6i4 



NATURE 



{April 26, 1888 



Bring the ball to the position B' again, and project it 

 at right angles, or at any angle, to the plane B A B The 

 ball now illustrates three-dimensional motion. The period 

 is slow, and the experiments are very interesting and 

 instructive. Magnus Maclean. 



NOTES. 



The bi-centenary of the publication of Newton's " Principia" 

 was celebrated on Thursday last at Trinity College, Cambridge. 

 A long and admirable address was read by Dr. Glaisher to a 

 distinguished audience which had been invited to Cambridge by 

 the Master and Fellows of the College. At a numerously 

 attended dinner in Hall in the evening, speeches were made by the 

 Master, the President of the Royal Society, the Astronomers- 

 Royal for England and Ireland, and other distinguished guests. 



Amongst the missions just approved by the Special Com- 

 mission of the French Ministry of Public Instruction are the 

 following: M. Nickles, mining engineer, to carry out in the 

 provinces of Valencia and Alicante, in Spain, geological investi- 

 gations ; Dr. Morisse, to undertake various medical and natural 

 history studies in the basins of the Upper Orinoco and Amazon ; 

 the Abbe Hyvernat, to proceed to Armenia to copy the cuneiform 

 Inscriptions on the shores of Lake Van, to investigate the art of 

 Assyria, and to study on the spot the Neo-Syriac dialects spoken 

 in the basin of Lake Urumiyah ; M. Gay, to undertake a mission 

 to Nicaragua, Columbia, and Venezuela, to study the natural 

 history, and make collections for the State Museums ; M. 

 Thoulet, Professor of Mineralogy in the Faculty of Sciences at 

 Nancy, to study the organization of the Observatory of 

 Christiania, and of the Scottish Marine Biological Station at 

 Edinburgh. 



The Bill to provide for technical education in England and 

 Wales, prepared and brought in by Sir H. Roscoe, Sir U. Kay- 

 Shuttleworth, Sir B. Samuelson, Mr. G. Dixon, and Mr, A. 

 Acland, has been printed. It provides (i) that any School Board 

 may make provision for giving technical education in any school 

 under their management, and either by day or evening classes, 

 or both, as may seem fit, having regard to the daily occupations 

 of the persons to be benefited thereby ; (2) that if no such provi- 

 sion is made, or if it is insufficient, and if the local authority by 

 special resolution determine that provision or further provision 

 ought to be made, they may themselves make such provision. 

 The Bill also provides for the rendering of aid by School 

 Boards or local authorities to voluntary schools in which technical 

 instruction may be given ; and two sections define the con- 

 ditions under which Parliamentary grants shall be made for 

 the encouragement of such instruction both in voluntary schools 

 and in Board schools. It is proposed that any School Board or 

 local authority, should they think fit, may institute an entrance 

 examination in reading, writing, and arithmetic, for persons 

 desirous of attending technical schools or classes under their 

 management, or to which they contribute. 



The Colonies and India, commenting on the movement in 

 favour of technical education in the colony of Victoria, says it 

 will not be the fault of the Victorian Government if technical 

 education is neglected, as there is a feeling in the Cabinet that 

 if the country is to progress the rising generation should have 

 the advantage of technical teaching. The Minister of Public 

 Instruction has issued a minute on the policy of founding a 

 Victorian Technical University, which is a digest of some of the 

 evidence given before our own Royal Commission on Technical 

 Instruction. Mr. Pearson estimates the initial expenditure 

 involved in the foundation of a separate technical University at 

 from ;,^5oo,coo to a million, besides a yearly endowment of at 

 least ;C30)000. The latter sum appears out of proportion to the 



average endow ments of such institutions in Europe and America. 

 It is not doubted that the money required will be freely voted. 



The following resolution was passed at a meeting of the 

 American Philosophical Society on January 6, and has just been 

 received by some of the scientific Societies of Great Britain in a 

 circular dated March 12: — " AVWwa', That the President of 

 the American Philosophical Society be requested to address a 

 letter to all learned bodies with which this Society is in official 

 relations, and to such other Societies and individuals as he may 

 deem proper, asking their co-operation in perfecting a language 

 for learned and commercial purposes, based on the Aryan 

 vocabulary and grammar in their simplest forms ; and to that end 

 proposing an International Congress, the first meeting of which 

 shall be held in London or in Paris." 



The general meeting of the Institution of Mechanical 

 Engineers will be held on Thursday evening, May 3, and 

 Friday afternoon, May 4. The chair will be taken by the 

 President, Mr. Carbutt, at 7.30 p.m. on Thursday evening, and 

 at 2.30 p.m. on Friday afternoon. The following papers will be 

 read and discussed as far as time permits : — Third Report of the 

 Research Committee on Friction : experiments on the friction of a 

 collar bearing ; description of the emery testing machine, by Mr. 

 Henry R. Towne, of Stamford, Connecticut ; and supplement- 

 ary paper on the use of petroleum refuse as fuel in locomotive 

 engines, by Mr. Thomas Urquhart, Locomotive Superintendent, 

 Grazi and Tsaritsin Railway, South-east Russia. 



Surgeon-MajorF. S. B. Francois deChaumont, F.R.S., 

 Professor of Military Hygiene at the Army Medical School, 

 Nelley, died at his residence at Woolston, near Southampton, 

 on the i8th inst. He was fifty-five years of age. 



At the meeting of the Society of Arts on the i8th inst., Sir 

 Howard Grubb read a paper on telescopes for stellar photography. 

 His object was to discuss and describe a few of the more im- 

 portant mechanical details of the instruments which are to be 

 used for the international photographic survey of the heavens. 

 The paper is printed in the current number of the Journal of the 

 Society of Arts. 



On March 31, about 10 p.m , a splendid meteor was seen at 

 Asker, in Nerice, in Sweden, It appeared in the southern sky, 

 increasing in brilliancy in its descent. Finally it seemed to 

 burst into three parts, each of which left a trail in the sky 

 observable a few seconds. The colour was intense bluish-white. 



Severe shocks of earthquake were felt at Oldenburg on 

 April 12. Several houses fell in at Eisenstadt. Shocks were also 

 noticed at Pottendorf, in Lower Austria. 



A Hydrographical Bureau has been opened in Wiirtem- 

 berg, under the direction of Herr von Marten. 



We are glad to hear that a regular meteorological organization 

 is to be established in Spain. The Director, appointed by 

 "competitive examination," is Seiior Augusto Arcimis, formerly 

 of the Institution Libre de Ensenanza, Madrid. M. Arcimis 

 has long been known as a meteorologist. 



MM. MoHN AND Hildebrandsson have published an im- 

 portant discussion on the "Thunderstorms of Scandinavia" 

 (Upsal, 1888, 55 pp. and 12 plates). The first network of 

 thunderstorm stations was established in France by Leverrier in 

 1865, and his plan has been adopted in most other countries, 

 almost without change. Norway followed next, in 1867, and 

 Sweden in 1871. The storms are divided into two classes : (l) 

 heat thunderstorms, which occur generally in summer, and 

 mostly originate in the central and eastern parts of the Scandi- 

 navian peninsula 2) cyclonic thunderstorms, which generally 



