402 NATURAL SCIENCE. dec. 



well known as an energetic champion of the Lake District, has for some 

 weeks been enlisting support for a body which it is proposed to style 

 the " National Trust for Places of Historic Interest and Natural 

 Beauty." This body is to be incorporated under the Joint Stock 

 Companies Acts, with the licence of the Board of Trade, as a non- 

 profit-earning society. Its primary function will be to accept from 

 landowners gifts of places which they desire to place beyond risk of 

 injury from their successors, and to keep such places intact and at 

 the service of the nation. As funds increase it is thought that 

 purchases of important places may be made, either at the expense of 

 the general agents of the society, or by means of special contributions 

 for the purpose. The new society is enabled to make a beginning by 

 the generosity of a Welsh landowner, who is desirous of transferring 

 to its care a beautiful sea-cliff on the West Coast. It numbers 

 among its adherents such well-known names as the Duke of West- 

 minster, Lord Dufferin, Lord Rosebery, Sir Frederick Leighton, 

 Professor Huxley, the Master of Trinity, Cambridge, Mr. Shaw 

 Lefevre, and Miss Octavia Hill, and will lose no time in "acquiring 

 legal form, and entering upon its duties." In so doing it will certainly 

 carry with it the good wishes of all who have a feeling for nature and 

 historic association. 



Winchester College. 



All the world knows that Winchester College has recently been 

 celebrating its Quingentenary. To commemorate this event by some 

 permanent memorial has long been the wish of Wykehamists ; but 

 the multiplicity of proposals proved the truth of the saying, " quot 

 homines, tot sententiae." It has at last been decided to raise a fund 

 for two purposes. First, the restoration of William of Wykeham's 

 Chantry in Winchester Cathedral ; secondly, the establishment of "a 

 group of Memorial Buildings for the preservation of Wykehamical 

 antiquities, and the encouragement of art, archaeology, natural history, 

 and other sciences." 



The former of these objects lies outside our province. With 

 regard to the latter, we extract from the circular of the Executive 

 Committee the following excellent remarks : — 



"The aims of the collection of archaeology and art would be (i.) to 

 illustrate and encourage the regular course of school study ; (ii.) to 

 furnish boys with interests outside that regular course. The first 

 division would naturally consist mainly of collections illustrating 

 classical art, or otherwise bearing on the study of the classics or the 

 Bible. The second division would consist mainly of mediaeval or 

 modern specimens of art. Such collections would consist of 

 representative series of reproductions of objects of art selected for 

 their beauty or educational value, and of any good originals that could 

 be obtained. The latter are needed to give reality to the collection, 



