June 21, 1888] 



NA TURE 



189 



the week of the Congress, to. which geologists are invited to send 

 maps, recent memoirs, rocks, fossils, &c. Foreign members of 

 the Congress are invited by the Council of the British Association 

 to attend the meeting of that Association at Bath. During the 

 week when the Association meets, there will be short excursions 

 in the neighbourhood of Bath, and longer excursions will be 

 made after the meeting. At these excursions excellent sections 

 of the Lower Secondary and Upper Palaeozoic rocks will be visited. 

 Excursions will take place in the week after the meeting of the 

 Congress (September 24 to 30). The number of these will 

 depend upon the number of members desirous of attending, and 

 upon the districts which they most wish to visit. The excursions 

 at present suggested are : — (1) The Isle of Wight (visiting the 

 Ordnance Survey Office at Southampton on the way) — Creta- 

 ceous, Eocene, Oligocene. (2) North Wales — Pre- Cambrian and 

 the older Palaeozoic rocks ; West Yorkshire (Ingleborough, &c.) 

 — Silurian and Carboniferous Limestone. (3) East Yorkshire 

 (Scarborough, Whitby, &c.) — Jurassic and Cretaceous. Should 

 the number of members be so large as to make additional 

 excursions necessary, they will probably be : — (4) Norfolk and 

 Suffolk — Pliocene (Crag) and Glacial beds. (5) To the Jurassic 

 rocks of Central England. The short excursions during the 

 week of the Congress will probably be to Windsor and Eton, to 

 St. Albans, to Watford, to Brighton, to the Royal Gardens at 

 Kew, and to other places of interest. Brief descriptions of the 

 districts to be visited in these excursions will be prepared (with 

 illustrative sections, &c), and will, if possible, be sent to 

 members before the meeting. The full Report of the London 

 meeting will be issued soon after the close of the session. It 

 will contain, in addition to reports of the ordinary business of 

 the Congress, the Report of the American Committee on 

 Nomenclature (about 230 pp.) ; the Memoirs on the Crystalline 

 Schists (about 150 pp.). and reports of discussion on the same ; 

 and probably a reprint, with additions, of the Report of the 

 English Committee on Nomenclature (about 150 pp.). 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Oxford. — The Burdett-Coutts Scholarship in Geology has 

 been awarded to Mr. M. Hunter, B.A., Queen's College. 



The degree of M.A. honoris causa has been conferred on Dr. 

 S. J. Hickson, the Deputy Linacre Professor, and on Mr. 

 Wyndham R. Dunstan. 



Scholarships in Natural Science are announced for competition, 

 at Merton and Corpus jointly on June 26, at Magdalen on 

 October 9, and at Balliol, Christ Church, and Trinity jointly on 

 November 20. Information may be had from the science tutors 

 of the various Colleges. 



A statute is being discussed by Congregation, which will place 

 the biological sciences on the same footing as the physical 

 sciences so far as the examinations for pass degrees are concerned, 

 and it is hoped that the changes to be introduced will increase 

 the numbers of the biological and medical schools. 



Mr. F. J. Smith, of the Millard Laboratory at Trinity, has been 

 appointed University Lecturer in Mechanics and Experimental 

 Physics. 



Cambridge. — An amended report on the Natural Science 

 Examinerships has just appeared, but the scheme proposed is 

 very complex. It having been found difficult to get examiners 

 to undertake the honours, and ordinary degree, and M.B. 

 examinations combined, it is proposed to separate the elementary 

 examination work, and appoint two examiners each in element- 

 ary chemistry, in elementary physics, and in elementary biology, 

 while two examiners in each subject of the Natural Sciences 

 Tripos are to be appointed as before, and two in pharmaceutical 

 chemistry, for the second M.B. Thus there will be twenty-four 

 examiners in all. The examiners are to be paid a minimum of 

 fifteen, twenty, or thirty pounds each, with a payment of five 

 shillings for each Tripos candidate in their subject, or one, two, 

 and four shillings per candidate in other examinations. Moreover, 

 it is required that all papers and all practical work in honours 

 shall be examined by both examiners in a subject. Both 

 examiners are to be present at all oral work in their subject ; 

 and all examiners must be present at the meeting for arranging 

 the class-list for any examination. We prognosticate that the 

 list of examiners, if at all worthy of the University, will not 

 largely consist of non-residents, under the new scheme. The 



worst mistake perhaps that the University mikes is in continuing 

 the one-sided ordinary degree examinations in single subjects, such 

 as geology, botany, and zoology ; for all combined there were 

 only four candidates in the last academical year ; and for these 

 there were six separate examinations provided, though two 

 were not held. The chemistry "special " attracts a number of 

 candidates, who might be much better employed in preparing 

 for the First Part of the Natural Sciences Tripos. It would be 

 far easier to work the Natural Science Examinations if these were 

 abolished. It is absurd to keep up a machinery of examination 

 which is tabooed even by candidates. The Tripos is a success, 

 which the specials are not, and still more liberal payments and 

 regulations ought to be made. It ought to be remembered that, 

 the graduates pay heavy degree fees in addition to examination 

 fees. 



