1864.] 
diplomas. Each seat of education 
has outbid its fellows in this respect 
till the result has become very 
serious, and a great effort is now 
being made to raise the standard of 
education throughout the country. 
The University of Pisa, always 
among the most celebrated, has 
especially recommended itself to 
observation for its efforts in this 
direction. At first the natural 
result was to frighten away so many 
students as to reduce the numbers 
very greatly ; but already it is found 
that the degree there conferred is 
much more valuable, and that it is 
worth while to take the additional 
trouble to pass. To Professor 
Matteucci, whose researches in elec- 
tricity and general physics, are as 
well known in England as in Italy 
and France, much of the credit of 
this is due. M. Matteucci has now 
left Pisa, and is established at Turin, 
where he has already occupied for 
some time the important post of 
Minister of Public Instruction. It 
is not unlikely that he may again 
be appointed, and it would seem 
that a more fit appointment could 
not be made. 
One of the latest improvements 
in Public Instruction has been the 
foundation of a normal school at 
Pisa, on the footing of the upper 
normal schools of France, but with 
the object of securing a really well- 
informed class of schoolmasters for 
the education of all classes through- 
out Italy. Of this establishment, 
Professor Villari, the able author of 
the ‘ Life of Savaronola,’ recently 
translated into English by Mr. L. 
Horner, is the director, and he is 
assisted by an excellent staff of pro- 
fessors in all departments. During 
the last academical year, the number 
of students was only about 20, but 
the entries for the year now com- 
mencing (November, 1863) are 
already much more numerous. 
Several of the students have passed 
their University examinations with 
honour, and are admitted to the 
normal school at the public expense. 
Others pay a sum of 80 francs 
(32, 4s.) per month during their 
Notes and Correspondence. 
207 
residence. All reside in the build- 
ing, and dine together as in an 
English college. The system adopted 
partakes both of the professorial 
system as carried out in Germany, 
and of the tutorial system common 
at Oxford and Cambridge. 
The public museums both at Pisa 
and Florence, are admirable. Both 
are particularly rich in wax prepara- 
tions, illustrative of Comparative 
Anatomy and Botany. The former 
is also rich in geological specimens. 
The various minerals and rocks of 
Tuscany, and the fossils of the 
Valley of the Arno are especially 
interesting, not only to the general 
traveller, but to the technical geolo- 
gist; for Italy is beyond all other 
countries in Europe that one in 
which the phenomena of metamor- 
phism can best be studied. The 
neighbourhood of Pisa, with the 
country alittle to the south towards 
Volterra, affords indeed the best 
key to the very difficult and com- 
plicated changes that have affected 
rocks of almost all kinds within 
periods of very various duration. 
In this part of the world, mineral 
character is no guide to the age of 
rocks, and fossils, though they exist 
and have proved extremely valuable 
in skilful hands, are so exceedingly 
rare and imperfect, that no traveller 
however acute, who trusted to his 
own observation, could hope to do 
much with them in a rapid journey. 
The labours of Professor Paolo Savi 
and Professor Meneghini have greatly 
tended to simplify and explain the 
matter, and assisted by the memoir 
and very admirable maps just pre- 
pared for publication by Professor 
Savi, no one need now waste his 
time. ‘lhe memoir in question is, 
however, published in a volume on 
the general statistics of the district, 
and is not altogether accessible. 
It is not generally known that 
this small corner of Italy around 
Pisa contains a tolerably complete 
series of formations. There are 
old palewozic schists greatly altered, 
but recognizable, overlaid by car- 
boniferous rocks, in which anthra- 
cite represents the coal. Over these 
