30 



NATURE 



{Nov. 8, 1888 



tion." This implication, which Prof. Lankester calls false, we do 

 assuredly make in the most explicit way. We assert that the 

 teaching is deserving of the title University teaching, and I am 

 prepared to submit to Prof. Lankester overwhelming evidence in 

 support of this assertion. 



The definition which he gives to University teaching is one 

 which includes all the good schools, and is in no sense 

 diagnostic of University teaching. His first condition our 

 lecturers completely satisfy, for they have, as a rule, been men 

 of the highest academical position, in every way the equal of 

 those who fill ordinary College Professorships and Lectureships. 



We cotitend that the essential characteristic of University 

 teaching is the method employed in dealing with a subject ; 

 that the teaching of the Universities is directed to the elucida- 

 tion of the principles cf ihe subject taught, and to the end of 

 bringing all the mental faculties of the student into play, so that 

 he may be placed on the high road to pursae his studies in their 

 higher developments ; and that an important factor in producing 

 these results is the personal intercourse between teacher and 

 student. We assert that the University Extension method 

 possesses these characteristics. 



Our idea is that Gresham College would best fulfil its 

 founder's intention if it were enlarged into a great central 

 College, with permanent Professorships and all the facilities for 

 laboratory work ; the Professors, however, teaching in the even- 

 ing instead of the day, so as to provide for the needs of the class 

 which Sir Thomas Gresham intended to benefir, and for which 

 the London Society is, in a tentative way, attempting to make 

 imperfect provision. R. U. Roberts. 



Charterhouse, E. C., November 5. 



I CANNOT agree with Mr. Roberts that I have written under 

 a^ny important misapprehension of the nature and general objects 

 of the organization of which he is secretary. I have expressed 

 my conviction of the excellence of the courses of lectures given 

 through its means. I object to its profession of bringing 

 " University " teaching into London, and to its claim to represent 

 either the University of the future or Gresham's University of 

 the past. The fact that the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge 

 and London have appointed members of a Committee to arrange 

 lectures in London d^es not, in my opinion, constitute those 

 lectures as parts of the teaching of those Universities, and the 

 suggestion that this is the case— encouraged by the use of the 

 term " University Extension " — is, in my opinion, greatly to be 

 regretted. It is, perhaps, difficult to be sure as to the nature of 

 the audiences contemplated by Gresham for his Professors. But 

 supposing that his intentions could be realized in this special 

 point by the delivery of lectures in the evening, I am at a loss 

 to understand what public good can be served by the introduc- 

 tion of a new organization into London for the purpose of 

 giving such lectures, when there are already two public institu- 

 tions—viz. King's College and University College— which are 

 not only ready to undertake such teaching if found desirable in 

 the future, but have actually carried on such teaching in the 

 past. The Professors of King's and University Colleges are 

 University graduates, they are provided with laboratories and 

 libraries and lecture-rooms, they have numbered among them 

 some of the most distinguished scholars and savants of the day, 

 and they have produced both trained investigators and large 

 additions to existing knowledge. They only require additional 

 endowment and public sympathy to fulfil in every respect 

 the ideal of a true University in and for London. Yet 

 a certain number of gentlemen connected with Oxford 

 and Cambridge have persuaded those Universities to 

 nominate a Committee calledja Joint Board to kindly undertake 

 the introduction of " University " teaching into London. I 

 cannot believe myself that this new body, competing for the 

 i-upport of Londoners as representing the great educational want 

 of London, viz. a real University, will fail to do harm by 

 dividing the support which London can give to University 

 institutions. I cannot suppose — after observation of their pro- 

 ceedings — that those who form the active body of the I ondon 

 Society for the Extension of University Teaching are as anxious 

 to promote a true University in London as they are to find 

 eTT>i)loyment for their lecturers. This is quite natural, and, if 

 admitted, is not otherwise than creditable ; but the assertion of 

 a claim to be representatives of University teaching in London 

 ■ on the part of these gentlemen is not so creditable. 



November 6. E. Ray Lankester. 



The Barbary Ape in Algeria. 



Lr may interest your readers to know that monkeys are still 

 to be found wild at a place within three days' journey of London, 

 and easily accessible to the most unenterprising traveller. Yester- 

 day, in company with my son, I drove up the gorge of theChifa, 

 on the excellent main road between this place and Mediah. 

