344 



NATURE 



[Feb. 13, 1890 



class began with four students, but soon the number was as 

 great as the rooms could conveniently accommodate, and excel- 

 lent work was done in spite of many inconveniences, one of the 

 greatest of which was the impossibility of excluding the sounds 

 of the entertainments in the Hall. From time to time soirees 

 were held, and the students informally consulted as to what 

 additional classes they wished for. Where a demand existed, 

 every effort was made to obtain the supply. 



Then came the offer of the Commissioners to meet a subscrip- 

 tion with an equivalent endowment, and thefreehold was bought, 

 in memory of one of the truest friends of the work, Mr. Samuel 

 Morley. Finally, the waste space which had been occupied by 

 dre- sing-rooms and stores of old scenery was cleared of its 

 dangerous wooden staircases, a sound-proof, fire-proof wall was 

 built to divide it from the theatre, and large convenient class- 

 rooms were built ; and on the last day of September the Morley 

 Memorial College was opened, for working men and women ; 

 Miss Goold (the well-known head of the Queen Square College) 

 having consented to take the office of Principal here also. 



Already there are 680 students on the books. Many criticisms 

 may be made on the arrangements, but no one can say that there 

 is a want of life in the place. The builder's men are hardly yet 

 out of it, and the fittings are at present of the scantiest (the 

 result of want of funds, for the delay in passing the Com- 

 missioners' scheme through Parliament has caused unlooked- 

 for and very embarrassing delay in the receipt of the help ex- 

 pected from that quarter) but the enclosed prospectus will show 

 ample signs of life. Admission to the gymnasium, smoking, and 

 recreation rooms can only be gained by I'OJi/i fide attendance on 

 at least one class, a rule which the Committee consider very im- 

 portant, and which they adopted in consequence of their ex- 

 perience with a club which met at one time in some of the old 

 rooms belonging to the Hall. No new students are admitted 

 under 17, for the simple reasons that it does not answer to mix 

 boys and men, and that the boys are provided for by the Re- 

 creative Evening Schools Association ; but there is no limit of 

 age at the other end. When the Borough Road Polytechnic is 

 started, the College will probably take those students who want 

 advanced literary and scientific teaching, excluding "techno- 

 logical classes," for which neither space nor funds would suffice. 

 In fact, the College will be in all probability the advanced branch 

 of the Polytechnic. At all events, it is intended that the two 

 institutions should play into each other's hands and avoid over- 

 lapping. 



You say most truly that life develops from within. I would 

 go further, and say that ^' 07iine viviim ex vivo" is as true of 

 moral and social as it is of organic life. No institution can gi-ow 

 and flourish unless life has been given in its service, and this is 

 emphatically the case with that of which we are speaking. To 

 mention names would not interest outsiders, and to those who 

 have watched the Hall from its very beginning, nine years ago, 

 it is well known whose heart work as well as head work has 

 been devoted to it and kept it alive through its troubled infancy. 

 This it is which has drawn other workers to help in doing what 

 one alone could never accomplish, and given spirit to the whole. 

 They have allowed life to develop from within, watching for 

 what was practicable instead of airing preconceived theories, and 

 this is why so little has had to be done twice over. Help of all 

 kinds is greatly needed, for the concern is only in its early child- 

 hood yet, but one thing is certain— whatever wants have to be 

 supplied and defects remedied, this is not an "architectural 

 white elephant." Probably that could never be true of any 

 institution which had so much heart as well as head devoted to 

 it, but let those who doubt come and see for themselves ! 

 February 5. A Member of Committee. 



Galls. 

 In Nature of November 28, 1889 (p. 80), Prof G. J. Romanes 

 speaks of galls as "unequivocal evidence of a structure occurring 

 in one species for the exclusive benefit of another," and states 

 that "it is obvious that natural Selection cannot operate upon 

 the plants directly." Nevertheless, there is one way in which 

 galls may be supposed to have been evolved as beneficial— or 

 rather, less harmful— to the plants. Every farmer is aware of 

 the great loss to vegetation caused annually by larvae of insects 

 boring within the branches and twigs of trees. Now suppose 

 that all internal plant feeders were originally borers or leaf- 

 miners— and this is highly probable,— but that some had a 

 tendency to cause swellings in which they fed. These latter 



would be less injurious to the plants, and the greater the vitality 

 of the plants the more nourishment for them ; and so by degrees- 

 the globular and other highly specialized and least harmful galls 

 would be developed, by natural selection, for the benefit not 

 only of the insect, but also of the plant. And known galls, 

 which I need not here enumerate, furnish us with all the steps 

 of this evolution. T. D. A. Cockerell. 



West Cliff, Colorado, U.S.A., January 23, 



Foreign Substances attached to Crabs. 



The Compound Ascidian referred to by Dr. R. v. Lendenfeld 

 in yesterday's Nature (p. 317) is one of the Polyclinidoe, and 

 probably a new species. It belongs to the genus Aiopogaster, 

 and is closely related to A. infonnis {Challenger Rt^ori, Part ii. 

 p. 171). 



I have bef.>re me now five good specimens of the crab and 

 Ascidian (the crab in this case is Dromia excavata, Haswell), 

 dredged in Port Jackson, and sent by the Australian Museum, 

 Sydney ; they measure as follows : — 



Specimen. 



A 

 B 

 C 

 D 

 E 



In the largest of them the Ascidian seems to be quite twenty 

 times the size of the crab. 



I notice in these specimens that the last pair of thoracic legs^ 

 in the crab, which are much larger than the preceding pair, are 

 turned up dorsally, and ai'e so firmly embedded and attached by 

 their sharp claws in the test of the Ascidian that it is easier to 

 disarticulate them than to loosen their hold. 



To those who dredge much round our coasts, a crab covered 

 with foreign substances is no unusual sight. Specimens of Hyas 

 are often found so overgrown with Algas, Sponges, Zoophytes, 

 and Polyzoa that almost the whole of the body and legs is 

 hidden, and the animal is scarcely recognizable except by its 

 movements. W. A. Herdman. 



Liverpool, February 7. 



The Ten and Tenth Notation. 



It is no doubt difficult for anyone to really conceive enor- 

 mously great or infinitely small quantities. This difficulty is, 

 however, much minimized by the ten and tenth notation. 

 Indeed, if systematically used, I believe one's mental power of 

 estimation would be practically perfect. But is it so used ? I 

 have before me three books — I only take this as an example of 

 what frequently occurs — in which Joule's equivalent is given, 

 is — 



42 X 10" \ 

 4*2 X 10'' > respectively. 

 0-42 X 10* ) 



B. A. MUIRHEAD. 

 Pall Mall Club, Waterloo Place, S.W., February 8. 



P. S. — The natural uniform notation, at any rate for text- 

 books, seems obvious. 



EARTH TREMORS FROM TRAINS. 



A MONG the writings of those who love to speculate on 

 -^*- the future of our planet there is probably some- 

 where (though we have not had time to discover it) an 

 essay on the cosmical changes which man will be able to 

 produce in the earth. The data for solving this problem 

 are striking. In a few centuries man has acquired all 

 those powers over large and solid objects represented by 

 his knowledge of explosives, and his use of steam. 

 Multiply the centuries, and with them the history, by 

 convenient figures (a familiar process in this kind of prob- 

 lem) and there is no reason why the earth's axis of 

 rotation should not be shifted considerably by human 

 agency. 

 For the present, however, we are concerned with a more 



