presented by J. Marshall; three 

 specimens of Myxine glutinosa, showing that the protandrous hermaphrodite con- 

 dition of the reproductive organs ; skeletons and organs of Epomophorus ; and organs 

 of Tapirus americanus. 



A Natural History Society for the people has been established in Berlin, 

 chiefly to provide lectures of a non-technical character. The first of the series, by 

 Professor Forster, was on " Conditions and Beginnings of Life on the Earth." 



The scientific laboratories of the Imperial Institute have been enriched from 

 two sources : firstly, the Goldsmiths' Company have given ;^i,ooo for extension and 

 equipment, and secondly, a Fellowship of £150 annually for the investigation of 

 natural products has been established by the Salters' Company. 



On October 8 there will be opened at St. Andrews a new building for the Marine 

 Biological Laboratory, containing a large tank-room and a workroom capable of 

 seating six researchers. It will be known as the Gatty Laboratory, after the donor, 

 Dr. C. H. Gatty. 



At the opening of the winter session at Charing Cross Medical School, the first 

 Huxley lecture, on " Recent Advances in Science, and their bearing on Medicine 

 and Surgery," will be delivered by Professor Michael Foster. 



The Antarctic expedition, headed by Mr. de Gerlache, has found its prepara- 

 tions too numerous, and has therefore put off its departure till next year, when it 

 will start probably equipped the better for the delay. There have been rumours 

 that Nansen has expressed a wish to join this expedition, and it is stated that if he 

 will consent to be its leader, the Belgian Government will make itself immediately 

 responsible for all the cost. 



We learn from the Daily Chronicle that Dr. Paul Topinard, the eminent French 

 anthropologist, accompanied by Dr. Beddoe, a past president of the Anthropological 

 Institute, is about to make a tour of observation through Wales for the purpose of 

 obtaining statistics with reference to the inhabitants of the remoter districts of the 

 principality, which Dr. Topinard believes will point to an identity of origin of the 

 Welsh and Breton races. 



