Oct. 23, 1879] 



NATURE 



619 



natural career? Why are all the doctors of the human species, 

 with their flowing knowledge and consummate skill, to carry out 

 cure ? Why are they so set at naught, that the lower animals, 

 who have no advantage of their services, have a higher vital 

 possession than man at their command ? 



" Tlie answer is told in a few words. It is that we have never 

 as a community let ourselves study the question ; have never, in 

 truth, looked at the facts, plainly as they stand forth. 



" And now comes another question — Knowing the facts ; 

 knowing what is the natural term of human life, can mankind 

 learn to attain that term ? Can man learn to live his hundred 

 years, with a prospective chance of extension to a fifth of a 

 century more ? Instead of being cut down at the moment when 

 he has filled his intelligent mind with the learning of Iiis time, 

 and when his knowledge is just becoming transmutable into 

 wisdom, can he go on, an intellectual being, brought to the 

 highest pitch of usefulness ? Can he go on to the full term of 

 his natural and prospective course ? 



" I do not dare answer that question on my own account, 

 because it is answered for me. He who gave the life has 

 answered the question. He has written it for us in unmistak- 

 able language. He has shown all of us who can read His 

 natural design.^, that it is one of them that man may live the 

 term if he will. Free-will making a man a free agent, is all that 

 is set above the natural law, and free-will is natural law too, 

 government by intelligence which is as natural, and is as freely 

 supplied. 



" How, then, shall civilised man live, that the natural term 

 may be found ?'" 



Dr. Richardson then proceeded to sketch his ideal 

 Salutland, located somewhere to the extreme south of 

 Mr. Hepworth Dixon's "New America," the time being 

 the middle of the twenty-first century. He depicted its 

 polity, its social and domestic life, its people, its work, 

 its sanitary arrangements. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE 



The ninth session of the Newcastle College of Science was 

 opened on the 13th inst., when very satisfactory reports of the 

 progress of the institute were made. Prof. Lebour delivered 

 the inaugural address on Some Aspects of Geology. Interesting 

 and genial speeches were given by Lord Ravenworth, the Dean 

 of Durham, and others. 



From the Calendar of Anderson's College, Glasgow, we see 

 that a very complete education can be obtained at that institution 

 in science and medicine, the fees being unusually low. The 

 Calendar has an interesting sketch of the life of John Anderson, 

 F.U.S., the founder of the college, as also of the institution itself. 



M. Ferry, the Minister for Public Instruction, having arrived 

 in Paris, has visited the Observatory and the School of Medicine, 

 where important works are being carried out. One of the pecu- 

 liarities of the new buildings will be the large number of dissec- 

 tion rooms. More than a hundred tables will be prepared for 

 dissections, so that every student in medicine will be enabled to 

 take part in fprmves pratiques, which will be an essential part of 

 the education of medical students. 



The new college so liberally endowed by Mr. Mark Firth, at 

 Sheffield, was opened on" Monday by Prince Leopold. The 

 endowment, it is expected, will soon reach 25,000/., and the 

 institution is mainly intended for carrying out the University 

 extension scheme, which has been remarkably successful in 

 Sheffield. The building seems to be altogether satisfactory, and, 

 we are glad to see, contains provisions for experimental instruc- 

 tion in chemistry and physics. Prince Leopold insisted on the 

 great benefits which must accrue to the working classes from the 

 establishment of such an institution. 



Prof. Max MUller, on Monday night, delivered the presi- 

 dent's inaugural address on the opening of the winter session of 

 the Birmingham and Midland Institute. His German and Italian 

 friends, he said, while recognising that full political liberty 

 reigned here, thought there was little intellectual freedom, and 

 that, however it might be in London and a few other large cities, 

 the Universities — the nurseries of thought and learning — were 

 fettered by the mediaeval spirit of monastic institutions and the 

 principles of scholastic philosophy, which contri^ted ill with the 

 freshness and freedom of Cootineatal Universities. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 



The Quarterly jfournal of Microscopical Science, October. 

