Feb. 13, 1890] 



NATURE 



357 



(15) The number of "additional subjects" which may be 

 taken to be increased from two to four. 



F. — Training Colleges. 



(16) Day Training Colleges and a third year of training to be 

 recognized. The Universities and local University Colleges to 

 be utilized for the training of teachers, where suitable arrange- 

 ments can be made. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — The following appointments of Electors to 

 Professorships have been made. Each Board consists of eight 

 members, and it is provided by the Statutes that at least two 

 members shall not be resident in the University or officially con- 

 nected with it. In certain cases more than two such members 

 have been voluntarily chosen by the Senate. 



Arabic : Prof. Bensly , Music : Sir George Grove ; Chemistry : 

 Dr. E. Frankland, F.R.S. ; Plumian of Astronotny ; Mr. W. 

 U. Niven ; Anatomy: Dr. Huxley, F.R.S. ; Botany: Prof. D. 

 < »liver, F.R.S. ; Woodwardian of Geology: Dr. A. Geikie, 

 V . R. S. ; Jacksonian of Natural Philosophy : Dr. Hugo Miiller, 

 F.R.S. ; Mineralogy : Sir W. Warington Smyth, F.R.S. ; 

 I Political Economy: Mr. R. H. Inglis Palgrave, F.R.S,; 

 I Zoology and Comparative Anatomy: Dr. Huxley, F.R.S. ; 

 Sanskrit : Prof. Aufrecht and Mr. R. A. Neil ; Cavendish of 

 Physics: Sir William Thomson, F.R.S. ; Mechanism : Mr. W. 

 Airy; Doivning of Lcno : Mr. Justice Denman ; Doxvning op 

 Medicine: Dr. Richard Quain, F.R.S. ; Physiology: Prof. 

 Burdon Sanderson, Y. V^. "a. % Pathology : Dr. J. F. Payne; 

 Surgery: Sir James Paget, F.R.S; Chinese: Dr. Peile. 



Prof. Robertson Smith being unable on account of the state 

 of his health to lecture this term, Mr. A. A. Bevan, B.A., of 

 Trinity College, has been appointed his deputy. 



The Syndicate appointed to consider the probable expense of 

 maintaining and working the great telescope offered to the 

 University by Mr. Newall, report that a capital sum of £222^^, 

 and an annual expenditure of ^^400 will probably be required. 

