364 NATURAL SCIENCE. Nov., 



purpose. Those who wish to join in this tribute to the memory of the African 

 traveller may send their subscriptions to J. G. Bartholomew, hon. sec, Royal 

 Scottish Geographical Society, Queen Street, Edinburgh. 



The late Professor Babington has left his botanical collections, and Miss Saul 

 her collection of shells, to the University of Cambridge. 



The report of the committee to consider the question of the desirability of the 

 compulsory retirement of professors serving under the Crown has been published. 

 The committee is of the opinion that when a professor reaches sixty-five years the 

 head of the college should report to the Government concerning the efficiency of the 

 teaching. If this be satisfactory, the superannuation of the professor should not 

 take place till he has reached seventy, but at that age retirement should be com- 

 pulsory. Heads of colleges, should the college be likely to suffer from a retirement 

 at seventy, should be allowed to remain until seventy-five. 



During the meeting of the International Zoological Congress, the University of 

 Utrecht conferred its degree upon Professor Weismann, Sir William Flower, and 

 Professor Milne Edwards. 



The University of New York has received from Miss Helen Gould sufficient 

 funds to endow two scholarships of 5,000 dols. each. The Massachusetts Institute 

 of Technology receives 10,000 dols. under the will of the late Benjamin P. Cheney. 



The programme of the Union University, Schenectady, New York, includes 

 courses on mineralogy and lithology, general, economic, historical, field, and areal 

 geology, independent research and palaeontology. Especial efforts are being made 

 to promote the field-work of the classes by excursions in the district this autumn 

 and next spring. The library is rapidly growing, and the specimens in the museum 

 have been identified, labelled, and arranged. We are glad to hear that "a collec- 

 tion of recent shells has been selected which is used for preliminary training in 

 palaeontology." The study of zoology as a whole is one to be encouraged, rather 

 than the absurd restrictions to "fossil" or "recent" so common even in the 

 present day. 



From the Annual Report of the Gordon Technical College at Geelong, we gather 

 that the field-work is in a flourishing condition, while the work of the museum has 

 progressed steadily, despite the shortness of funds consequent on general depression. 

 Everything in the museum has now been placed under glass, and the building was 

 opened to the public in January last. Messrs. H. E. Hill and J. Hammerton are 

 the Honorary Curators. The P"ield Naturalists' Club has handed its collection of 

 minerals over to the Gordon College, and there is now only one museum in Geelong. 

 A new quarterly publication was started in August last called The Wombat, and in it 

 are papers by D. Le Souef on " Victorian Macropodidae," and by Sidney Johnson 

 on " Some Native (Victorian) Woods." This publication, which is at present dis- 

 figured by advertisements in every page, will, it is hoped, gradually assume sufficient 

 importance to confine these matters to special pages. 



Sydney University has been obliged to decline the bequest of Sir William 

 Macleay, for the purpose of founding a chair of bacteriology, owing to the conditions 

 attached. The money will therefore go, says Science, to the Linnean Society of 

 New South Wales, to support a bacteriologist who will carry on experiments and 

 take pupils. 



The synopsis of evening demonstrations and lectures to be delivered this 

 session at the Birkbeck Institution by Mr. G. F. Harris, has been issued. The 

 subjects are elementary, advanced, honours, and applied geology, mineralogy, and 

 elementary and advanced physiography. 



