500 



NATURE 



{March 2 2, 1888 



I 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — A small revolution has been effected in the 

 teaching of geometry by the adoption of a regulation allowing 

 any proofs of the propositions in Euclid to be given in the 

 " Little-Go " or previous examination. No proof, however,^ of 

 any proposition occurring in Euclid will be admitted in which 

 use is made of any proposition which in Euclid's order occurs 

 subsequently. 



The estimates for the new plant-house {£,11^6) and research 

 laboratory (;i^25o) at the Botanical Gardens are accepted, 

 Messrs. Boyd, of Paisley, being engaged for the former, Mr. 

 Sindall for the latter. Sir Joseph Hooker, Mr. Thiselton Dyer, 

 and several skilled horticulturists have inspected the plans, and 

 they meet with general approval. The proposed fern-house, 

 stove, and orchid-house, have a combined area of 2660 square 

 feet, as compared with 2290 square feet, the area of the cor- 

 responding present houses. 



The apparent boycotting of the Cambridge mechanical 

 workshops by the Museums and Lecture- Rooms Syndicate, and 

 other Cambridge authorities has led to a considerable diminution 

 of work, and consequently to a serious reduction of profit in the 

 workshops, which have also suffered to some extent by the un- 

 fortunate rejection of the Engineering Tripos scheme. In a 

 recent discuision Prof. Cayley expressed the opinion that it ought 

 to be as much a matter of course to send University mechanical 

 work to the Univer.^ity workshops as to send University printing 

 work to thi Pitt Press. He considered the work done by the 

 ■workshops compared very favourably with similar work done 

 by contractors. Mr. Lyon, superintendent of the workshops, 

 claimed that, while much of the work done outside for the 

 museums had to be frequently repaired, none of the mechanical 

 workshops' work had required this. They had done the work 

 for the Morphological Laboratory for ;,{^iooo less than was 

 estimated. A good deal of testimony was given to the excellence 

 of their work, against which it was stated that the Syndicate 

 thought they could get their work done cheaper and better by a 

 professional builder. 



A scheme has been prepared for the future fitting up of the 

 old Botanic Gardens site with University buildings in extension 

 of the museums and lecture-rooms. The most salient points are 

 that the site between the new Chemical Laboratory and the 

 Museum of Human Anatomy is declared sufficient for the new 

 Museum of Geology, and that the next buildings to be taken in 

 -hand should be those for Human Anatomy and Physiology. It 

 is also proposed to accommodate the Department of Pathology 

 -in the old Chemical Laboratory. 



Mr. Wilberforce will deliver a course of lectures on Dynamo- 

 •Electric Machines at the Cavendish Laboratory during the 

 Easter term. 



Among the Fellows elected at King's College last week were 

 Mr. A. P. Laurie, who obtained a first class in the Natural 

 Sciences Tripos, Part II., June 1884, and Mr. H. W. Richmond, 

 Third Wrangler 1885, and placed in Division I. in the third 

 part of the same Tripos, 1886. 



Mr. R. Pendlebury, Fellow of St. John's, has been appointed 

 a University Lecturer in Mathematics for five years. 



Open Scholarship examinations in which natural science 

 Scholarships may be awarded will be held at Downing College 

 on May 29, and at Peterhouse in October. The Clothworkers' 

 Exhibition in physical science will be competed for in connection 

 •with the Oxford and Cambridge schools examination in July. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



In the Journal of Botany for February, Mr. G. S. Boulger 

 •calls attention to the exceedingly loose way in which the term 

 "endosperm" is applied by botanical writers to structures in 

 Angiosperms, in Gymnosperms, and in Vascular Cryptogams 

 which have no real homology with one another. — A very inter- 

 esting new fern from New Guinea {Polypodium Annabdhe) is 

 described and figured by Mr. H. O. Forbes, belonging to the 

 small group in which the fertile portion of the frond is only an 

 ■extension of the lower barren portion. — In this, and in the number 

 for March, Mr. J. G. Baker continues his synopsis of 7}7/a;«/«V(Z, 

 and the editor commences an exceedingly useful alphabetical 

 biographical index of British and Irish botanists no longer 

 living. 



American Journal of Science, March. — Asa Gray, by J. D. 

