J^ov, 15, 1877] 



NATURE 



55 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE 



Edinburgh. — The Marquis of Hartington has, by a large 

 majority over Mr. Cross, been elected Lord Rector of Edinburgh 

 University. 



Prussia. — We notice from the last report of the Prussian 

 Minister of Instruction that the present number of instructors in 

 the ten universities amounts to 896, viz., 466 ordinary professors, 

 7 honorary, 199 extraordinary, and 224 privat-docenten. The 

 philosophical faculties include 400, the medical, 250, the legal, 86, 

 and the theological, 110. The number of instructors varies from 

 29 at Miinster, to 201 at Berlin. The number of students is 

 about nine times that of the professors, viz., 8,209, and includes 

 1,080 from other countries than Prussia. According to their 

 faculties they are divided as follows : evangelical-theological, 684, 

 catholic-theological, 289, legal, 2,261, medical, 1,349, and philo- 

 sophical, 3,626. The attendance at the universities during the 

 past summer was Berlin 2,237, Breslau, 1,245, Gottingen, 9^7> 

 Bonn, 897, Halle, 827, Kijnigsberg, 620, GreifswSd, 503, 

 Marburg, 401, Miinster, 315, and Kiel, 241. 



In the budget submitted to the present Prussian House of 

 Deputies are the following items : — Erection of the German 

 Industrial Museum, 998,000 mk. ; erection of a Polytechnic in 

 Berlin, 8,393,370 mk. ; erection of an Ethnological Museum in 

 Berlin, 1,800,000 mk. \ and for the Berlin University, erection 

 of a Herbarium, 422,000 mk. ; of a Clinic, 1,955,000 mk. ; 

 of a new building for a second Chemical Laboratory, as well as 

 of a Technical and Pharmaceutical Institute, 967,000 mk. 



Bonn. — On entering upon the duties of rector of the Univer- 

 sity, Prof. Kekule, the distinguished chemist, delivered, on 

 October 18, a brilliant address on the scientific position of che- 

 mistry, and the fundamental principles of this science. He 

 made the following definition of chemistry as distinct from 

 physics and mechanics : — " Chemistry is the science of the statics 

 and dynamics of atoms : physics that of the statics and dynamics 

 of molecules ; while mechanics considers the masses of water con- 

 sisting of a large number of molecules." After rapidly sketching 

 the growth of the present atomic theory, he claimed that the 

 mass of results now obtained showed that chemistry was slowly 

 but surely approaching its goal, the knowledge of the constitu- 

 tion of matter. In opposition to the opinion that theory should 

 be banished from the exact sciences, he regarded it as an actual 

 felt necessity of the human mind to classify the endless series of 

 individual facts from general standpoints — at present of a hypo- 

 thetical nature — and that it was precisely the discussion of these 

 hypotheses which often led to the most valuable discoveries. 



Vienna. — In Vienna the question is being agitated of 

 separating the natural sciences at the University into a separate 

 faculty, apart from the iphilosophical faculty, as is the case in 

 Strassburg and a few other universities, which have risen superior 

 to the old mediaeval classification. 



Strassburg. — The imperial authorities have finally decided 

 upon extensive appropriations for the new buildings of the Uni- 

 versity. They will embrace edifices for lecture-rooms, chemical 

 and physical laboratories, and chirurgical and psychiatric clinics. 

 The new observatory will be completed next year, and the 

 botanical gardens are rapidly being laid out. In 1882 the 

 University expects to occupy its new buildings. 



KoNiGSBERG. — Prof. W. Losscn, of Heidelberg, well known 

 by his researches on hydroxylamine, has accepted a call to the 

 Chair of Chemistry at the University of Konigsberg. 



Upsala. — The University is attended at present by 1,395 

 students, of whom the half are included in the philosophical 

 faculty. The corps of teachers embraces sixty-three ordinary 

 and extraordinary professors, and fifty-four privat-docenicn. Of 

 these eighty-two are in the philosophical faculty. 



St. Petersburg. — The lectures at the St. Petersburg Ladies' 

 High Medical School re-opened this year on October 13. One 

 hundred and eighteen students were admitted, though a far larger 

 number of applicants passed the examination. The number of 

 the students admitted, however, was limited as above because of 

 want of room. A fifth class has now been added, and the 

 students receive, after having finished the studies, the degree of 

 surgeons. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 

 London 

 Linnean Society, November i.— Prof. Allman, F.R.S-. 

 president, in the chair. — Messrs. S. M. Samuel and P. Wyatt 

 Squire were duly elected fellows of the Society. — A communica- 

 tion was read by Dr. G. King on the source of the winged 

 cardamom of Nepal. By Dr. Pereira it had been regarded as 

 the -prodnce of A r/iotnum maximum, Roxb. ; but this is indigenous 

 to Java. Roxburgh named two Indian species, A. aromaticum 

 and A. subulatum, and Dr. King shows that the latter is the so- 

 called winged cardamom of Nepal, its true habitat being the 

 Morung mountains and not the Khasia hills as asserted by Voigt. 

