Nov. 9, 1876] 



NATURE 



{geological exploration of the country, and recently returned from 

 liis travels on the Olenek and the shores of the Polar Sea, to 

 St. Petersburg, where he was engaged at the Academy in the 

 description of his immense collections. He was found on 

 October 10 dead in his room, and it is suppo-edthathe poisoned 

 himself. 



Ti!E Academy of Geneva, whose foundation goes back to the 

 ixteeiithcentury, to the time of Calvin and Beza, has for more 

 iian three centuries maintained a renown and a value far 

 exceeding the dimensions of the small republic which glories in 

 its prosperity. Five years ago, in consequence of the erection of 

 large buildings for its use and of concomitant legislative deci- 

 sions, it assumed the title of University, the National Council 

 having decreed the creation of a Faculty of Medicine as an ad- 

 dition to those of ancient standing. Until now this new faculty 

 existed only on paper, the buildings intended to receive it not 

 iiving been erected. They have been recently finished ; the pro- 

 •ssors have been chosen from the native medical men, to whom 

 lave been added some eminent foreigners — Professors Schiff, of 

 i-lorence, Zahn, of Strasburg, and Laskowski, of Paris. An 

 laugural ceremony took place on October 26, when addresses 

 ..ore given by the President of the Council of State, the Rector 

 f the University, and the Dean of the new Faculty. There are 

 iready fifty students, and the organisation of the new classes has 

 cen made on a scale entirely satisfactory. 



The Norddeutsche Allgemeim Zeitung %i2Xts, that Capt. Kielsen, 

 of the John Maria, Tromsoe, has reached 8iJ^° N. lat. between 

 Novaya Zemlya and Spiizbergen, and found the sea free of ice. 

 He discovered an island with a mountain 500 feet high, which 

 he called White Island. He supposes that the ice-wall round 

 the Pole was, at least this year, at a higher latitude, and that 

 the Gulf Stream generally follows this direction. 



The following statistics with regard to the number of students 



attending German universities during the summer term of this 



year ai^e taken from the just published University Calendar for 



1876-7. Berlin — number of students, matriculated and unmatri- 



culated — 3,666, of teachers 193. The corresponding numbers in 



Leipzig were 2,803 and ^55 5 Munich, 1,158 and 114; Breslau, 



1,122 and 108 ; Goctingen, 1,059 and 119 ; Tiibingen, 1,025 ^"<1 



S6 ; Wiirzburg, 990 and 66 ; Halle, 902 and 96 ; Heidelberg, 



-95 and no; Bonn, 785 and 100 ; Strasburg, 700 and 94; 



^onigsberg, 611 and 82; GreifswaJd, 507 and 60; Jena, 503 



ad 77 ; Marburg, 445 and 69 ; Erlangen, 422 and 55 ; Miinster, 



[5 and 29 ; Giessen, 343 and 59 ; Freiburg, 290 and 54 ; Kiel, 



23 and 65 ; and Rostock, 141 and 36. Of universities outside 



ie German Empire, Vienna had 3,581 students and 247 teachers ; 



jrpat, 844 and 65 ; Graz, 804 and 88 ; Innsbruck, 570 and 67 ; 



Piirich, 355 and 78 ; Bern, 351 and 74; and Basel, 239 and 64. 



It is proposed by the Council of the Trades' Guild of Learn- 

 Jlg, in conjunction with the Committee of the National Health 



jciety, to organise a course of twenty lectures on the " Laws 

 Health," to be delivered by W. H. Corfield, Professor of 



lygiene and Public Health in University College, London, in 



||e large room of the Society of Arts, John Street, Adelphi, 

 .C, on consecutive Saturdays, commencing November li, at 



JO P.M., excepting the following dates : — December I (Friday), 

 lebruary i (Thursday), March I (Thursday). There will be an 

 ^terval of four weeks at Christmas, and three weeks at Easter. 



ertificates will be awarded to those who satisfy the examiner 



id who have attended not [less than fifteen lectures out of 



renty. 



Mr. McMann writes that on p. 18, vol. xv. in, our notice of 



his method of comparing spectrum maps, E should have been G. 