 Dana. The attention of the readers of Nature has already 

 been directed to this memoir, written by the friend and associate 

 probably most competent to appreciate the life-work of the 

 eminent American botanist. — Calibration of an electrometer, by 

 D. W. Shea. In the various forms of the quadrant electro- 

 meter, and in the different methods of setting up the same 

 instrument, the curves of calibration obtained are well known 

 to correspond in a very irregular manner with the curves given 

 by Maxwell's mathematical theoiy. In this paper are given 

 some observations with an electrometer of the Mascart form, 

 which show variations apparently due to change in the sensi- 

 bility with variation in the temperature. The accompanying 

 tables exhibit the changes in the form of the curves for various 

 charges of the needle through the range of temperature attain- 

 able, at the time, in the room where the electrometer was set 

 up. — On the so-called Northford (Maine) meteorite, by F. C. 

 Robinson. One of the numerous specimens of this "meteorite " 

 contained in various cabinets in Maine, and perhaps elsewhere, 

 has recently been analyzed by Mr. Charles Fish in Mr. Robin- 

 son's laboratory. That it is not of meteoric origin seems settled 

 by this analysis, which corresponds closely with some recorded 

 analyses of copper-slag. — History of the changes in the Mount 

 Loa craters ; Part i, Kilauea (continued and concluded), by 

 James D. Dana. The subjects discussed in this paper are : the 

 size of the Kilauea conduit ; the ordinary work performed by 

 this crater ; the kinds and sources of the vapours concerned ; 

 the effect of the expansive force of vapours in their escape from 

 the liquid lavas (projectile action), and within the lavas (vesicu- 

 lation and its mechanical effect) ; lastly, work of vapours gene- 

 rated outside of the conduit — fractures, displacements, and other 

 results. — The Taconic system of Emmons, and the use of the 

 name Taconic in geological nomenclature, by Charles D. Wal- 

 cott. In this first paper on the North American Taconic^system, 

 the author deals (i) with the Taconic area in general and the 

 geological work within it ; (2) with the geology of the Taconic 

 area as known at the present time. The Taconic area, as here 

 studied, is stated to comprise the Taconic range running north 

 and south nearly along the border-line between the States of 

 New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, with the 

 country immediately adjacent to the range on the east and west. 

 The strata included within the whole area are grouped under 

 six terranes, identified as Middle Cambrian (i and 5), Upper 

 Cambrian (2), Calciferous, Chazy, and Trenton limestones (3), 

 and Hudson shales, sandstones, &c. (4 and 6). — On the crystal- 

 line form of polianite, by E. S. Dana and S. L. Penfield. The 

 true crystalline form of the anhydrous manganese dioxide, 

 MnOj, from Platten, Bohemia, to which Breithaupt has given 

 the name of polianite, has been the subject of much discussion. 

 Kochlin's recent contribution to its elucidation has induced the 

 authors to continue their own studies, which establish beyond all 

 doubt the independent position of polianite as a tetragonal 

 crystal isomorphous \\ ith cassiterite and the allied species of the 

 RO2 group. 



Nearly the whole of the number of the Nuovo Giornale 

 Botanico Italiano for January is occupied by a monograph by 

 Sig. A. N. Berlese of the genus of Fungi Pleospora, of which 

 104 undoubted species are described, several of them new to 

 science, besides a considerable number of doubtful species. The 

 eight plates, in which the essential characters of nearly all the 

 species are illustrated, as well as monographs of the allied 

 genera Clathj-os/ora and Pyrenophora, are postponed to the next 

 number. — Prof. A. Beccari also describes three new species of 

 palm from New Guinea. 



Rendiconli del Reale Istituto Loinbardo, February 9. — On 

 colour-hearing, by Tito Vignoli. A somewhat detailed account 

 is given of this obscure psychological phenomenon, cases being 

 described in which not only sound produced the sensation of 

 colour and colour of sound, but also cases in which sensations of 

 smell and taste were stimulated by sound and colour. Rejecting 

 the explanations hitherto advanced, the author refers the pheno- 

 menon to the primaeval condition of the brain itself before the 

 various senses became differentiated and localized in this organ. 

 These senses must be regarded as so many forms of the primitive 

 and essential condition of the nerve-tissue in which they became 

 gradually specialized. But although the protoplasmic substance 

 of the brain was thus made the seat of distinct sensations by 

 virtue of incident forces and slow selection, still it has never 



