350 



NATURE 



[Fed. 13, 1879 



Thompson, Prof. John Tyndall, D.C.L., F.R.S., Prof. Alex. 

 W. Williamson, Ph.D., F.R.S. Dr. William Spottiswoode, 

 Pres. Roy. Soc, and Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P., F.R.S. , 

 are Joint Hon. Treasurers and Trustees. 



A GRANT of 75/. has been made from the Worts (Cambridge) 

 Travelling Scholars' Fund to John Edward Marr, B.A., St. 

 John's, to enable him to travel in Bohemia and collect evidence 

 and specimens bearing upon the question of the classification of 

 the Cambrian and Silurian rocks, with the understanding that 

 specimens be sent by him to the University, accompanied by 

 reports which may be hereafter published. 



We have already referred to the fact that the inhabitants of 

 Heilbronn, desirous of paying due respect to the memory of Dr. 

 Julius Robert Mayer, who was born there, have resolved to 

 erect a suitable memorial on the spot where he lived, laboured, 

 and died. They invite co-operation, and, with the view of 

 enabling the admirers of Dr. Mayer in England to join in this 

 tribute of recognition, some of the most eminent men of science 

 in England have agreed to form a Mayer-Memorial Committee ; 

 the list is headed by Dr. William Spottiswoode, Pres. R.S. 

 Subscriptions exceeding i/. may be sent by cheque to Messrs. 

 Robarts, Lubbock, and Co., 15, Lombard Street. Smaller 

 sums may be sent by Post Office Order to the Hon. Secretary, 

 T. Archer Hirst, Royal Naval College, Greenwich. 



M. L60N Lalanne, Director of the School of Fonts et 

 Chausse'es, has been elected to fill the place of the late M. 

 Bienajnne, in the Paris Academy of Sciences. 



We are glad to see that several important and much-needed 

 reforms are being introduced into the British Museum. The 

 Museum is now open free to the public on every week 

 day — Monday till Friday from 10 o'clock, and on Saturday 

 from 12 o'clock till tthe ordinary hour of closure. Special 

 arrangements have been 'made to enable students to carry 

 on their work without interruption. Students of natural 

 history will have Tuesday and Thursday reserved for their 

 studies, students of archaeology Wednesday and Friday. On 

 Monday and Saturday the public will be able to view the whole 

 of the collections ; on Tuesday and Thursday, all except the 

 natural history specimens ; and on Wednesday and Friday, all 

 except the Greek and Roman sculptures, and antiquities in the 

 upper gallery. Persons holding tickets of admission to the 

 reading-room, the department of prints and drawings, the sculp- 

 ture galleries, and the departments of natural history will not be 

 required to renew them every six months, as the tickets will be 

 granted to readers and students without limit of term, but sub- 

 ject to withdrawal. The actual presentation of the ticket will 

 not be considered necessary for entrance into the reading-room. 

 These and several other new arrangements seem to show that the 

 Museum powers have at last come to the conclusion that the 

 institution exists for the benefit of the public, and that their con- 

 venience ought to be made paramount in all arrangements. 



The obituary list of foreign men of science is heavy this 

 week. We much regret to announce the death, on January 24, 

 of Dr. Heinrich Geissler, the celebrated inventor in the field of 

 physical mechanics. Dr. Geissler died at Bonn at the age of 

 sixty-five years. Amongst his inventions are the well-known 

 Geissler tubes, the vaporimeter, the mercury-pump, &c. We 

 regret to have to record the deaths of two other eminent 

 German men of science, viz., that of Dr. Eduard Lbsche, 

 Professor of Physics at the Royal Polytechnic Institution of 

 Dresden, and well known naturalist, who died on January 25, 

 aged fifty-eigtit ; and that of Dr. Benedikt Stilling, of Cassel, 

 whose name was but recently mentioned as one of the hon. 

 secretaries at last year's meeting of the German Association. 

