Nov. 22, 1877] 



NATURE 



11 



with Sachs, and is lecturing toa' large ctass'^n Vegetable Phy- 

 siology. Next year he will start the first practical course of 

 botany, and, being unable to induce his college to provide appa- 

 ratus for a laboratory, intends to furnish it at his own expense. 

 Among other lectures in natural science Prof, Dewar's on 

 Physical Chemistry are taking high rank. It is to be noted that 

 Mr. Apjohn, the late lamented Praslector of Chemistry at Caius 

 College, was to have received a fellowship this term by special 

 vote of the whole of the fellows. The praelectorship is to be 

 continued nr.ostly in its old form, but it is worthy of note that the 

 prosecutinn of original research is put prominently among the 

 duties <-f the office, as well as the instruction of students from the 

 University generally. There are nearly a score of candidates, 

 including such well-known names as Mr. W. Noel Hartley, Dr. 

 J. T. Bottomley, and Dr. Dittmar. 



Prof. Clerk Maxwell greatly interested the Philosophical 

 Society at its last meeting by an account of Henry Cavendish's 

 unpublished writings and experiments on electricity. He was 

 not generally known to have done much electrical work, and 

 his papers were long in the hands of Sir W. Snow Harris, who 

 is declared by Prof. Maxwell, after careful examination, to have 

 made no use of Cavendish's work without full and adequate 

 acknowledgment. These writings are left in a form quite iitted 

 for publication, and will greatly advance the reputation of the 

 great philosopher. His exactness, his candour, his grasp of the 

 subject, his notable achievements with the small variety of instru- 

 ments available in his time, were fully sliown by the examples 

 cited to the Society. Yet these were less than his remarkable 

 insight into electrical laws, his correct conception of potential, 

 his ideas of investigating the total charges of bodies, and the 

 resistance of electrolytes. Prof. Maxwell thought that nobody 

 had ever possessed so large and various a collection of condensers 

 of known capacity as Cavendish, but his family taciturnity pre- 

 vented his merits from being fully known. He trained himself 

 to be his own galvanometer, and the general value of his results 

 is remarkable when compared with those obtained by modem 

 iristruments. 



In regard to university reform, it appears that in some colleges at 

 least there is a danger of the non-resident fellows, who form the 

 largest proportion of the governing body under the act, endea- 

 vouring to maintain at a very high number the fellowships to 

 which no duties are attached ; of course every such fellowship 

 diminishes the funds available for definite association with the 

 progress of research and education. Some men hold very strongly 

 to the " start in life" theory of fellowships ; viz., that they ought 

 to receive three hundred a year for 'a number of years in order 

 that they may gain three thousand a year in a profession the more 

 speedily. 



Glasgow^. — Mr. Gladstone has been elected Lord Rector of 

 Glasgow University in succession to the Earl of Beaconsfield. 



Berlin. — The well-known botanist, Prof. Sachs, of Wiirz- 

 burg, has received a very flattering call to Berlin. Neither pains 

 nor money seem to be spared by the Prussian Government in 

 attracting to the capital the foremost talent of Germany ; and 

 certainly in this choice of a successor to Alexander Braun no 

 change of policy is shown. 



GoTTiNGEN. — The sum of 5o,cx30 marks has recently been 

 appropriated for the erection of a phyto-physiological institute 

 in the Botanical Gardens. 



GiESSEN. — In consequence of the late discussions excited by 

 Prof. M( mmsen's articles on the Ph.D. examinations in Ger- 

 many, the University of Giessen has issued an announcement 

 stating that for the future no faculty can bestow the title of 

 Doctor, except on the basis of a thesis and oral examination. 



DoRPAT. — The winter attendance at the university is 853, of 

 whom but seven are non-Russian. 



Brunswick. — On October 16 interesting ceremonies took 

 place at the opening of the magnificent new buildings of the 

 Carolo-Wilhelminum Polytechnic, in which representatives 'of 

 the Government, and delegates from all the great German poly- 

 technics, took part. The new edifices are of great extend, and 

 richly equipped with all possible adjuncts for modern technical 

 education, so that this well-known institution will be able to 

 maintain its well-earned reputation. The Carolo-Wilhelminum 

 is the oldest polytechnic in Germany, having been founded in 

 1745, and the list of its students embraces many distinguished 

 names, such as Gauss, the mathematician, Christopher Codring- 

 ton, the' English commander at the naval victory of Navarino, &c. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