 We halted at the spot where ihe appropriately named "Ruisseau 

 des Singes" falls into the Chifa on its left bank, and ascended 

 the narrow side-valley on foo'. Its steep slopes are densely 

 covered with brushwood, intermixed with a few oaks and stunted 

 junipers. We had not proceeded more than ten minutes from 

 the main road before we heard the chatter of a Barbary ape on 

 the bank above us, and saw him scrambling along the rocks. 

 Shortly afterwards, a fine large male of the same species was 

 kind enough to mount a juniper-tree on the opposite side of the 

 gorge to that on which we were seated, and exhibited himself to 

 our gaze for at least fifteen minutes. His various attitudes were 

 distinctly observable through a pair of opera-glasses, and we 

 calculated his distance from us as not more than 400 yards in a 

 straight line. A third ape was subsequently met with farther 

 up the gorge, at a much nearer distance, but did not wait to be 

 looked at. 



I had previously seen Barbary apes on the Rock of Gibraltar, 

 but they are there in a semi-protected condition, and perhaps 

 introduced. In the gorge of the Chifa they are quite in a " state 

 of nature," and in their native wilds. P. L. Sclater. 



Hotel d'Orient, Blidah, Algeria, October 29. 



Are there Negritos in Celebes ? 



Prof. Flower, in hisinterestinglectureon "The Pygmy Races 

 of Men " ( Journ. Anthr. Inst. vol. xviii. p. 82, 1888, and Nature, 

 vol. xxxviii. p. 67), after having spoken of the Negritos in the 

 Philippines, says, apparently on the authority of Quatrefages : 

 " As the islands of these ea-tern seas have become better known, 

 further discoveries of the existenceof a small Negroid population 

 have been made in Formosa, in the interior of Borneo, Sandal- 

 wood Island (Sumbal, Xulla, Bouron, Ceram, Flores, Solor, 

 Lomblem, Pantar, Ombay, the eastern peninsula of Celebes, &c." 



Without discussing here the foundation of this whole statement, 

 I only beg to remark that in my opinion no Negritos or the like 

 exist in the eastern peninsula of Celebes, or in the Island of 

 Celebes at all. 



Already in the year 1S76, in a lecture, "Die Minahassa auf 

 Celebes" (p. 29, note 11), I said: — "Prof. Gerland places 

 Papuans, in the map of VVaitz's 'Anthropologic der Naturvolker ' 

 (vol. v. part I, Malays), in the eastern peninsula of Celebes, but 

 I could not find in the letterpress of the work, on whose author- 

 ity he makes this entry. It was this very note of Gerland, which 

 induced me, when on the spot (in the year 1871), to search after 

 them, but I did not succeed in discovering the slightest positive 

 proof for such an assertion." And (/.c. p. 8) "In Celebes . . . 

 no autochthonic Papuan element has been discovered." Neither 

 has Dr. Riedel, the special and foremost investigator of the whole 

 island, obtained any trace of Celebesian Negritos. I am therefore 

 of opinion that Celebes at least (if not many more — perhaps all 

 — of the quoted islands) ought to be omitted from the list. 



As to the occurrence of Negritos in the Philippine Islands, I 

 only spoke of them as existing in Luzon (as generally known), in 

 Panay, Cebu, and Negros (see Zei'sehrift fur Ethnologie, 1873, 

 p. 90, and " Ueber die Negritos oder Aetas der Philippinen," 

 Dresden, 1878, p. 25). A. B. Meyer. 



Royal Museum, Dresden, October 24. 



Altaic Granites. 



Humboldt and Rose, when descending the Irtysh between 

 Boohtarminsk and Oostkamenogorsk, saw large masses of granite 

 lying as if poured on the ends of metamorphosed slates (S. Rose, 

 " Reise nach. d. Ural," i. 610) ; an observation mentioned by 

 Zirkel ("Petrogr.," i. 506, 1866) as a famous one in relation 

 to the age of the Altaic granite. No subsequent traveller 

 appears to have succeeded in repeating that ol servation, be- 

 cause nobody could rediscover the actual place, w hich Humboldt 

 and Rose did not define with much precision. Riiter, however, 

 in referring to the subject, indicates the place as lying between 

 two rivulets — Baryshnikof and Kozlovskaya. 



After some unsuccessful attempts, I at la=t succeeded in find- 

 ing this interesting locality. It is situated some five or six miles 