 — There followed a paper by Capt. W. Armit on Australian 

 finches of the genus Pocphila. Mr. Gould had recognised two 

 birds, P. gouldia and P. mirabilis, as good and distinct specific 

 forms, a statement questioned by Mr. Diggles at the Queensl. 

 Phil. Soc, 1876. Capt. Armit having studied the live birds in 

 their native haunts gives his evidence in favour of Mr. Gould as 

 to the just separation of the said Australian finches. — The 

 self-fertilisation of plants formed the subject of an interesting 

 paper by the Rev. G. Henslow, a notice Jof which we shall give 

 elsewhere. — Mr. Ed. J. Miers gave a revision of the Hippidea. " 

 This group of the Anomourous Crustacea, although, by their 

 elongated carapace and antenna; bearing considerable resem- 

 blance to certain of the Corystoidea, to wit the Chilian, Ble- 

 pharipoda spinnimana and Pseudocorystes sicarius, yet the 

 author considers their true affinities to be with the Oxystomatous 

 Brachyura, through the Raninidse. The Plippidea inhabit all 

 the warmer temperate and tropical seas of the globe. Their life 

 history and habits lately have received considerable elucidation 

 at the hands of Mr. S. J. Smith, of Connecticut, in a study of 

 the development of the common species of the eastern shores of 

 the United States. Their limits are restricted northwards 

 by the cold winters. The H. ialpoidea lives gregariously, 

 burrowing in the loose, changing sands near low-water mark. 

 Other species, however, inhabit deep water, such as the Albunea 

 guerinii in the Gulf of Algiers, &c. — Mr. E. M. Holmes 

 laid before the meeting the late Dr. Planbury's collection 

 of cardamoms (from the Pharmaceutical Society) in illus- 

 tration of Dr. King's paper above mentioned; he also drew 

 attention to an undetermined fungus in a sugar cane, which mould 

 had caused the destruction of a plantation in South India. 

 — The Rev. T. H. Sotheby exhibited branches of two remark- 

 able shrubs, Colletia cruciata, Hook., and C. Bictonensis, 

 Lindl., grown in Lady RoUes' garden at Bicton. These South 

 American plants it seems, are not unknown in this country (one 

 Fellow present stating he possessed them now in flower), but the 

 history of their introduction, nevertheless, is a curious one. — Dr. 

 Masters showed an unusual specimen of a grape within a grape, 

 viz., adventitious fruit developed in place of the normal seeds ; 

 he 'also explained the rationale of adventitious tubers producing 

 buds on the root of some examples of Brassica Papa exhibited 

 by him. — Some twigs and flowers of British grown gum trees 

 were shown by Mr. A. O. Walker, among others Penstemon 

 Clevelandii said to have flowered here for the first time. 



Physical Society, November 3. — Prof. G. C. Foster, pre- 

 sident, in the chair. — The following candidate was elected a 

 member of the Society : Alexander Jesseman. — Prof. McLeod 

 described some experiments he has recently made to determine 

 the exact number of vibrations of tuning forks by means of the 

 apparatus he exhibited to the Society on April 28 last, and 

 which was designed for determining slight variations in the 

 speed of machinery or other analogous purposes. He has 

 studied two sets of forks belonging to the Physical Laboratory at 

 South Kensington, and a new set just received from Konig, and 

 his results exhibit a remarkable concordance, the extreme results 

 in the worst set of observations on a fork of 256 complete vibra- 

 tions only differing by o'oo5 per cent., and in a good set they 

 agreed within o 00078 per cent. Examining the new series 

 from 256 to 512, he found them to give from o'3 to 0'5 of a 

 vibration more than was anticipated, but as this variation 'may 

 be due to a difference between the temperature and that at which 

 they were adjusted, he is waiting to ascertain what this was. He 

 considers also that the manner in which the fork is held has an 

 effect on its vibrations, and he hopes to be able to get some 

 information as to the effect of temperature on elasticity. — Dr. 

 Huggins exhibited some artificial gems recently prepared by M. 

 Feil, the well-known glass manufacturer of Paris, who has 

 succeeded ia cry;s^Uising stones of the corundum class. 