 Dr. Stilling was an eminent anatomist ; he was born at 

 Kirchheim, near Marburg, on February 22, 18 10, and died at 



the same place on January 28, aged sixty-nine years. The death 

 is announced of Dr. Steinheil, the eminent optician of Munich. 

 M. Paul Gervais, the distinguished palaeontologist and Pro- 

 fessor at the Paris Jardin des Plantes, died on Monday in his 

 sixty-third year. 



Apropos of the statue to Gauss, the following extracts from a 

 Brunswick correspondent may interest some of the readers of 

 Nature. The sum collected, including contributions of 3,000 

 marks each from the Emperor of Germany and the Duke of 

 Brunswick, promised subscriptions and interests, has now 

 reached 41,000 marks. Herr Schaper has almost, if he has not 

 quite, finished the statue ; the casting in bronze is then to be 

 superintended by Prof. Howaldt of Brunswick. A Berlin firm 

 will provide the pedestal of red granite from Sweden. The 

 statue will be one and a half life size, standing eight feet four 

 inches (Rhenish measure), and the pedestal will be of about the 

 same height. It is hoped that the unveiling of the statue will 

 take place on April 30, 1880 — the anniversary of Gauss's birth. 



A CONCURRENT resolution of thanks to Prof. Hayden for his 

 "accurate and comprehensive survey of the State of Colorado" 

 passed the Colorado legislature, January 14. Senator Gaussion, 

 who is himself an eminent mining engineer, remarked — " These 

 reports, coming from a scientific and authoritative source, do 

 more to answer and satisfy the inquiries of capitalists than every- 

 thing else. They tell the world what the great western country 

 is made of. The western domain of the United States is to-day 

 the glory of the nation." 



We are asked to state that supplemental meetings, for the 

 reading and discussion of papers by students of the Institution 

 of Civil Engineers, have been appointed for the following Friday 

 evenings : — February 14, 21, 28, and March 7. The papers to 

 be read on these evenings are respectively : " The Excavating of 

 a Tunnel in Rock by Hand Labour and by Machinery," by John 

 C. Mackay : "The Design and Construction of Wrought-Ircn 

 Tied Arches," by Percy W. Britton ; " The Cost and Construc- 

 tion of a Cheap Light Railway," by Alfred W. Szlumper ; and 

 " The Interlocking of Points and Signals and the Electric Block 

 System," by George D. Marston. The chair will be taken at 

 7 o'clock on each evening, and successively by Mr. Hayter, Mr. 

 Barlow, F.R.S., Mr. Bruce, and Mr. Woods, Members of 

 Council. 



Some recent experiments by Herr Holmgren in Prof. Kiihne's 

 laboratory in Heidelberg seem to prove that the variations of the 

 retina current through the action of light have no essential rela- 

 tion to the blanching and regeneration of the so-called " visual 

 purple," thus increasing the difficulty of regarding that purple as 

 directly connected with vision. In one experiment an eye of a 

 newly killed frog was kept half an hour to an horn* in sunlight, till 

 all the visual purple was blanched. Variations of the retina cmrent 

 on incidence of light were found to occur in the ordinary way. 

 Again, one eye of a rabbit was protected against the action of 

 light by sewing the ear over it, while the other eye was exposed 

 to th'e light. The animal showed normal variations of the retina 

 current, and when the eyes were examined, with the necessary 

 precautions, the normal amount of purple was found in the 

 covered eye, while the other, which gave variations of the 1 

 current, was quite without purple. Conversely, eyes of frogs , 

 and rabbits were taken out and treated with alum solution in the | 

 dark. The visual purple was thus maintained twenty-four hours, i 

 and it was then exposed to light. The light blanched it, like 

 that of a fresh eye, but there was no trace of variation of current 

 in consequence of this action. The author's conclusion regard- 

 ing vision finds support in the facts that visual purple is wanting 

 in some animals, which must be supposed capable of sight, and 

 that it is absent from the yellow spot in man, and so from that 

 part of the retina in which vision is most distinct. 



