Nov. II, 1875] 



NATURE 



Indica," published under his direction. It is hoped that Dr. 

 Hofmann may be spared from Berlin for a few days so as to | 

 receive the medal in person. The medals will be presented at \ 

 the anniversary meeting of the Society on the 30th inst. 



The following are the names to be proposed for election as 

 Council and officers of the Royal Society for the ensuing year at 

 the anniversary meeting of the Society, to be held on the 30th 

 inst., St. Andrew's Day :— President, Joseph Dalton Hooker, 

 CB. Treasurer, William Spottiswoode, M.A., LL.D. Secre- 

 taries, Prof. Geoi^e Gabriel Stokes, M.A., D.C.L., LL.D., and 

 Prof. Thomas Henry Huxley, LL.D. Foreign Secretary, Prof. 

 Alexander William Williamson, Ph.D. Other members of the 

 Council :— Prof. J. C. Adams, LL.D., Major-General John 

 T, Boileau, Edward Viscount Card well, F.G.S., Warren De la 

 Roe, D.C.L., Capt. Frederick J. O.Evans, R.N., C.B., Edward 

 Frankland, D.C.L., Albert C. L. G. Giinther, M.D., Prof. T. 

 Wharton Jones, F.R.C.S., Joseph Norman Lockyer, F.R.A.S., 

 flie Rev. Robert Main, M.A., Prof. Daniel Oliver, F.L.S., 

 Prof. Edmund A. Parke?, M.D., Right Hon. Lyon Playfair, 

 CB., LL.D., William Pole, C.E., the Rev. Bartholomew 

 Price, M.A., Warrington W. Smyth, M.A. 



At last Friday's lecture by Dr. Carpenter, in connection with 

 the St. Thomas Charterhouse School Teachers' Science Associa- 

 tion, Dr. Lyon Playfair presided. In proposing a vote of thanks to 

 Dr. Carpenter, Dr. Playfair referred to the subject of compulsory 

 education, which is gradually becoming universal in this 

 country, but which, he said, would be pure tyrrany unless the 

 education ii\ our schools was increased and its quality raised. 

 Quantity is all very good, but unless there is quality along with 

 it, there is not much gained. " If it was to be said that children 

 of thirteen or fourteen years of age were merely to receive the 

 same education as children of eight years of age, compulsory 

 education would be but t}Tar.ny. Therefore compulsory educa- 

 tion involved higher education.' Dr. Playfair expressed his 

 gratification that the teachers composing the Association had 

 banded themselves together in order to qualify themselves by 

 attending such lectures as those of the Gilchrist fund and by other 

 means, to undertake this higher education, which, we believe 

 with Dr. Playfair, will be forced upon us even in elementary 

 schools by the spread of compulsory education. 



The conferring of the Freedom of the City of London on Sir 

 George B. Airy, the Astronomer Royal, and late President of 

 the Royal Society, which took place on Thursday last, is, we 

 believe, the first instance in which tiiat honour has been bestowed 

 for scientific services unconnected with military or engineering 

 science. In the civic speeches which accompanied the ceremony, 

 great stress was laid on Sir G. B. Airy's services in connection 

 with the Metric Standard. 



In the Quarterly Return of Marriages, Births, and Deaths, 

 jUst issued by the Registrar-General, we are glad to see that 

 attention is pointedly drawn in the remarks to the annual 

 epidemic of infantile diarrhoea, and the opinion expressed that it 

 rests with the health officers of the diarrhoea-stricken towns to 

 discover the nature of the sanitary shortcomings which lead to 

 this waste of infant life. Perhaps equal stress might have been 

 laid on a correct knowledge of the modes of nursing infants pre- 

 vailing in the separate towns as on their merely sanitary condi- 

 tions, as likely to lead to the true causes of the observed 

 variations in the diarrhoea death-rate. 