 — W. B. Scott and H. F. Osborne, On some points in the 

 early development of the common newt, with pi. 20 and 21. — ■ 

 E. Ray Lankester, On the structure of Haliphysema Tuma- 

 ncnoiczii, with pi. 22, generally confirming the facts recorded 

 by Mr. Saville Kent, and failing to observe the collar-bearing 

 flagellate cells described by Haeckel. Prof. Lankester shows 

 the structure to be however not quite so simple as that which is sup- 

 posed to characterise the body substance of such Foraminifers as the 

 Lituolida. — E. Ray Lankester, On a new genus and species of 

 Gymnomyxa (Lethamccba discjis) pi. 23. — H. Gibbes, On the 

 structure of the vertebrate spermatozoon, pi. 24.— Index to 

 volume xix., N.S. 



T/te American Naturalist, September. — Brazilian corals and 

 coral reefs, by R. Rathbun. — The formation of Cape Cod (con- 

 cluded), by W. Upham. — The hillocks or mound-formations 

 of San Diego, California, by Dr. G. W. Barnes. — Insect 

 powder, by W. Saunders. — Recent literature ; General notes ; 

 Scientific news ; Proceedings of Scientific Societies ; Selected 

 articles. 



jfournal de Physique, September. — M. Bouty here describes 

 some mechanical phenomena which accompany electrolysis ; his 

 paper treats (l) of pressures exerted by galvanic deposits, (2) of 

 the action of heat on metallised thermometers, and (3) of 

 peculiarities of nickel. — M. Sebert gives an account of the 

 accelerograph of M. Marcel Deprez, in its most recent form ; 

 the apparatus is for measuring pressures developed by gases from 

 powder (which are caused to act on a piston). — There are also 

 notices of M. Deprez's magneto-electric machine (in which a 

 Siemens armature is arranged to work between the branches of 

 a horseshoe magnet, being about equal to these in length), and 

 a new form of electroscope, by M. Guerout. 



Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. 47, No. 223, N.S., April 6. — 

 Description of Thaumantis louisa, pi. 12, from Upper Tenasserim, 

 by J. Wood Mason.— On a great snow-fall in Kashmir, by R. 

 Lydekker. — Physiographical notes, &c., on Tanjore, by Lieut. - 

 Colonel B. R. Branfell. — On the proper relative sectional 

 areas for copper and iron lighting rods, by R. S. Brough. — 

 Description of anew Homopteron (Cosmoscarta masoni), by W. 

 L. Distant. — On the Indian species of the genus Erinaceus, 

 by Prof. Dr. Anderson, with 4 plates. — On a supposed 

 new hedgehog (Erinaceus niger) from Muscat Arabia, with a 

 plate. — On Arvicola indica, Gray, and its relations to the 

 sub-genus Nesokia, with a description of the species of Nesokia 

 (pi. 13 and 14), by Prof. Dr. Anderson ; Index to Volume. 



Morphologischis Jahrbuch, Bd. 5, Heft 2. — A. Pansch, Me- 

 moir on the morphology of the cerebral hemispheres, in mam- 

 maUa, pi. 14 and 15. — H. Strasser, On the development of the 

 limb cartilages in Salamanders and Tritons, pi. 16-19. — G. v. 

 Koch, Notes on the skeleton of corals, pi. 20. — M, Fiirbringer, 

 On the question of the formation of nerve plexi, pi. 21, 22. — C. 

 Semper, Reply to Prof. Furbringer's article " On Homology." 

 — Prof. Fiirbringer, On the chief points alluded to in Prof. 

 Semper's reply. — Notices. 



Zeitschri/t fiir viissenschaftliche Zoologie, Bd. 32, Heft 4, 

 August. — On the worm fauna of Madeira, by Prof. Langer- 

 hans, pi. 31-33. Describes a large number of new genera and 

 species. — Researches into the structure and development of 

 the Sponges, seventh notice : The family of the Spongidas, 

 by Prof. F. E. Schulze, pi. 34, 38. — Typhloscolex mndcri, W. 

 Busch, being a supplement to notes on the pelagic annelids of 

 the coasts of the Canary Islands, by Prof. R. Gree", pi. 39. 

 — On the oral skeleton of Asterids and Ophiurids, by Dr. H. 

 Ludwig. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 

 London 



Entomological Society. — October I. — Sir John Lubbock, 

 Bart., F.R.S., president, in the chair. — The President alluded to 

 the loss which the Society had sustained by the death of Mr. Wm. 

 Wilson Saunders, F.R.S., and a former President of the Entomo- 

 logical Society, and announced that the council had accepted the 

 responsibility of awarding two prizes oflfered by Lord Walsing- 

 ham and other gentlemen for the best and nost complete Ufe-his- 



