446 



NATURE 



\_March 7, 1889 



delay may have led to the presentation of a better and 

 more complete plan. The details of the scheme would be 

 too long for us to give ; but the result will be to provide 

 an excellent new building extending for 190 feet along 

 Corn Exchange Street, in continuation of the east front 

 of the present buildings for physiology and comparative 

 anatomy, and occupying the whole distance between them 

 and the Corn Exchange. Besides rooms for teachers and 

 demonstrators, aquaria, and preparation-rooms, there will 

 be a new class-room in which 140 additional students for 

 histology can be accommodated. There will be a de- 

 monstration-room in which about fifty students at a time 

 can be shown experiments which now have to be omitted 

 owing to the want of such a room. By rearrangement 

 of rooms additional accommodation will be given to 

 chemical physiology and to research, while rooms will be 

 available for advanced students to work without interrup- 

 tion from the elementary classes. 



The new lecture-room will be in the middle block, 

 between the anatomical and physiological buildings; 

 internally it is to measure 40 by 45 feet, by 25 feet high to 

 the wall-plate, above which will be an open queen-post 

 trussed roof, with sky-lights in the sides. There will also 

 be a large window in the east gable. This lecture-room 

 will accommodate 240 students, for more than which 

 number it is not yet considered necessary to provide ; 

 although if the school continues to expand till it reaches 

 the dimensions of the Edinburgh School, which is not 

 impossible, a' still larger lecture- room will ultimately be 

 required. But the present proposal will give a room far 

 superior to the 100m now in use, both for anatomy and 

 physiology. 



The northern block, for human anatomy, has about 70 

 feet of frontage, and contains, in addition to offices. 

 Professor's and articulating-rooms, &c., a museum 40 feet 

 by 60, lighted by windows in three walls, and 17 feet high, 

 admitting of the construction of a gallery. Above the 

 museum is a dissecting-room of rather larger area, well 

 lighted. 



The estimated cost is, for physiology, ^4755 ; lecture- 

 room, ^3338; human anatomy, ^5872: total, ^13,965. 

 The report and plans are to be discussed on Saturday next, 

 and we hope they will be promptly carried out, as the 

 anatomical buildings at present in use are painfully in- 

 adequate, and physiology is also urgently in need of better 

 accommodation. 



NOTES. 



The subject of the Croonian Lecture to be delivered before 

 the Royal Society during the present year will be " Preventive 

 Inoculation." The lecture will be delivered by M. Roux, and 

 will be founded on observations made in the Pasteur Institute. 

 It is hoped that M. Pasteur will be present at the lecture. 



Mr. Eadward Muybridge, of Philadelphia, who by 

 arrangement with the Managers of the Royal Institution had 

 agreed to give a discourse after Easter on "The Science of 

 Animal Locomotion in its Relation to Design in Art " (illus- 

 trated by the zoopraxiscope), a subject of great novelty and 

 interest, has kindly consented to deliver it on Friday evening, 

 the 22nd instant, Dr. Edgar Crookshank being compelled, 

 through illness, to defer his discourse on "Microbes," which was 

 to have been delivered on that evening. 



To meet the expressed wish of the members, the Council of 

 the Mineralogical Society has resolved that two additional 

 general meetings shall be held in London during the current 

 year; the first has been fixed for Tuesday, March 12, and the 

 other for Tuesday, June 25. The general meetings still to be 

 held in London during the year will thus be on the following 

 Tuesdays : March 12, May 7, June 25, November 5 (anniver- 

 sary). The meetings will be held on the premises of the 

 Geological Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, at 8 p.m. 



On Monday, March 11, Mr. William Jago will begin, at the 

 City and Guilds of London Institute, a course often lectures on 

 " Bread-making." The lectures will be delivered on Monday 

 and Thursday evenings at 7.30. The special Object of the course 

 is to give, in the simplest possible manner, instruction to practical 

 working bakers as to the nature of the changes which occur 

 during the manufacture of bread. 



In spite of the enthusiasm evoked in Norway by the success 

 of the Nansen Expedition, the national subscription opened to 

 defray the cost has been but poorly responded to. In consequence, 

 Herr Gamel, of Copenhagen, whose munificence enabled the 

 Expedition to start at all, has offered to contribute the balance 

 wanting. 



We regret to have to record the 'death of the Rev. John 

 George Wood, author of " Common Objects of the Sea-shore" 

 and many other popular works on natural history. He died on 

 Sunday, while on a visit to Coventry, from an attack of peri- 

 tonitis. Mr. Wood was in his sixty second year. 



The death is announced of Dr. Johannes Brock, lately Pro- 

 fessor of Zoology at Dorpat University. He was well known 

 by his scientific journey to the Indian Archipelago, undertaken 

 with the pecuniary help of the Berlin Academy. He died at 

 Gottingen, where he had been appointed Professor of Natural 

 Science. 



Dr. J. SoYKA, Professor at the German University at Prague,, 

 and formerly at the University of Munich, shot himself during 

 a fit of melancholia, on February 23. He was the author of 

 works on Bacteria. 



Last week, in answer to a question put by Mr. Mundella,. 

 with regard to the aid to be granted by the Government to pro-^ 

 vincial Colleges, the Chancellor of the Exchequer made the 

 following statement : — " A vote for provincial Colleges has been 

 put down in the Estimates for 1889-90. The Government have 

 found considerable difficulty in deciding what Colleges should be 

 entitled to share in it, and in what proportions and on what 

 conditions it should be distributed between them. They have 

 accordingly appointed a small Committee to make particular 

 inquiries and advise them on these points. The Committee 

 will sit at an early date, and its delioerations are not likely to be 

 prolonged. Upon receiving its report the Government will 

 settle the scheme of distribution. The sum voted will, of 

 course, be available for the Colleges which are entitled to share 

 in it during the coming financial year." 



The Owens College is one of the Manchester institutions 

 which benefit by the will of the late Mr. John Rylands. He has 

 bequeathed to it ;i^io,ooo. 



Some time ago the Coast Fishing Section of the German 

 Fisheries Society established a zoological station at Ditzum, on 

 the DoUart, where researches on the fauna of the German 

 Ocean were carried on during the summer months. The 

 Society are now making arrangements to keep the station, 

 open during the whole year. 



A Biological Station, chiefly for the promotion of the 

 fisheries, is to be established in Denmark, at a cost of ^2000,. 

 with a yearly subsidy of ^480. 



The Fisheries Exhibition which has just] been opened in St. 

 Petersburg is the fiist Exhibition of this kind that has been held 

 there. It will remain open till the end of April. 



On February 20, about 10 p.m., a remarkably brilliant 

 meteor was seen in and around Stavanger, on the west coast of 

 Norway. It radiated in the south-east, and, going in a 

 westerly direction, burst about 35° above the horizon, without 

 any detonation, but leaving a long trail behind. Its light was a 

 dazzlinij white. 



