530 



NA TURE 



{April i^, 1876 



that your Lower Middle Schools have not succeeded. To 

 what is this ascribed ? " 



" It would be more correct to say that they have not suc- 

 ceeded throughout. Moreover, M. Thorbecke was never 

 under any delusion on this point. He considered the 

 Lower Middle Schools as placed for the future. The proof 

 is that he got iaserted in the law a clause which enacts 

 that the Government may for a certain number of years 

 exempt a communal council from the obligation of 

 erecting a Lower Middle School if it is probable that a 

 sufficient number of pupils could not be obtained to 

 attend it. It is necessary first that the economical con- 

 dition of the country should be improved. Remember 

 that in Holland wages are in general lower than in all 

 the surrounding countries. We cannot blame our poor 

 artisans for requiring their children to earn some money 

 at the age when these would enter the Middle School." 



Such is a resume of what I have seen and heard in 

 Holland. 



NOTES 



At the meeting last week of the delegates of the French Learned 

 Societies at the Sorbonne, the Science Section was divided into 

 three committees— Mathematical, Physico-chemical, and Natural 

 History. The general meetings of the three sections were pre- 

 sided over by M. Leverrier, who developed at full length the 

 organisation of agricultural warnings which have been established 

 in Puy de Dome, Vienne, and Haute Vienne, and will be in 

 operation from May I to October 15, when agriculturists have 

 pjactically nothing to lose in the fields. About thirty stations 

 have been established in each of these departments and con- 

 nected by telegraph with the chief towns of the district. Each 

 local observatory will receive telegraphic warnings through the 

 prefet of the department, to whom will be sent daily the tele- 

 grams of the International Service. All these warnings will be 

 posted at the stations and special warnings for the vicinity 

 deduced by local meteorologists. All the observations taken 

 on these stations will be sent to the observatory and tabu- 

 lated under the supervision of M. Leverrier. The system 

 will very likely be extended to other departments. The 

 distribution of prizes was held on the 22nd in the large 

 hall of the Sorbonne. The Minister of Public Instruction, M. 

 Waddington, gave an address, in which he promised to create 

 new libraries, new faculties, and to group new faculties in order 

 to establish Universites. It is inferred thence that M. Wad- 

 dington, who, as is well known, is a Cambridge man belonging 

 to Trinity College, will try to remodel the French high schools 

 according to the EngHsh method. The old Universite de 

 France is, perhaps, to be divided into the Universities of Paris, 

 Lyons, Lille, Marseilles, and Toulouse. M. Waddington's 

 address has created quite a sensation amongst French University 

 men. Five gold medals were awarded— to MM. Abria (Bor- 

 deaux), for physics ; Clos (Toulouse), for botany ; Dumartier 

 (Ljons), paleeontology ; Fiihol (Toulouse), geology ; Lortet 

 (Lyons), zoology and palaeontology. Ten silver medals were 

 also awarded in botany, zoology, and natural philosophy. In 

 connection with this meeting, M. Lecoq de Boisbandran has 

 been made a Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur. Several other 

 scientific men have been appointed offickrs of the University and 

 officiers of the Paris Academy, which are special honorary 

 degrees in acknowledgment of some special services either in 

 the prosecution of scientific researches, or in carrying out the 

 results of the scientific investigations of other people. 



A Treasury Commission has just been appointed by 

 Government for the purpose of inquiring into and reporting on 

 the Queen's Colleges in Ireland. The Commissioners are the 

 Rev, Osborne Gordon, of Christchurch, Oxford ; Prof. AUman, 



F.R.S., M.RT.A. ; and Mr. Herbert Murray, Treasury- Remem- 

 brancer in Ireland ; with Mr. B. Leech as Secretary. 



Sir Robert Christison has resigned the position of Presi- 

 dent-elect of the forthcoming Glasgow meeting of the British 

 Association. Dr. Andrews, of Queen's College, Belfast, has 

 been nominated by the Council in his stead. 



The French Geographical Society are to invite Lieut. 

 Cameron to Paris to a special meeting of the society, to be held 

 for the purpose of marking the appreciation of his merits felt in 

 France. 



The freedom and livery of the Turner's Company were pre- 

 sented at the Guildhall, on Saturday, to Lieut. Cameron and '1 

 Dr. Atherstone, to whose labours as a geologist the discovery 

 of the value of the South African diamond fields is principally 

 due. 



Admiral La Ronci^re Le Nourry has been reappointed 

 by a large majority the President of the French Geographical 

 Society. 



The French Minister of Public Instruction has given instruc- 

 tions for a series of observations to be made on all the streams 

 of oceanic France, in order to determine the formation of the 

 bar. Stations will also be established on the Fre.ich coasts for 

 observations of the tides. The previous French observations 

 were made at Brest as Jar back as 1770, and on them the calcu- 

 lations in Laplace's " Mecanique Celeste " were based. 



The conversazione given last Friday evening at King's College 

 by Mr. H. C. Sorby, F.R.S., to the Fellows of the Microscopical 

 Society (of which Mr. Sorby is president) and their friends, was 

 a brilliant and successful one. One of the greatest novelties 

 exhibited was a new binocular spectroscope, illustrating Mr. 

 Sorby's important discovery of a new method of measuring the 

 position of the bands in spectra. ^ 



We would remind our readers that the afternoon lectures at " 

 the Zoological Gardens commence to-day at 5 p.m., the first 

 being by Mr. Sclater, F.R, S., " On the Society's Gardens and 

 its Inhabitants." They will be continued on Thursdays for the 

 next nine weeks. 



The first annual meeting of the Cumberland Association for 

 the Advancement of Literature and Science, will be held at 

 Whitehaven on May ist and 2nd. 



In Guido Cora's Cosmos for April the valuable information on 

 recent expeditions to New Guinea is continued. There is a 

 paper by Major Wood on the Oxus in the time of Alexander, an 

 account of Cameron's work, the continuation of G. Bove's narrative 

 of his visit to Borneo, besides other matters of geographical 

 interest. 



Petermann's Mittheilungen for April contains an account of 

 the results obtained by Lieut. Cameron to accompany the excel- 

 lent map of the country explored, which we have aheady re- 

 ferred to. There is an interesting account of the ascent of the 

 two Norwegian summits, Galdhopig and Sneehatta, by Plaupt- 

 mann M. Riuth. Along with a map of New Zealand there is 

 a long article by J. I. Kettler, showing the recent progress of 

 that colony. Drs. Radde and Sievers furnish an interesting 

 preliminary account of their recent travels in Caucasia and the 

 Armenian highlands. 



In the Bulletin of the French Geographical Society for March, 

 Dr. Nachtigal's account of his journey in Central Africa (1869- 

 74) is concluded, as is also the account of Abbe David's travels 

 in Western China in 1868-70, and M. J. Codine's paper on early 

 Portuguese discoveries on the West African Coast. There is an 

 itinerary from Tangier to Mogador, by M. Auguste Beauniier. 