 They report further that the Sheepshanks Special Fund, founded 

 in 1863 for the benefit of the observatory, will probably be able 

 to furnish a capital sum of ;if 1000, and an annual grant of 

 ;^ioo, towards the expenses of the Newall telescope. The 

 remainder, or £122^ at once, and £Tfio a year, will have to be 

 provided from other sources ; but whence is by no means 

 apparent. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



Revue d'' Anthropologic, troisieme serie, tome iv., sixieme 

 fasc. (Paris, 1889). — Researches on the cephalic index of the 

 Corsican population, by Dr. A. Fallot (of Marseilles). In an 

 earlier number of this review, the author drew attention to the 

 very appreciable alteration which the cephalic index had under- 

 gone in recent times among the inhabitants of Marseilles. Thus 

 in one group of living subjects, born at the beginning of the 

 century, he found that 21 per cent, exhibited an index of 84, 

 while in another group, consisting of men of middle age, this 

 number occurred only in the ratio of 7 per cent. This remark- 

 able difference led the author to continue his determinations of 

 the cephalic index among different communities. With this 

 object in view, he last year visited Corsica, and in the present 

 article we have the results of his craniometric determinations in 

 this island, where from its peculiar geographical position and 

 geognostic features, the inhabitants have preserved a permanence 

 of type, and a homogeneity of ethnic characteristics, probably 

 unequalled in any other European nation. Indeed so inconsider- 

 able have been the changes effected in recent times in the 

 Corsican population, that the observations made by Volney, in 

 *793. on the country and the people, apply almost equally well 

 to their present condition. At the same time so little addition 

 has been made since that period to our previously imperfect 

 knowledge of Corsica, that Dr. Fallot's observations supply a 

 valuable contribution to ethnological inquiry. All his deter- 

 minations tend to demonstrate the great uniformity of cranial 

 type and characters in the people. Thus while 54 per cent, of 

 the population present a cephalic index varying from 75 to 78, 



not more than 13 per cent, gave an index above 80, while in 

 only one out of 200 cases the index amounted to 86, and hence 

 he assumes the mean index to be 76 '5. He found that this 

 uniformity was the greatest in the interior of the island, and mere 

 especially in the dipartement of Corte ; while at Bastia, in the 

 extreme north, the cranial characteristics e;^hibited more variety, 

 and afforded evidence of an admixture with foreign elements, a 

 subbrachycephalic type supplanting the more general Corsican- 

 character of dolichocephalism. In the preponderance of this 

 latter type Dr. Fallot thinks we have incontrovertible evidence 

 against the opinion of Lauer, that the Corsicans are of Ligurian 

 descent, and he believes that they may be more correctly charac- 

 terized as an offshoot from the old Iberian races. The author gives 

 numerous useful tables, and his brief summary of the history of 

 the island is clear and instructive. From his observations on 

 the geological conformation of the island we learn how numerous, 

 spurs, thrown off from the central high mountain range, have 

 enclosed and isolated the several valleys, cutting off villages and 

 settlements from their neighbours, and thus exerted so strong an 

 influence upon the character and habits of the inhabitants, thai 

 the physical features of the island may be said to supply the 

 key to its history. From the author's observations it may be 

 assumed that in the mountain districts of the interior the 

 genuine Corsican cranial type has been best preserved. — On 

 infibulation, and other mutilations practised among the littoral 

 tribes of the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Aden, by Dr. Jousseaume. 

 The author describes at length the methods by which these pro- 

 cesses are effected, and considers that whatever may have been 

 their original motive they are in no way at present connected with 

 religious observances, but are simply carried on from generation 

 to generation as survivals of ancient barbarous customs. — On 

 modern crania in Montpellier, by M. deLapouge. In 1888 the 

 author obtained 150 tolerably perfect skulls, which had been 

 recovered from the soil of a cemetery at Montpellier used for 

 interments from the seventeenth century until it was closed 

 in 1830. An examination of the author's elaborate series of 

 comparative craniometric measurements shows that the mean 

 for the cephalic index of these skulls, viz. 78 3, is the lowest 

 as yet observed in France, while their general cranial characters 

 have less affinity with a French, than a North African type. — 

 Prehistoric Scandinavia, by M. I. Undset. This is a sequel to 

 a paper published in this review in 1887, the author now bringing 

 his survey of the progress of northern palasontological science up 

 to the present time. 



A HE American Meteorological Journal for December con- 

 tains :— An article by W. M. Davis and C. E. Curry, on Ferrel's 

 convectional theory of tornadoes; his theory, which is remarkably 

 simple, is based on the occurrence of an ascensional movement 

 in the tornado-whirl. The authors state that this fact seems too 

 well established to admit of a doubt, although Faye and others 

 in Europe, and Hazen in the United States, have questioned it. 

 The paper contains graphical illustrations of the instability 

 caused by convection. — Tornado chart of the State of In- 

 diana, by Lieutenant J. P. Finley, compiled from statistics for 

 seventy-one years ending 1888. The average yearly frequency 

 is 4*5 storms. The month of greatest frequency is May. — 

 Theory of storms, based on Redfield's laws, by H. Faye, con- 

 tinued from the November number, and dealing with the mecha- 

 nics of whirls in flowing water, and with the upper currents of 

 the atmosphere ; the conclusion being that cyclones are whirls, 

 originating in the upper regions of the air.— A continuation 

 of the article on the meteorology at the Paris Exhibition, by 

 A, L, Rotch, describing the meteorological instruments in the 

 foreign sections.— The conclusion of Dr. F. Waldo's inter- 

 esting discussion of wind velocities in the United States, with 

 charts of " isanemonals " for January, July, and the year. The 

 fact that the curves can be drawn with general symmetry shows 

 that there is some uniformity in the exposure of the anemometers 

 for like regions. The author points out that the effect of the 

 Rocky Mountains seems to make itself felt on the winds to a 

 distance of 200 or 300 miles to the eastward. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Royal Society, December 19, 1889.— «' Some Observations 

 on the Amount of Luminous and Non- Luminous Radiatica 

 emitted by a Gas-Flame." By Sir John Conroy, Bart, 



