NEWS OF UNIVERSITIES, MUSEUMS, AND 

 SOCIETIES. 



The new extension of the buildings of the University College, Bristol, is rapidly- 

 progressing, and will probably be ready for occupation by the Medical School in 

 October next. A similar extension to accommodate the Engineering School is 

 contemplated 



By the retirement of Dr. W. C. Williamson, F.R.S., from its chair of Botany, 

 the Owens College, Manchester, loses the last of the original professorial staff 

 appointed on its foundation in 185 1. At first Professor of Natural History, Dr. 

 Williamson was gradually relieved of his extensive duties by the growth and 

 subdivision of the Biological and Geological faculties of the College, until in the 

 end he was enabled to devote himself entirely to Botany, aided by the services of an 

 Assistant-Lecturer. A farewell address was presented to Professor Williamson by 

 Principal Ward on February 13, in the presence of a large gathering of colleagues 

 and friends ; and he has now removed his residence to London. The Professorship 

 thus vacated has been filled by the appointment of Mr. F. E. Weiss, for some time 

 Assistant-Profes.sor of Botany in University College, London. 



The British exhibit in the Botanical Gallery at the British Museum is steadily 

 progressing. For more than two years the ferns and flowering plants of Great 

 Britain, arranged according to Bentham's Handbook, have been exposed on sheets 

 of stiff card, framed and protected by glass. The description is placed beneath each 

 plant, so that collectors can compare their own specimens with the descriptions and 

 specimens exhibited. The latter have been selected with a view to illustrate the 

 usual form of the plant by an average-sized specimen; the rarer and often merely 

 local forms are not included, and for these and the critical varieties, which are beyond 

 the scope of the ordinary field botanist, the British Herbarium must be consulted. 

 The mosses have since been added, arranged by Hobkirk's Synopsis. Descriptions 

 of the species are included, and also, m the case of the smaller ones, a magnified 

 coloured drawing of the whole plant and the fruit. Within the last month another 

 addition has been made, the first instalment of a complete series of coloured drawings 

 of the British Basidiomycetous fungi having been placed at the service of the public, 

 in a manner uniform with the exhibits of the higher sections of the vegetable 

 kingdom. The drawings at present shown comprise the Agarics, and number nearly 

 600. Mr. Worthington G. Smith was commissioned early last year by the trustees, 

 on the recommendation of Mr. Carruthers, the keeper of the department, to make 

 drawings of all the British Basidiomycetes for e.xhibition in the public gallery. Mr. 

 Smith has lately revised Berkeley's outlines, and the series when complete will 

 represent each of the two thousand odd species now included in this group. The 

 drawings are life-size, but magnified representations of the smaller ones are also 

 given. The exhibit is a most attractive one, and though only about one-fourth of 

 the whole are as yet shown, the public are evidently already surprised to find so 

 many different kinds of "mushrooms and toadstools/' the collective name for the 

 group with the non-scientific. 



