April lo, 1879] 



NATURE 



543 



NOTES 



In the interests of British science we have refrained now for 

 some time from referring to the evil days which have fallen upon 

 one of the most reputable of our learned societies. The time, 

 however, has now come when silence is impossible. At 

 the meeting of the Royal Astronomical Council yesterday, the 

 Astronomer-Royal, in consequence of the recent action of the 

 Council — an action inevitable when the present constitution of 

 that body is considered — resigned his seat at the board. We 

 cannot too much regret that this Society, the traditions of 

 which are second to none in Europe, should have been 

 utilised for some years past by an advertising clique who 

 have everything to gain by their connection w»th a body of 

 honourable students of science. The withdrawal of men long 

 known for their astronomical work from the Council commenced 

 some time since. It has now culminated in the resignation of 

 the Astronomer- Royal, and we are informed that other resigna- 

 tions are to follow ; indeed, a man of scientific repute risks 

 somewhat in being found amongst the Councillors. Surely the 

 Fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society of London are strong 

 enough to remedy such a state of things as this. 



At the meeting of the Council of the Royal Society, held last 

 Thursday, the following fifteen candidates were selected to be 

 recommended for election. The day fixed for the election is 

 Thursday, June 12 : — ^J. Anderson, M.D., Rev. M. J. Berkeley, 

 H. Bessemer, Prof. A, Crum-Brown, W. L. BuUer, Sc.D., G. 

 H. Darwin, Prof. J. D. Everett, Prof. F. S. B. Francois de 

 Chaumont, Prof. G. D. Liveing, G. Matthey, G. J. Romanes, 

 A. Schuster, Ph.D., Prof. H. G. Seeley, B. Williamson, and 

 T. Wright, M.D. The following have been elected Foreign 

 Members of the Society : — Arthur Auwers, Berlin ; Luigi 

 Cremona, Rome ; Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages, Paris ; 

 Georg Hermann Quincke, Heidelberg ; Theodor Schwann, 

 Liege ; Jean Servais Stas, BniNsels. 



, Macmillan and Co. will publish shortly the following 

 literary and scientific remains of the late Prof. W. K. Clifford, 

 (i) A volume of mathematical papers which have been read 

 before the Royal Society or contributed to scientific journals ; 

 Mr. Wm. Spottiswoode, F.R.S., will probably see this collec- 

 tion through the press. (2) Two volumes of coUfcted essays and 

 lectures, edited by Mr. Leslie Stephen and Mr. Frederick 

 Pollock ; Mr. Pollock will also contribute a biographical intro- 

 duction to this work. '(3) A small volume containing three 

 popular lectures on " Seeing and Thinking." 



We regret to see by the Civil Service Estimates that the 

 amount to be devoted to "Purchases and Acquisitions " in the 

 Department of Zoology of the British Museum during the pre- 

 sent financial year has been reduced by one-fourth, i.e., from 

 1, 200/. to 900/. It seems rather absurd that a Government 

 which has shown its anxiety to meet the claims of science by 

 giving 4,000/. a year to be distributed in " aid of research " by 

 the Royal Society, should have taken such a step as this to save 

 a miserable 300/., especially when it was the universal complaint 

 of naturalists that the sum previously granted was wholly in- 

 adequate to the purpose. We cannot help thinking that the 

 Trustees and their Secretary are in fault in this matter. 



A FURTHER circular, in addition to that referred to on p. 472, 

 has been issued by the Meteorological Office, with regard to the 

 conditions on which weather information will be supplied. 

 These conditions are too detailed to be noticed here, but they 

 show a desire on the part of the Office to give every facility both 

 to residents in London and in the country to obtain descriptions 

 of the actual state of the weather and forecasts for not more 

 than one day in advance. No doubt a copy of the circular may 

 be obtained on application at the Office, 116, Victoria Street, 

 S.W. 



M. Renan was elected a few months ago a member of the 

 Academic Fran9aise to fill the place vacated ••by the demise of 

 M. Claude Bernard, the celebrated physiologist. On Monday, 

 last week, he pronounced, before an immense audience, the Hoge 

 of his predecessor, in which be mentions that Claude Bernard 

 must be considered as being the real founder of physiology in 

 France. No public course of lectures w as given before 1845, when 

 M, Bernard established a laboratory, in the rue Saint Jacques, 

 near the Pantheon. It was in this institution that the illustrious 

 Academician conceived the idea of the great experiments which 

 rendered his fame universal. But the establishment failed, M. 

 Bernard having collected not more than five or six pupils. 



The Council of the Society of Arts offers one gold and three 

 silver medals for the best suggestions founded upon evidence 

 already published, for dividing England and Wales into districts 

 for the supply of pure water to the towns and villages of each 

 district. 



"A Citizen and Fishmonger" very pertinently asks in 

 Tuesday's Times why it is that while we hear so much from time 

 to time of the City Guilds' Technical Collie, and of the Society 

 for University Extension in London, we hear nothing of any 

 proposal for the utilisation of Gresham College ? 



The Times Geneva correspondent writes that the Lake of 

 Neuchatel is just now lower than has ever before been known, 

 and continues to yield rich rewards to the researches of anti- 

 quarian explorers. Prof. Forel found, a few days since, at the 

 lacustrine station of Corcelet, an earthenware vase dating from 

 the age of bronze. On the bottom of the vase are plainly 

 visible the impressions made by the fingers of the prehistoric 

 potter in the plastic clay. Of these fingers — or, rather, of the 

 thumb and forefinger, for the other digits are unfortunately 

 lacking — the professor has taken a plaster of Paris cast and 

 submitted them to a minute examination. He pronounces the 

 maker of the vase to have been a woman. There are two 

 impressions of the thumb and three of the forefinger. The 

 prints left by the nails are perfect — that of the thumb, which 

 must have been regular, well-shaped, and of an elegant convexity, 

 measures in length twelve millimetres, in breadth eleven milli- 

 metres ; the length and breadth of the finger-nail, equally well 

 modelled, are eleven and nine millimetres respectively, the 

 transverse convexity representing a curve or rise {fiiche) of two 

 millimetres. These nails, considers M. Forel, can only have 

 belonged to a female hand. The vase has been placed in 

 the cabinet of antiquities in the Vaudois Cantonal Museum 

 at Lausanne, Another investigator, who has been cutting 

 trenches in ground left bare by the abatement of the 

 waters of the lake, has arrived, after careful examination 

 of the debris and relics which his explorations have brought to 

 light, at some interesting conclusions concerning the way in 

 which certain of these lake-dwellings were destroyed, the time 

 of the year when they disappeared, and the level of the lake at 

 the epoch of their extinction. He believes they were destroyed 

 by fire. This opinion he bases on the fact that, in all his ex- 

 plorations, he finds the same mixture of gravel and sand black- 

 ened and interspersed with charcoal and partly biumt seeds and 

 bits of wood. This debris has evidently been carried to its 

 present position by the waters of the lake, and varies in thick- 

 ness according to the inclination of the slope on which it has 

 been deposited. In other places besides those where the trenches 

 have been cut, sunilar indications are observable — for example, 

 at Bled, where, in sinking for the foundations of a house, a 

 lacustrine cemetery was some time ago discovered; and at 

 Colombier, where a stream running over the dry bed of the lake 

 near the shore has laid bare debt is identical with that brought to 

 light by the excavations in question. From the quality and 

 qoantity of the winter stores, such as nuts, seeds, and berries, 



