i62- 



NATURE 



{Dec. 15, 1887 



Conference held at Chisvvick, October 1885," " Report of the 

 Primula Conference held at South Kensington, April i886, and 

 of the Orchid Conference held at Liverpool, June 30, 18S6," 

 "Report on the Effects of Frost on Vegetation during the 

 Severe Winters 1879-80, 1880-81, published in 1887." 



4. The Council are of opinion that the connection of the 

 Society with South Kensington, however promising at first, has 

 proved adverse to its true interests and permanent welfare. They 

 recognize that altered circumstances require a complete re- 

 organization of the Society on a more |)opular basis. They 

 believe that, while local Horticultural Societies attract local 

 support, a central Metropolitan Society (to which local Societies 

 may be affiliated) is, in the interests of horticulture, indispens- 

 able. Under analogous circumstances the Royal Agricultural 

 Society prospers, although there are local Societies in every 

 county of the Kingdom. 



5. The Council do not believe that the Society can be carried 

 on any longer under the trammels of the existing Charter, which 

 was granted in i85o in view of a wholly different state of things ; 

 nor do they think a Charter will be requisite for its future work- 

 ing. They believe that the numbers of the Council should be 

 considerably increased and their mode of election modified and 

 made popular, and that the ordinary work of the Society should 

 be carried on by Committees, under powers delegated to them 

 by the Council. They hold that the Society should henceforth 

 devote itself strictly to the advancement of practical and scientific 

 horticulture. 



6. The view of the Council is that the expenditure of the 

 Society should be reduced as much as possible, and its resources 

 devoted to the following objects : — 



(i) The maintenance of the Chiswick Gardens and the con- 

 duct of plant, fruit, and vegetable trials there ; and possibly the 

 establishment of a School of Gardening. 



(2) The immediate engagement of such premises in a con- 

 venient and central situation as may suffice for office require- 

 ments, the safe housing of the Lindley Library, the meetings of 

 the Society's Committees, and its fortnightly shows, to the 

 maintenance of whi.h ihey attach great importance. 



(3) The publication of periodical Reports of the work done at 

 Chiswick, and by the Society's Committees, and on horticultural 

 subjects generally. 



7. For many years the nature of the accommodation which 

 the Society has been able to obtain at South Kensington has 

 virtually prevented meetings being held for the discussion by the 

 Fellows of points of interest in the practice of horticulture. It 

 is essential that these meetings should be resumed, and it is 

 believed that they wi'l be of great value in bringing together 

 those who take an active part in British horticulture. It is also 

 hoped that such meetings would give an opportunity for the 

 consideration of the numerous directions in which the rural 

 economy of the country seems likely to be modified by the 

 substitution of horticultural for agricultural methods. 



8. The Council would recommend that the subscription should 

 be in future £2. 2s. for Fellows, and that a grade of Member or 

 Associate, at £1 is., should be created for professional and 

 practical gardeners, who have rarely hitherto belonged to the 

 Society. They calculate that the maintenance of Chiswick will 

 cost ;^i5ooa year, and that for the other purposes of the Society 

 a further sum of not less than ;!^I500 a year will be required. 

 During 1887, 150 Fellows have paid £^'as., and 623 Fellows 

 £2 2s., making a total of ;^I938 6s., a sum altogether insufficient 

 for the working and requirements of the Society. 



9. In conclusion, the Council believe that the extinction of the 

 Royal Horticultural Society would be regarded by all interested 

 in horticultm-e as a national loss. The histoiy of the Society, 

 and the good work it has done and is doing, entitle it to the 

 consideration and support of the horticultural world, to whom 

 the Council make this appeal. They address it with equal 

 confidence to amateurs and to the trade, in the belief that 

 their interests are identical, and that for the protection and 

 advancement of these interests the maintenance of the Royal 

 Horticultural Society is essential. The Council have had 

 difficult duties to perform. While they are willing to contir.ue 

 to discharge these duties, if desired, they believe that the best 

 course would be for them to place their resignations in the hands 

 of the Fellows, at the end of the year, so as to leave the Society 

 entirely unfettered. But they consider it due both to the 

 l*ellows and to themselves to say that, unless they receive 

 assurances of adequate support, in response to this appeal, the 

 Society must necessarily come to an end. 



