536 



NATURE 



\OcL 12, 1876 



of these schools are unaided by the State and have to rely 

 mainly upon^the fees of the students, supplemented by sub- 

 scriptions from the manufacturers, they can vie with some of the 

 best equipped scientific laboratories of the Continent in the cha- 

 racter of their organisation and in the completeness and extent 

 of their arrangements. An effort is about to be made to secure 

 a portion of the surplus m the hands of the Commissioners 

 of 185 1, with a view to the further extension and development of 

 the College. They had established a number of chairs more 

 or less connected with the necessities of the manufacturers 

 of the district, but they required extension iin the direction 

 of other subjects, many of which doubtless lay nearer to 

 the basis of sound education. Their buildings were rapidly 

 getting inadequate to their requirements, and they wanted 

 additional lecture-rooms, and a good library. Prof. Riicker, 

 speaking for himself and his colleagues, believed that the greatest 

 want of the institution was not so much that a large sum of 

 money should be devoted to further scientific objects, but that a 

 portion of the money should be spent in the furtherance of other 

 objects of education besides those which were scientific. They 

 found practically that they were hampered in their work by the 

 fact that they were unable to offer to the students that came to 

 the college a complete preparation for the curriculum which they 

 would have to go through at the universities. The Council of 

 the College had found themselves in a position to add to the 

 scientific chairs which they had already founded, and he trusted 

 that they would soon be able to create chairs for classics, modem 

 languages, and literature. 



A KIND of supplement is about to be issued regularly along 

 with Poggendorff's Annalen, under the title of Beibldtter zu der 

 Annalen der Physik und Chemie, the object being chiefly to give 

 a rhumS of physical science in foreign countries. 



From a letter received from Prof. Mohn, we learn that hourly 

 meteorological observations of all the elements have been made 

 by the Norwegian Scientific Expedition during the whole cruise. 

 In the hands of this distinguished meteorologist the invaluable 

 data thus acquired will doubtless be made to tell us something 

 regarding the daily periods of the meteorological elements, in- 

 cluding the surface temperature and density of the northern por- 

 tion of the Atlantic, and the part they play in the meteorology 

 of North- Western Europe. 



The unusually high temperature which prevailed over the 

 British Islands during the latter part of last week deserves a 

 passing notice. The mean temperature from October 4 to 7 

 was 62° in London, and 59° in East Lothian, being 8° and 9° 

 respectively above the average of the season. The Weather 

 Maps of the Bulletin International of Paris and of the Deutsche 

 Seewarie of Hamburg, show for these days a high atmospheric 

 pressure over all Europe southwards and eastwards, whilst a 

 pressure continually getting lower was met with on advancing 

 westwards over the British Islands. These are interesting as the 

 meteorological conditions which are the immediate cause of un- 

 usually mild warm weather at this season of the year, seeing they 

 necessarily result in an extensive southerly atmospheric current, 

 bearing northwards with it the high temperature and moisture of 

 southern latitudes. 



The fourth number of the Isvestia (Bulletin) of the Russian 

 Geographical Society, just appeared, contains a' sketch of the 

 Guissar region and of the Koolab-beckdom, by M. Maieff; 

 letters of the governor of the Semipalatinsk province, by General 

 Poltaratzky ; on the German expedition of Dr. Finsch, Dr. 

 Brehm, and Count Waldburg-Zeil ; and two letters from Dr. 

 Miclucho Maclay written on board the schooner Sea-Bird, 

 and dated February 29 and April 12. Desirous of obtaining 

 further information as to the races of South-eastern Asia, the 

 East Indian Archipelago, and of the Pacific Islands, Dr. Maclay 



wished especially to visit the islands of Western Micronesia and 

 the group of little-known islands lying between New Guinea, New 

 Ireland, and New Britain, these islands being, it is supposed 

 by certain ethnologists, near to the route taken by the Malayo- 

 Polynesian race before spreading'over the islands of the Pacific. 

 The Sea-Bird, at the time the letters were written, was going to 

 the western islands of the Caroline Archipelago, stopping from 

 time to time at the more interesting localities lying near to her 

 course ; and after having discharged her cargo she will be for 

 some time at the disposal of Dr. Maclay, for his proposed 

 journey. 



The members of the scientific expedition sent for a further 

 exploration of the former bed of the Amu-arya, left the Kras- 

 novodsky post on August 22, with a reconnoitring military party 

 proceeding to the Steppes under General Lomakin. 



We are glad to learn from the Mauritius Commercial Gazette 

 that Mr. John Home, F. L. S., who for a long time has most 

 s;\ccessfully fulfilled the duties of director of the Mauritius 

 Botanical Gardens, has been confirmed in the appointment. 

 This promotion we believe to have been thoroughly well earned. 



Viscount Walden, President of the Zoological Society, 

 has, by the death of his father, succeeded to the Marquisate of 

 Tweeddale. 



The death is announced of the Chevalier Pertz, for many 

 years librarian to the Royal Library, Berlin, and editor of the 

 Monumenta Germanica. He was brother-in-law to the late Sir 

 Charles Lyell. 



The Reports of the Meteorological, Magnetic, and other Obser- 

 vatories of the Dominion of Canada, for 1875, appear in a thick 

 volume of 541 pages, giving full details of the tri-daily observa- 

 tions and monthly extremes and means for the year at various 

 stations, now amounting to 108. The report gives evidence 

 throughout of increasing energy and efficiency in this valuable 

 system, the object of which is the collection of meteorological 

 statistics suited for the discussion of physical questions, and the 

 deduction therefrom of the climatic character of the several dis- 

 tricts, and the application of the facts and principles thus 

 acquired to questions of practical utility, especially the prog- 

 nostication of the weather. The new features of this report are 

 a table of the latitudes, longitudes, and heights of the stations, 

 and tables of the maxima and minima of temperature at the 

 more important stations in the dominion for each day of the „ 

 year. Among the interesting facts noted is the low temperature 

 of - 49° '5, which occurred in January at York Factory, on Hud. 

 son Bay, the mean for the month at the same place being - 25° '5, 

 and for February following, - 24° 6. 



Mr. Charles Tode. has issued in a separate form his paper 

 " On the Observatory and Climate of South Australia," origin- 

 ally published in the ** Handbook of South Australia." Perhaps 

 no other of our English colonies could be named whose climate 

 has been more ably and, so far as the materials hitherto collected 

 admit of it, more exhaustively treated than that of South 

 Australia in this tractate. The rainfall of the colony is now 

 being investigated at upwards of seventy observing stations 

 extending over the whole breadth of Australia, as is also the 

 annual southerly march of the north-west monsoon which pre- 

 vails on the north coast from about the middle of November 

 to March, and occasionally extends its influence in heavy thun- 

 derstorms right across the continent. Among the many interest- 

 ing relations subsisting between the meteorology of South Australia 

 and that of surrounding regions may be noted the progressive 

 changes of the barometer which, roughly speaking, advance 

 from west to east at such rates as to occupy from two to four 

 days in passing from Western Australia to Adelaide, after which 

 they reach Melbourne in from twelve to twenty-four hours, ant^ 