At the Meteorological Congress to be held vmder M. Le 

 Verrier's presidency at Poitiers on the 19th, 20th, and 21st inst, 

 as already stated in Nature, steps will be taken to inaugurate, 

 for the west of France overlooking the Bay of Biscay, a system 

 of daily weather telegrams by the Observatory of Paris. Since 

 this system of warnings is more specially designed to further the 

 interests of agriculture, subscriptions are solicited from pro- 



prietors and others more specially interested in the success of the 

 proposed scheme, particularly in view of the considerable expense 

 which will be incurred in founding a sufficient number of stations 

 with the necessary equipment of instruments. Weather warnings 

 for agriculturist?, if they are to be of practical utility, must do 

 more than forecast high winds, they must also, and more par- 

 ticularly, aim at giving warning of the approach of frost, rain, 

 snow, and thunder-storms ; and this requires for its successful 

 accomplishment more numerotis stations and more frequent 

 observations than are necessary in issuing warnings for the 

 benefit of the shipping interest 



We have received the Transactions of the Michigan State 

 Medical Society for 1875, containing among other matters a 

 discussion by Professor Kedrie, the president, of the observations 

 on ozone made by him during 1872-75 ; and a form for meteoro- 

 logical observations made thrice a day, adopted by the State 

 Board of Health, Michigan, which appears to be well adapted for 

 medico-meteorological purposes, except that the directions given 

 for the position of the thermometer are vague as well as faulty 

 to secure comparability among the observations. 



At the last meeting of the General Counciljof the Vorkshire 

 College of Science, under the presidency of Dr. Heaton, it was 

 unanimously resolved to foimd a scholarship of the annual value 

 of 25/. , to be called the Cavendish Scholarship, in recognition 

 of the obligations conferred upon the collie by the Duke of 

 Devonshire and Lord F. C. Cavendish, M.P. From a statis- 

 tical return presented by Mr. Henry H. Sales, secretary, it 

 appears that 200 students are in attendance at the college, of 

 whom more than forty are availing themselves of the day 

 classes. 



The Report of the Scotch Herring Fishery Board states that 

 already certain facts have been discovered in the course of the 

 experiments which have been instituted for the purpose of disco- 

 vering how far the temperature of the sea and other meteoro- 

 logical conditions might be concerned in determining the migra- 

 tion of the herring. Arrangements were made during the season 

 of 1874 for regular observations, and twenty of the fisheries 

 were supplied, through the liberality of the Marquis of Tweed- 

 dale, with deep-sea thermometers for ascertaining the tempe- 

 rature of the sea at the times and places when fishing was going 

 on. The records of these observations, taken in conjunction 

 with the returns of the daily catch, and with particulars collected 

 from other sources, were referred to Mr. Buchan, Secretary to 

 the Meteorological Society, who analysed them. Although the 

 returns are not sufficientiy full to afford any accurate rule, owing 

 to the lateness of the period before the sea-thermometers were 

 ready to be sent to the fishermen, they prove that "during 

 the periods when good or heavy catches were taken the baro- 

 meter was, in the great majority of cases, high and steady, the 

 winds light or moderate, and electrical phenomena wanting; 

 and on the other hand, when catches were low, the observations 

 often indicated a low barometer, strong winds, unsettled weather, 

 and thunder and lightning." From the complete returns of the 

 daily catch of the fish, and of the meteorological conditions, 

 inclusive of the temperature of the sea, now obtained, it is 

 anticipated that materials will be collected in three or four years 

 firom which most valuable conclusions will be arrived at 



A NEW edition of Dr. Lardner's "Handbook of Astronomy," 

 revised and completed to 1875 by Mr. Edwin Dunkin, F.R.A.S., 

 is nearly ready for publication by Messrs. Lockwood and Co. 

 It will contain a large number of plates and woodcuts. 



The Daily Telegraph aimoimces that the letters from Mr. 

 Stanley, committed to the charge of M. Linants de Bellefonds, 

 have safely arrived, notwithstanding the assassination of Colonel 

 Gordon's representative. They contain a full description of the 

 south-eastern, eastern, and northern shores of Lake Nyanza. 



