June IT, 1875] 



NATURE 



135 



says, " in the University of Zurich seem to merit notice, as signs 

 of the times. One is that of Prof. W, Wundt to the Chair of 

 Philosophy, the other that of Prof. E. Hitzig to the Chair of 

 Psychology. Wundt has long been occupied at Heidelberg, 

 first as Assistant, then as ' Ordinary ' Professor of Physiology, 

 whilst Hitzig has been a medical practitioner and lecturer on 

 electro-therapeutics in Berlin. So far as we know, the latter 

 has written nothing on purely mental science. His discovery of 

 the irritability of the surface of the brain is his chief title to 

 fame ; all that he has written shows erudition, great experi- 

 mental thoroughness, and conscientiousness in drawing infer- 

 ences. Wundt is one of the most learned of German investigators. 

 His own special work has lain most in the line of the senses and 

 the nervous system, the territory common to mind and matter ; 

 and all the elements of his training hitherto unite to make him 

 an eminently well-qualified teacher oi mental science. Indeed, 

 we doubt not that his long apprenticeship in physiology was 

 accepted by him merely that he might be the better educated for 

 philosophy. In this country such appointments would probably 

 provoke a good deal of orthodox alarm. But in Germany not 

 only is thought more fearless of consequences, but ' camps ' in 

 opinion are much less clearly defined, and materialistic and 

 spiritualistic tendencies keep house together most amicably in 

 the same professional brains. We cannot help regarding such 

 appointments as these as hopeful tokens of a new era in philo- 

 sophical studies — an era in which the old jealousy between the 

 subjective and the objective methods shall have disappeared, 

 and in which it shall be admitted that the only hope of reaching 

 gentral truths that all may accept is through the co-operation of 

 all in the minute investigation of special mental processes. We 

 may then see solid philosophical conclusions gradually emerging 

 from the mass of discoveries of detail, just as happens in the 

 sciences more especially recognised as 'induc'.ive.'" 



We take the following from the Atheticrtim : — Mr. William 

 Davis, who has been an attendant at the British Museum since 

 1843, but has practically fulfilled, for a long time past, duties 

 requiring considerable scientific acquirements for a salary which, 

 after the lapse of thirty years, had risen to the magnificent 

 sum of some twenty-five shillings a week, was on Wednesday 

 appointed by the Trustees an assistant in the Department of 

 Geology. Mr. Davis was the first recipient of the Murchison 

 Medal of the Geological Society, and is a well-known authority 

 upon vertebrate fossils, especially fishes and mammalia. 



The series of papers on Portuguese Travel by Mr. John 

 Latouche, which have appeared in the Nrw Quarterly Magazine, 

 are shortly to be published by Messrs. Ward, Lock, and Tyler, 

 under the title of "Travels in Portugal," with illustrations by 

 the Right Hon. T, Sotheron-Estcourt. 



A TELEGRAM, dated " Strangway Springs, April 17," has 

 been received from Mr. Ernest Giles, who has been exploring 

 to the north of Fowler's Bay, Australia. He had had one long 

 stretch of 220 miles without water ; all the horses died, and he 

 was only saved by^ his two camels. Mr. Lewis's expedition 

 to Lake Hope, South Austraha, has proved successful. Lake 

 Hope he found perfectly dry. Before completing his work, Mr. 

 Lewis purposes endeavouring to discover a route between the 

 south-west portion of Queensland and the north-west of New 

 South Wales, with a view of establishing direct overland com- 

 munication with the former colony. 



The annual meeting of the Palestine Exploration Fund was 

 held last Thursday. Since the Society was founded in 1865, 

 four expeditions have been made, and surveys and excavations 

 effected. The surveys have extended from Mount Carmel in the 

 north to Beersheba in the south, and from Askelon in the west 

 to the Dead Sea. 



The death of the lamented Remusat has created a majority in 

 favour of M. Dumas in the election which will take place at 

 the Academie Fran^aise five months hence. It was owing to 

 the prospect of a vacancy that the election was postponed when 

 the Academicians were unable to agree after three successive 

 meetings. 



The death is announced, on June 9, at the age of seventy- nine 

 years, ol M. Deshayes, Professor in the Paris Musum of Natural 

 History. 



La Revue Scientifique records the death, on May 11, at the age 

 of thirty-two years, at Algiers, of a distinguished Mussulman 

 chemist, Abdallah ben Mohammed. His mission was to instruct 

 in the physical sciences, and especially in chemistry, the native 

 Algerians ; for this purpose he had to devise an Arabic ter- 

 minology. 



The death is announced of Senhor Joaquim Henriques Fra- 

 desso da Silveira, director of the Meteorological Observatory of 

 the Infanta Don Louis at Lisbon. 



The Professorship of Chemistry at Munich, we learn from the 

 British Medical Journal, which has remained vacant since the 

 death of Liebig, has been accepted by Prof. Baeyer of Stra&burg, 

 who will commence his duties next winter session. 



The jury of the Exhibition of the French Central Society of 

 Horticulture has awarded a large gold medal to M. De la Bastie 

 for his discovery of hardened glass, on account of the services it 

 is hkely to render to horticulture. 



The Annual Report of the United [States Geological and 

 Geographical Survey, describing the explorations of the year 

 1873, which has just reached us, contains, besides the descriptive 

 letter-press, several valuable illustrations of some of the more 

 recently discovered, genera and species ofMammaha belongmg 

 to genera closely allied to Dinoceras (Marsh). These include 

 Symborodon bucco (Cope), 8. Saltirostris, and .S". ater, all very 

 pecuUar forms. 



We have received the [thkd Annual Report of the Zoological 

 Society, oi Philadelphia, just^pubhshed, which tells very strongly 

 in favour of the institution. The additions by presentation and 

 purchase are numerous, including six Giraffes, an Elk, an African 

 and an Indian Elephant, and a Ka-Ka Parrot. We may judge 

 that the Gardens are constantly kept in view by the citizens in 

 their travels, from the fact that not less than twenty-three alliga- 

 tors were presented within three months. 



The President of the Italian Geographical Society has re- 

 ceived favourable intelligence of the expedition sent to examine 

 the possibility of conducting the waters of the sea into the hollow 

 basins of the Sahara. The expedition will be divided into two 

 parties at Gares. ^ One is to explore the Oasis of Gerid, and carry 

 out some interesting collateral researches among the ruins of 

 Carthage, particularly the remains of the aqueducts and the 

 remarkable lead mountain of Gebel Drucas. 



An attempt which has just been made to introduce living 

 humming-birds into the Paris Jardin d'Acclimatation has failed, 

 although a traveller managed to bring six alive to Paris by feeding 

 them with honey. The only other humming-birds which have 

 reached Europe alive were those brought by M. Delattre in 1855 

 from Central America, , but these died a fortnight after their 

 arrival in Paris. 



" Nuragghi Sardi, and other Non-historic Stone Structures 

 of the Mediterranean Basin," is the title of an illustrated pampli- 

 let by Capt. S. P, Oliver, who offers it "as a slight contri- 

 bution towards the constantly increasing knowledge of those 

 pre-historic remains which are scattered in mysterious groups 

 throughout the Old Worid." Carson Brothers, of Dublin, are 

 the publishers. 



