March i, 1888] 



NATURE 



421 



NOTES. 



The Woolwich Examinations question, to the importance of 

 vhich we again direct attention in our first article to-day, 

 is not to be allowed to lapse. Three or four Members of 

 Parliament who are interested in science mean to press the 

 Government for some rational change in the rules. 



In accordance with the rule which empowers the election of 

 nine persons annually "of distinguished eminence in science, 

 literature, or the arts, or for public services," Dr. Lauder 

 Brunton, F.R. S., has been elected a member of the Athenoeum 

 Club. 



The extraordinary interest and value of the botanical collec- 

 tions made by Signor Odoardo Beccari during a residence of 

 several years in the Malay Archipelago, and especially in Borneo, 

 are well known to naturalists. For some time past Signor Beccari 

 has been occupied at Florence with the publication of his results 

 in the work with which botanists, whether systematists or morpho- 

 logists, are familiar under the name of Malesia. Owing to the 

 threatened withdrawal of the modest support which the Italian Go- 

 vernment have extended to this publication (his collections having 

 been acquired by the State), there is some reason to fear that it 

 may come to an abrupt termination. Under these circumstances 

 the Bentham Trustees have placed at Signor Beccari's disposal 

 the sum of looo francs, which they were informed would secure 

 the continuance of the work for one year. In accepting this 

 support Signor Beccari has informed the Trustees that he hesi- 

 tates the less to do so as it affords the strongest possible proof of 

 the estimation in which his labours are held in the botanical 

 world generally. 



Prof. Isaac Bayley Balfour, of the University of Oxford, 

 has been elected Professor of Botany at the University of Edin- 

 burgh in the room of the late Prof. Dickson. Prof. Bayley 

 Balfour is the son of the late Prof. Balfour, Prof. Dickson's 

 predecessor in the Chair. 



M. T. RiBOT has been appointed to the new Chair of Ex- 

 perimental and Comparative Psychology, founded by the Paris 

 Municipal Council at the College de France. 



Dr. F. L. Patton succeeds Dr. McCosh as the President of 

 Princeton College. Science says : — " Dr. Patton is still a young 

 man, being but forty-five years of age, and has yet to put forth 

 to their fullest extent his marvellous intellectual powers. We 

 seriously question whether any College has a President of so high 

 an intellectual stamp as Dr. Patton." 



Mr. Griesbach, the well-known geologist to the Afghan 

 Boundary Commission, and Deputy-Superintendent of the Geo- 

 logical Survey of India, has been permitted to take employment 

 under the Ameer of Afghanistan for the purpose of developing 

 the mineral resources of the country. 



Mr. H. O. Forbes has just arrived in England from New 

 Guinea. Mr. Forbes succeeded in reaching the foot of the 

 Owen Stanley range, after the very greatest difficulties owing 

 to the broken nature of the country. When he returned to his 

 camp to make the necessary arrangements for ascending the 

 range, he found it had been attacked and his people dispersed 

 by the natives. He had the greatest difficulty in reaching the 

 coast, and narrowly escaped with his life. 



M. Edouard Dupont, Director of the Brussels Natural 

 History Museum, has just returned to Belgium, after an absence 

 of eight months for the purpose of visiting the Congo. M, 

 Dupont has made a very careful study of the region between the 

 coast and the mouth of the Kassai, with a special view to its 

 geology and natural history. The detailed results he will shortly 

 communicate to the Brussels Societies. 



The Rev. W. H. Dallinger, F.R.S., will on Thursday next 

 (March 8) begin a course of three lectures at the Royal 

 Institution, on microscopical work with recent lenses on the 

 least and simplest forms of life. 



The Times understcnds that King's and University Colleges 

 have been informed that the Privy Council will hear them at 

 some date after April i6 next in support of their joint petition 

 for incorporation as the nucleus of a Teaching University for 

 London. The Privy Council have further desired that, as the 

 petition of the two Colleges appears to be substantially at one 

 with that of the Teaching University Association, the Colleges 

 should present a joint case with that Association not later than 

 March 31. 



A deputation from the School Boards of England and 

 Wales had an interview last week with Lord Cranbrook and 

 Sir W. Hart Dyke, to press upon their attention some considera- 

 tions with regard to technical instruction. In the course of his 

 reply to the various statements made, Lord Cranbrook said that 

 the Technical Instruction Bill would be introduced as soon as 

 possible. The Government, he assured the deputation, fully 

 intended, if possible, to pass the measure, and he ventured to 

 ask those who were interested in it, if they did not get all that 

 they required, to be content with a beginning, and not be too 

 anxious to press extreme conclusions which might raise 

 opposition that did not at present exist. 



M. Pasteur, having entered the lists as a competitor for the 

 reward of ;,f 25,000 offered by the Government of New South 

 Wales for exterminating the superabundant rabbits, has sent three 

 delegates with a supply of ^^ microbes dti cholera des ponies^* 

 with which he hopes to win the prize. Whatever may be 

 thought of this particular remedy, there can be no doubt as to 

 the serious nature of the plague of rabbits in Australia. During 

 last August the rabbit inspectors travelled 20,202 iniles and 

 destroyed 2,069,128 rabbit scalps, and from January I to August i 

 they destroyed 10,538,778 rabbit scalps. The New South 

 Wales Parliament lately provided funds for the making of a 

 rabbit-proof fence from Bourke to the Queensland border. 



The earthquake which caused so much alarm at Grenada on 

 the loth ult. was felt in many parts of the West Indies. There 

 were oscillations at Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada, 

 Demerara, and Trinidad, and it is said that in many places much 

 damage was done to house property. The earthquake was also 

 felt on the other side of the Gulf of Paria. In Guiria three houses 

 were destroyed and the earth opened in chasms and closed again. 

 At Yrapa the shock was so severe that a terrified old woman 

 threw herself into the sea and was drowned. 



About midnight on January 15 a shock ofearthquake was felt 

 by a party of five persons on the road four kilometres west of 

 Trysil Church in Central Norway. The shock was accompanied 

 by a dull rumbling noise like that of a heavy cart passing across 

 a bridge. 



On the night of January 5 showers of ashes fell in certain 

 parts of Elverum in Central Norway, in some places making the 

 snow quite gray. It is surmised that the fall may have been 

 connected with some volcanic eruption in Iceland, as has formerly 

 been the case in this locality. 



According to the Panama Star and Herald a huge wave 

 lately struck the beach at Baracjoa, Cuba. After sweeping in 

 fully 400 feet, it flowed back to the ocean. Nearly 300 huts and 

 houses are said to have been destroyed, but no lives were lost, 

 for the people saw the wave coming and fled to the hills. The 

 beach was swept clear of every habitation that stood upon it. 

 The wave was not a tidal wave, but the result of a three days' 

 north wind. 



