474 



NATURE 



[Apru II, 1878 



ruby Ted. Lately, M. Capranica affirmed the identity of these 

 different colouring matters and their close relation to visual red 

 and the widely expanded lutein (found in the yolk of egg, adipose 

 tissue, corpora lutea, the ovary of mammalia, &c.), and he cited 

 various reactions as proving this relation. M. Kuhne has lately, 

 in the Centralblatt fiir die niedicin. Wiss., opposed this view ; he 

 has succeeded easily in isolating the three colouring matters after 

 they were freed from fat, and he affirms that as regards spectro- 

 scopic behaviour, reaction, and solubility, they may be clearly 

 distinguished. 



The French Academy had proposed for the prize of eloquence 

 i.i 1877 the eloge of Bufifon, the celebrated naturalist, and not 

 less than seventeen memoirs were presented. Two were found 

 so excellent that in opposition to the traditions of the Academy, 

 they were declared ex cequo, as having obtained the premium. 

 When the sealed envelopes containing the names of the authors 

 were opened, it was found that one of them had died before 

 he had quite revised his work. The name of this posthumous 

 laureate is M. Narcisse Michaud. M. Dumas has written a 

 letter of sympathy and regret to the family in the name of the 

 Academy. 



M. DE Watteville, one of the chief secretaries of the French 

 Minister of Public Instruction, has lately submitted a plan for 

 the formation of a large scientific committee in Paris, which 

 shall stand in direct communication with all existing learned 

 societies. The project will be put into execution during the 

 present month, and M. Bardoux, the Minister of Public In- 

 struction, will be the first president of the committee. 



On April 4 was held at the Tuileries a meeting of 

 the several committees which had been appointed in order 

 to organise the series of congresses intended to take place 

 in Paris during the Universal Exhibition. After having 

 returned thanks to his numerous subordinates for their 

 exertions, the Minister for Public Works read a list of 

 eleven congresses which are completely organised, viz. : — 

 I. Agriculture. 2. Metrical and monetary, for the adoption of 

 a universal system. 3. Special congress for determining a 

 universal measure of threads of every description used in textile 

 fabrics. 4. For the protection of literary, artistic, and indus- 

 trial property, patents, &c., &c. 5. For provident institutions, 

 life, fire, agriculture, &c,, insurances. 6. Philological. 7. A 

 congress inaugurated by European economists. -8. Meteoro- 

 logical. 9, The French Alpine Club will call a congress of 

 every similar institution. 10. Public hygiene, ll. A congress 

 for the international regulation of measures against the pro- 

 pagation of epizootics. Other congresses are in preparation. 

 The several regulations will be published very shortly, mention- 

 ing the dates, the space of time allotted to them, the several 

 programmes, the places of meeting, the conditions of admis- 

 sion, and the composition of initiative commissions. 



Herr Achenbach, the Prussian Minister of Commerce, has 

 lately issued an order that during the Paris Exhibition arrange- 

 ments shall be made at the Berlin School of Mines to put at the 

 service of those desiring to study the mineral wealth of the king- 

 dom, all possible cartographical and literary requisites, as well 

 as information as to the best means of reaching all points of 

 interest in the mining regions ; this disposition is made more 

 especially for the benefit of American scientific visitors in recog- 

 nition of the courtesies extended by them in this direction two 

 years ago. 



A guide for the approaching Exhibition at Paris has just been 

 published under the title "Guide de I'Exposition Universelle et 

 de la Ville de Paris." (Paris: Bureau de la Publicite.) It 

 contains no less than fifty-four maps and plans. 



The Institute of Naval Architects commences its annual 

 session to-day ; the meetings m ill l^e continued to-morrow and 



Saturday. A large number of papers on subjects of great 

 importance are down for reading. 



The agents of the Paris Acclimatisation Society are engaged in 

 organising, at Marseilles, a zoological garden which will be con- 

 sidered as an annexe to the Parisian establishment. A certain 

 number of animals have already arrived but have not yet been 

 placed in the cages which are being built for them. 



A PAPER on "State Aid to Music at Home and Abroad" 

 was read by Mr, Alan S. Cole, at the Society of Arts on Wed- 

 nesday evening, March 27. Allusion was made to the constitu- 

 tion of foreign Conservatoires, which, to a considerable extent, 

 depend upon the support given to them by the governments of 

 the countries in which they are established. Government 

 support gives an element of stability to these foreign Conserva- 

 toires, and Mr. Cole endeavoured to show that in the United 

 Kingdom there is an absence of stability in respect of the different 

 music schools which exist. Our academies and schools of music 

 have been founded by private enterprise, and their existence, 

 depending upon the fluctuations of subscriptions and amateur fee- 

 paying students, seems to have no guarantee of permanence. In 

 regard to freely established classes for promoting science and 

 art, the prospect of their becoming permanent is assisted by the 

 offisr of national payments for ascertained results of instruction. 

 In elementary day schools the education department makes a 

 payment of one shilling per child who attends a school where 

 singing is taught. These shilling payments amount to 96,000/. 

 a year. As, however, the Inspector of Music, Mr. John 

 Huliah, reports that the musical proficiency of the children is 

 bad, it may be inferred that not only is the instruction of the 

 children in music bad, but the payment also of so large a sum as 

 96,000/. per annum is of little use in securing for national benefit an 

 adequate return. The supply of duly qualified teachers in the 

 art and science of music may probably tend to diminish the 

 disproportion between the annual expenditure and the insufficient 

 return of results in musical instruction. Accepting the general 

 features common to Conservatoires abroad as the outlines for 

 similar institutions at home, Mr. Cole called attention to the 

 Royal Academy of Music and to the New National Training 

 School for Music at Kensington. The Royal Academy is 

 not a Conservatoire according to the definition given. The 

 constitution of the National Training School is similar to 

 that of the chief Conservatoires. The tendency of individual 

 or private enterprise seems to direct itself towards the train- 

 ing of singers and peformers; and it was stated that the 

 Kensington School was at present training nearly a hundred 

 scholars of this class. The duty of the Government is to pro- 

 vide qualified teachers, the results of whose instruction shall be 

 of value to the country at large, and therefore properly to be 

 paid for out of the exchequer. The form of State aid which it 

 was suggested might be given was the payment of the fees of 

 instruction of a certain number of students whose aim is to be 

 teachers in elementary schools, in local classes, and music schools 

 throughout the country. Such payment of fees would be made 

 to that academy or training school whose proved methods of 

 instruction seemed to be the best, and the work promoted 

 by this kind of State aid would not compete with that part of 

 national culture which is at present dependent upon the support 

 given according to the whims of the givers, and therefore of an 

 uncertain, spasmodic, unbusiness-like character. 



M. Cazin, the eminent French physicist, whose premature 

 death we noticed a few months since, left a manuscript on 

 Spectrum Analysis. This has just been published by Gauthier 

 Villars in his " Actualites Scientifiques." 



The Annual Meeting of the Cumberland Association for the 

 Advancement of Literature and Science will be held at Cocker- 

 mouth on Easter Monday and Tuesday. A varied and interesting 