London 



Chemical Society, November 15.— Dr. Gladstone in the 

 chair. — The following communications were made :— First report 

 to the Chemical Society on some points in chemical dynamics, 

 by Dr. Wright and Mr. Luff. An elaborate series of experi- 

 ments was made to find out the temperatures at which the actions 

 of ciarbonic oxide, hydrogen, and free amorphous carbon on 

 oxide of iron or oxide of copper are first perceptible. The 

 authors find that this temperature varies with the physical con- 

 dition of the oxide used, that hydrogen acts, on a given ox'de, at 

 a lower temperature than carbon and carbonic oxide, at a lower 

 temperature than hydrogen, and that a given reducing agent 

 begins to act on copper oxide at a lower temperature than on 

 iron oxide. — On the chemistry of cocoa butter, Part I. ; two 

 new fatty acids, by C. T. Kingzett. The first acid is a low acid 

 of the series, C,jll2„02, having the formula CjaHo^Oj, i.e., 

 lauric acid, but it melts at 57° '5. The second acid "is a high 

 acid having the formula ^i^S^xi^O^, crystallising in microscopic 

 needles or granules, melts at ']2^'2, and at a high temperature 

 distils apparently unchanged. The author proposes for it the 

 name of theobromic acid. It is pointed out that the usual state- 

 ment in books, "that cocoa butter yields almost exclusively 

 stearic acid " is entirely incorrect. — The third paper was on the 

 influence exerted by time and mass on certain reactions in 

 which insoluble salts are produced, by Mr. M. P. Muir. The 

 author has taken solutions containing known quantities of calcium 

 chloride and potassium or sodium carbonate mixed, allowed to 

 stand for a certain number of minutes, and then estimated the 

 quantity of calcium carbonate formed. He has arrived at the 

 following conclusions : — That the greater portion of the chemxal 

 change takes plice during the first five minutes ; the reaction 

 then decreases in rapidity. The relative masses of the salts exert 

 an important influence. Thus if the mass of alkaline carbonate 

 be four times that required, the action is completed in five 

 minutes, but if an equivalent quaniity only be present the action 

 is not finished in forty-six hours. Potassium carbonate yields 

 more calcium carbonate in a given time than sodium carbonate. 

 An increase of temperature increases, whilst dilution, especially 

 with solutions of potassium or sodium chloride, diminishes the 

 rapidity of the action. Some experiments are given on the action 

 of solutions of calcium sulphate and sodium chloride. 



Entomological Society, November 7. — Prof. Westwood, 

 president, in the chair. — Mr. McLachlan exhibited ten of the 

 thirteen species of Lepidoptera collected by Capt Feilden and 

 Mr. Hart in Grinnell Land, between 78° and %i° N. lat, during 

 the recent Arctic Expedition, and made some remarks upon the 

 general insects of the Arctic Regions. — The Rev. A. Eaton also 

 made some observations upon the same subject. — Mr. Meldo'a 

 exhibited a five-winged specimen of Gonepteryx rhamtii, taken in 

 Norfolk by Mr, John Woodgate ; likewise a gynandromorphic 

 specimen oi Fieris brassicce, caught in Oxfordshire by Mr. J. B. 

 Watson. The right half of the latter insect was female and the 

 left half male. — Mr. H. Goss exhibited a gynandromorphic speci- 

 men of G. rhamni, captured in Sussex ; in this insect also the 

 right side was female and the left side male. — Mr. J. W. Douglas 

 exhibited a specimen oi Polyphylla fullo, Linn., which had flown 

 on to a steamer at Antwerp, and been thus brought to this 

 country. Mr. Douglas also exhibited a specimen of the rare 

 Telttgomelra impreisopunctata and one of Typhlocyba dcbilis, both 

 taken on Sanderstead Downs ; and likewise, for comparison, an 

 example of T. tenerrima. — Mr W. C. Boyd exhibited a larva 

 of Pi^ris rapes attacked by Aficrogaster. — The president read 

 notes on exotic Coleoptera, and exhibited specimens of Calo- 

 metopus Nyassce, Afnblyodus Nicaragtice and drawings of other 

 species. — Prof. Westwood also remarked upon an Indian Mantis 

 {Gongylus gongylodes) which had been recently described by Dr. 

 Anderson in the Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for 

 August, 1877, as being a simulator of a flower to a remarkable 

 degree of perfection. — Mr. Wood- Mason also made remarks upon 

 the same subject and upon stridulating organs in cnistaceans 

 with reference to a letter on this suljject by Mr. Saville Kent in 

 this journal (vol. xvii. p. Ii). Mr. Wood-Mason hkewise 

 announced the discovery of a stridulating apparatus in a Phasma. 

 — Sir Sydney Saunders read a note on the specific identity of the 

 Hampstead Atypus, Mr. F. Enoch exhibited and made re- 

 marks upon a male and female of this spider. — The following 

 piapers were read : — Descriptions of new species of the colcop* 



