March 29, 1888] 



NATURE 



517 



we think, the undue difference in the marks allotted to modem 

 languages as compared with the experimental sciences. More- 

 over, even if Mr. Stanhope were right, it would not follow that 

 the head masters contemplated the application of their sugges- 

 tions in all respects to the scientific branches of the Army, since 

 the needs of those branches are so obviously different in certain 

 matters. We quite recognize the necessity pointed out by the 

 Secretary of State for War, that the system of the Royal Mili- 

 tary Academy (Woolwich) and that of the Royal Military Col- 

 lege (Sandhurst) should be as much as possible assimilated to 

 each other. But for that very reason the needs of the Woolwich 

 cadets in the case of science should have been more carefully 

 considered in the framing of the Sandhurst regulations. No 

 one will contend that scientific capacity is a bad thing for a Sand- 

 hurst cadet, and since it is admittedly of direct and very great 

 importance to secure scientific capacity on the part of Woolwich 

 cadets, it appears reasonable that, in the case of science subjects, 

 the needs of the Woolwich system should be chiefly regarded, 

 if in this respect the two systems must be made similar. 



Ten Fellows of the Royal Society have died in less than four 

 months — a large number when we take into account that the 

 annual death-rate is barely fifteen. Six out of the ten gave an 

 average age of seventy-nine. 



The annual general meeting of the Chemical Society was held 

 yesterday. Mr. Crookes, F.R.S., the President, read a report on 

 the state of the Society, and an address on elements and meta- 

 elements. The medal founde:!, for triennial award, by Dr. 

 Longstaff, was conferred on Dr. W. H. Perkin, F.R.S. The 

 President, in presenting the medal, expressed the pleasure he 

 felt in thus testifying, in the name of the Society, to the value 

 of Dr. Perkin's interesting and important researches on the 

 magnetic rotary polarization of compounds in relation to their 

 chemical constitution. Mr. Crookes also took the opportunity 

 of congratulating Dr. Longstaff on the fact that although on the 

 eve of his eighty-ninth birthday he is still hale and hearty. 



The half-yearly general meeting of the Scottish Meteoro- 

 logical Society was held yesterday in the hall of the Royal 

 Scottish Society of Arts, Edinburgh. In their Report the Coun- 

 cil state that, in addition to the routine work of the Office, the 

 Secretary's time has been occupied with the preparation of the 

 Report on the Ben Nevis observations from the opening of the 

 Observatory in November 1883 to the end of December 1887, 

 and in seeing these observations through the press. The work, 

 which is to appear as an extra volume of the Transactions of 

 the Royal Society of Edinburgh, is in a state of forwardness, the 

 whole of the observations proper of the Observatory being now 

 through the press. The Council also note that the physical and 

 biological researches have been conducted on the Medusa during 

 the winter months with characteristic vigour, and with a success so 

 great as to point to the solution of the questions raised by the 

 herring and salmon fisheries, while at the same time an entirely 

 new light has been cast on the circulation of the water in our 

 fresh and salt water lochs, and generally on the problem of 

 oceanic circulation. 



An influential Committee has been formed at Edinburgh for 

 the purpose of collecting subscriptions for a memorial of the late 

 Prof. Kelland. An appeal has been issued to his former 

 students and others, and it ought to meet with a prompt and 

 generous response. Prof. Kelland, as the Committee remind those 

 whom they have addressed, was not only an excellent and most 

 successful teacher of mathematics, loved and honoured by the 

 students of forty sessions at the University of Edinburgh, but one 

 of the most effective recent promoters of the cause of education 

 in Scotland. The precise nature of the memorial will to some 

 extent depend upon the amount subscribed ; but it will be 



essentially a foundation bearing the name of Kelland, such as a 

 Scholarship, or even a special Lectureship, in connection with the 

 Chair of Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh. 



The Irish Exhibition, which is to be held at Olympia, 

 Kensington, from June 4 next to October 27, ought to be one of 

 very great interest. The intention is that the English public 

 shall have an opportunity of obtaining a clear view of the pre- 

 dominant industries of Ireland. It is also proposed to exhibit 

 some of her historical 'and antiquarian treasures. The profits 

 are to be given in aid of Irish technical and commercial 

 schools. 



The eighth German Geographentag, which was to have 

 been held at Berlin in April, has been postponed. The Com- 

 mittee, in announcing this decision, explain that the festivities 

 which might, as usual, be connected with the meeting would not 

 be in accordance with the feeling excited in the capital by the 

 death of the Emperor William. 



The Standardoi Wednesday, March 21, printed some extracts 

 from the letters of Cowper, the poet, which may serve to show 

 that the climate of England has not deteriorated, bad as it has 

 lately been. In a letter dated March 19, 1788, Cowper writes 

 to his friend Bagot : — " The spring is come, but not that spring 

 which our poets have celebrated. So I judge, at least, by the 

 extreme severity of the season — sunless skies and freezing blasts, 

 surpassing all that we experienced in the depth of winter. How 

 do you dispose of yourself in this howling month of March ? As 

 for me, I walk daily, be the weather what it may, take bark, 

 and write verses. By the aid of such means as these I combat 

 the north-east wind with some measure of success, and look for- 

 ward — with the hope of enjoying it — to the warmth of summer." 

 On'May 6 he says to Lady Hesketh : — " I am just recovered from 

 a violent cold, attended by a cough. I escaped these tortures 

 all the winter ; but whose constitution or what skin can possibly 

 be proof against our vernal breezes in England ? Mine never 

 were nor will be." Yet only three weeks afterwards (May 27) 

 he exclaims to the same correspondent : — " How does this hot 

 weather suit thee, my dear, in London ? As for me, with all my 

 colonnades and bowers, I am quite oppressed by it." It would 

 be interesting if some one could provide particulars as to the 

 weather of any of the former '88 years. 



'Y^'S. American Meteorological Journal iox February devotes 

 an article to the works of Prof. William Ferrel, now seventy-one 

 years of age. His first meteorological papers were published in 

 the form of essays in 1856, and were reprinted and extended, 

 under the title of " Motions of Fluids and Solids on the Earth's 

 Surface," as one of the professional papers of the Signal 

 Service. In this paper the explanation of the trade winds is 

 altogether different from that usually given. His latest contri- 

 bution — '* Recent Advances in Meteorology " (see Nature, vol. 

 xxxvi. p. 255)— is the best summary of the principles and results 

 of meteorology in existence. Ferrel's views received consider- 

 able attention in France soon after publication, but in this 

 country and in America they have only attracted notice more 

 recently. His mathematical papers on the motions of the ocean 

 are not less important than those on the motions of the atmosphere. 

 The article is accompanied by a good portrait of Prof. Ferrel. 



We have received from Dr. Van der Stok the rainfall 

 observations made in the East Indian Archipelago during the 

 year 1886. Observations are now taken at 102 stations, several 

 additions having been recently made, including an important 

 station on the Key Islands, in longitude 132° 45' E. ; the district 

 now represented extends over 37° of longitude. The data pub- 

 lished include the monthly and yearly values for the year 1886, and 

 the means for a number of years, the number of days of rainfall, and 

 the greatest falls in twenty-four hours. The value of the work 