10. The favour of an early answer is requested on the inclosed 

 form. The Donations wjuld be devoted to the cost of etablishing 

 the Society in its new home and to similar purposes. 



On behalf of the Council, 



Trevor Lawrence, President. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCA TIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — The Thurston Prize at Caius College, value 

 £S'\, for the best original investigation by a memlier of the 

 College in the past three years in physiology, pathology, or 

 practical medicine, has been adjudged to Mr. C. S. Sherrington, 

 M.A., M.B., Fellow of the College. 



The Sedgwick Memorial Committee having declined to assent 

 to the building of rooms for teaching purposes with the Sedgwick 

 Fund, while waiting the building of a complete museum ; and 

 other proposals having been made, a. syndicate has been ap- 

 pointed to plan out the entire disposal of the sites surrounding 

 the new museums, so as to satisfy as many scientific requirements 

 as possible. 



Mr. E. C. Dow on has been appointed Demonstrator of 

 Mechanism and Applied Mechanics in succession to Mr. Ames. 



Next term the General Board of Studies will nominate a 

 University Lecturer in Pure Mathematics, in consequence of the 

 resignation of Mr. Macaulay. The stipend is ^^50 per annum, 

 and the appointment will be for five years. A preference will 

 be given to a lecturer who would take subjects not at present 

 represented. Among these are theory of equations, theory of 

 nnmbers, and projective geometry. 



Scholarships in Natural Science will be competed for this 

 month or next at Gonville and Caius, King's, Jesus, Christ's, St. 

 John's, Trinity, Em'iianuel, and Sidney Sussex Colleges. The 

 tutors will give full information. 



A Clothworkers' Exhibition for Natuial Science, tenable at 

 Oxford or Cambridge for three years, will be awarded next 

 July by an examination under the Oxford and Cambridge Schools 

 Examination Board. Particulars may b.^ obtained from the 

 Censor of Non-Collegiate Students, Cambridge. 



Another general modification of examiner hi|>s in natural 

 science is proposed, which we shall refer to when it has been 

 discussed by the Senate. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



American Journal of Science, November. — On the relative 

 motion of the earth and luminiferous ether, by Albert A. 

 Michelson and Edward W. M( rley. A complete and satis- 

 factory explanation of the aberration of light is given by 

 Frcsnel's undulatory theory, which assumes, first, that the ether 

 is supposed to be at rest except in the in'erior of transparent 

 media ; secondlv, that in this case it moves with a velocity less 



n"^ - I 

 than that of the medium in the ratio — ., , where n is the 



n- 



index of refracticn. The second hypothesis having been fully 

 established by Fizeau's celebrated experiment, the first alone is 

 dealt with in this paper. From the delicate researches here 

 described, which have been carried out by the aid of the Bache 

 Fund, it is inferred that, if.there be any relative motion between 

 the earth and the luminiferous ether, it must be small, quite 

 small enough entirely to refute Fresnel's explanation of aberra- 

 tion. It is further shown that the theories of Stokes and 

 F'resnel also fail, and that it would be hopeless to attempt to 

 solve the question of the motion of the solar system by observa- 

 tions of optical phenomena at the surface of the earth. — On the 

 existence of carbon in the sun : contributions from the physical 

 laboratory of Harvard University, by John Trowbridge and 

 C. C. Hutchins. Without discussing the well-known observa- 

 tions of Abney on the absorption-bands in the solar spectrum 

 at high altitudes, or Siemens's hypothesis of the presence of 

 carbon vapour in interplanetary space, the authors here study 

 the remarkable character of the carbon spectrum foraaed by 

 the voltaic arc in air between carbon terminals, drawing atten- 

 tion to the evidence presented by the juxtaposed solar spectrum 

 of the existence of carbon in the sun. They conclude that at 

 the point of the sun's atmosphere where the carbon is volatilized, 

 the temperature of the sun approximates to that of the voltaic 