The examiners for 1888 in the Second Part of the Mathe- 

 matical Tripos were Edward John Routh, Sc. D., Peterhouse; 

 James Whitbread Lee Glaisher, Sc.D., Trinity College ; Joseph 

 John Thomson, M.A., Trinity College; Andrew Russell 

 Forsyth, M.A., Trinity College. The names, in each class and 

 in each division, are arranged in alphabetical order, and not in 

 order of merit. All the candidates passed the Mathematical 

 Tripos, Part I., in June 1887. 



Class I. — Division 1. — Baker, B.A., Joh. ; Berry, B.A., 

 Trin. ; Flux, B.A., Joh. ; Mitchell, B.A., Trin. Division 

 2.— Brown, B.A., Christ's; Clay, B.A., Trin.; lies, B.A., 

 Trin. 



Class II.— Little, B.A., Trin. ; Norris, B.A., Joh. ; Peace, 

 B.A., Emman. ; Soper, B.A., Trin. 

 Class III. — None. 



The faint hope that there was till lately that a Geological 

 Museum might soon be begun has been dissipated by the 

 Financial Board having reported that the University has no funds 

 available at present, although the Sedgwick Fund has ^"19,000 

 in hand to supplement the University contribution. 



The late Sir Charles Bunbury's valuable herbaria .have been 

 presented to the University by Lady Bunbury. 



At the Annual Scholarship Election at St. John's College, on 

 June 1 8, the following awards in Natural Science were made : — 

 Foundation Scholarships continued or augmented — Seward, 

 Rolleston, Rendle. Turpin, Groom, d' Albuquerque ; Foun- 

 dation Scholarships awarded — Hankin, Horton-Smith, Locke, 

 Baily, Simpson ; Exhibitions awarded — d' Albuquerque, Han- 

 kin, Horton-Smith, Blackman, Schmitz. In Mathematics, the 

 following awards were made : — Foundation Scholarships con- 

 tinued or augmented — Baker, Flux, Norris, Orr, Sampson, 

 Harris, Rudd, Bennett ; Foundation Scholarships awarded — 

 Palmer, Carlisle, Burstall, Monro, Cooke, Lawrenson ; Exhibi- 

 tions awarded — Sampson, Harris, Monro, Dobbs, Reeves, 

 Bennett, Burstall, Cooke, Lawrenson, Brown, Finn, Kahn, 

 Salisbury, Schmitz, Shawcross ; Proper Sizarship awarded — 

 Finn. Wright's Prizes to Simpson, Hankin, Blackman, for 

 Science ; and Orr, Burstall, Reeves, for Mathematics. The 

 Herschel Prize to Salisbury, for Astronomy ; the Hockin Prize 

 for Electricity not awarded. The Hutchinson Studentship of 

 £60 a year for two years is awarded to Mr. G. S. Turpin for 

 research in Organic Chemistry ; and the Hughes Prize to Orr 

 (Senior Wrangler) and Brooks (Senior Classic). 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



American Journal of Science, June. — Note on earthquake- 

 intensity in San Francisco, by Edward S. Holden. The object 

 of this paper is to obtain an estimate of the absolute value of the 

 earthquake-intensity developed at San Francisco during the 

 American historic period, based on the very complete records 

 collected by Thomas Tennant. The intensity of each separate 

 shock (417 altogether) is assigned on the arbitrary scale of Rossi 

 and Forel. The total average intensity during the 80 years from 

 1808 to 1888 is found to be nearly equal to the intensity of 28 

 separate'shocks as severe as that of 1868, and the 417 shocks of 

 known intensities correspond to 33,360 units of acceleration. — 

 On the relations of the Laramie Group to earlier and later 

 formations, by Charles A. White. The author's further studies 

 of this group, by some geologists referred to the Tertiary, by 

 others to the Cretaceous ages, lead to the conclusion that the 

 upper strata form a gradual transition from the latter to the 

 former, while there is strong presumptive evidence of the Cre- 

 taceous age of the greater part of it. — The gabbros and diorites 

 of the " Cortlandt Series " on the Hudson River near Peekskill j 



