1897] NEWS 431 
Science announces that the United States Geological Survey has practically 
completed the distribution of the Educational Series of Rocks, 175 suites of 156 
specimens each having been sent out during the past summer to universities, 
colleges, and technical institutions in the United States. There remains a small 
number of incomplete sets, which will be placed in such smaller colleges as will 
make them most useful. The Educational Series were prepared by the Survey 
with much care, for the purpose of aiding students in acquiring a general and 
special knowledge of rocks and promoting the study of geology. 
THE illustrations of geological sections as aids to the geologist who ventures 
into a museum are familiar to everyone who visits the museums at Jermyn Street, 
Cromwell Road, and many places on the Continent and in America ; but there is 
one particular section—that built in the gardens of the Landwirthschaftliche 
Institut of the University of Halle, in honour of Dr Julius Kuehn—which we do 
not think has been brought to the notice of readers of this journal. It is built up 
of the rocks themselves, and represents a section through the mountainous district 
of north and middle Germany. This very striking representation of geology was 
described by Professor K. v. Isitsch as long ago as 1891. Besides forming an 
unique memorial to Dr Kuehn, it has considerable value for the teaching of 
geology. 
WE learn from the Shooting Times that the Guildford Natural History Society 
have been considering the question of the preservation of Wolmer Forest, which 
is only fifteen miles from that town, and have decided to present a petition to the 
Commissioners of Woods and Forests, praying that Wolmer Forest may be reserved 
as a sanctuary for wild birds, in which they, their nests, and eggs may remain 
unmolested throughout the year ; that it may not be let at any time for game 
preserving, or for any purpose inimical to bird life ; and that it may remain in 
perpetuity as a national memorial to the greatest outdoor naturalist England has 
produced—Gilbert White of Selborne. Such a recognition, the society urge, 
would show that the admiration of Gilbert White in the nineteenth century was 
so practical as to be of value to the naturalist and the English-speaking race for 
all succeeding time. The society have no wish to attempt to interfere with the 
use of the forest by the War Office for the purposes of military manoeuvres. 
AN editorial comment in the American Naturalist for October includes some 
complimentary remarks on the British Association, which will be read in this 
country with interest :—‘“ We may be pardoned if we point out some features in 
which we think the British Association superior to our own. In the first place, 
the Presidential Addresses delivered before the British Association strike us as, on 
the whole, better than those with which our audiences are greeted. While now 
and then an American address will rise to as high a standard as anything that 
Great Britain can boast, theirs are on the average the more thoughtful and 
scholarly, while ours too often have a perfunctory air and lack in breadth of view. 
In personnel of those who attend, the British Association again has the advantage. 
In England it is the fashion to attend these annual meetings, and no one there 
has reached such a pinnacle of greatness that he can afford to ignore or neglect 
this national society. As a result, at their gatherings one can be reasonably 
certain of meeting most of those who are the leaders in English scientific thought. 
In America, on the other hand, the tendency is in the other direction. It would 
be an easy matter to give a considerable list of names of those prominent in 
American science whose faces are never seen at the association meetings.” 