'he distance between B and G is not assumed equal to 1 00, he 



tes, but is assumed equal to i, and is divided into 100 equal 



^■|he 

 ^^Kates 



wt 



In a letter addressed to Dr. Andrews, Prof. Wartmann, of 

 Geneva, states, with reference to the communication on Radi. 

 ometers to Nature of Oct 19, that Prof. Frankland reproduces 

 precisely the conclusions which Prof. Wartmann gave at one of 

 the conferences at South Kensington in the month of last May. 

 The results were published in No. 222 (June 15) of the Archives 

 des Sciences Physiques et Natur tiles. In the first note which Prof. 

 Wartmann published {Archives, No. 219, March 15) he said (p. 

 315) that by making two calorific sources act simultaneously on 

 the opposite faces of the same disc, we obtain an equilibrium when 

 the intensity of the pressures is in the inverse ratio of the absorb- 

 ing power of each face. The experiments, which he made in 

 spring, during very favourable nights, on the nullity of the action 

 of the lunar light, completed the demonstration. It is the calo- 

 rific radiation which is the cause of the movements of the radi- 

 ometer. 



At the recent meeting of the German Association of Natu- 

 ralists and Physicians, Dr. Hermes described some interesting 

 characteristics of the young gorilla in the Berlin aquarium. He 

 nods and claps his hands to visitors ; wakes up like a man and 

 stretches himself. His keeper must always be beside him and 

 eat with him. He eats what his keeper eats ; they share 

 dinner and supper. The keeper must remain by him till he goes 

 to sleep, his sleep lasting eight hours. His easy life has increased 

 his weight in a few months from thirty:one to thirty-seven 

 pounds. For some weeks he had inflammation of the lungs, 

 when his old friend Dr. Falkenstein was fetched, who treated 

 him with quinine and Ems water, which made him better. 

 When Dr. Hermes left the gorilla on the previous Sunday the 

 latter showed the doctor his tongue, clapped his hands, and 

 squeezed the hand of the doctor as an indication, the latter 

 believed, of his recovery. In fact the gorilla is now one of the 

 most popular inhabitants of the Prussian capital. For Pungu, 

 as the gorilla is called, a large glass palace has been erected in 

 the Berlin Aquarium in connection with the palm-house. 



The Kdlnische Zeitung of November 4, reports on the dis- 

 covery of an ancient burial ground, during some excavations 

 made near Rauschenburg on the Cologne-Minden Railway. It 

 appears that a number of antiquities were found, and while the 

 vases amongst them, as well as a number of objects found in 

 these vases are of undoubtedly Roman origin, it is doubted that 

 the people buried there, and whose skeletons were found, were 

 of Roman nationality. It is believed at present that they were 

 Teutons of the third or fourth century who lived in friendly 

 intercourse with the neighbouring Romans, and had obtained 

 from them the objects mentioned. A definite opinion would be 

 premature until the whole of the ground is excavated, and a 

 scientific investigation has been made of all that is found. 

 Amongst the objects discovered recently, we may mention a well- 

 preserved vase of terra sigillata. On its floor there is still a 

 small remainder of the linen containing the bone-ashes ; the vase 

 is 20 cm. broad, and 12 cm. high ; it shows an ornament 

 which is of decidedly Roman origin. Amongst the bone ashes 

 in its interior there were two bronze nails, several molten pieces 

 of bronze, and remains of a beautifully ornamented ivory comb. 

 Another vase, quite full of bone ashes, and roughly worked of 

 coarse clay, consists of two parts almost equal, of which the 

 lower one is 25 cm. broad, and 16 cm. high, while the upper one 

 is 27 cm. broad, and 18 cm. high. Amongst the bone ashes it 

 contained were found several molten pieces of bronze, the 

 remains of a burnt ivory comb, and a piece of some handsome 

 ornamental object made of bone. Round this urn several 

 smaller vessels were placed ; they were of ordinary gray clay, 

 two of them of somewhat finer black clay. One of them was 

 empty, another one contained ten little pieces of clay, about 

 3 cm. thick, and perforated, all of different shapes, they had 

 very likely been worn as beads on a string round the neck. 

 There was ako a little tablet of bronze in this vessel. One of 



