March 28, 1889] 



NATURE 



525 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — rThe recent discussion on the proposed new 

 buildings for anatomy and physiology disclosed that the Financial 

 Board do not consider that the whole plan can be proceeded 

 with at present. They hold that only ;^io,ooo is available ; but 

 this is because it is proposed to diminish the annual contributions 

 from the Colleges for some years. It appeared to be agreed that 

 the lecture-room or middle block could be best dispensed with 

 if absolutely necessary, the blocks of physiological and ana- 

 tomical class-rooms and dissecting-rooms being most essential. 

 Prof. Foster mentioned that the labour of conducting the 

 practical classes in physiology was so great as to leave no time 

 for research, and to strain the health of himself and his demon- 

 stratois almost to the point of breaking down. The present 

 buildings not only limited but spoiled their work. 



The adjudicators of the Hopkins Prize in connection with the 

 Philosophical Society have recommended that it be awarded to 

 Sir William Thomson for his mathematical researches upon the 

 theory of the tides, and other important investigations in 

 mathematical physics. 



The General Board of Studies has issued a report deprecating 

 the proposed diminution of College contributions, and showing 

 that that proposal will destroy any chance of appointing new 

 teachers, or increasing the small stipends now paid to University 

 lecturers and readers, or of making any payments in aid of re- 

 search, A great number of detailed needs for all the depart- 

 ments are specified, the scientific Boards being well represented. 

 The Reader in Botany and the Lecturer in Animal Morphology 

 and others are strongly recommended for immediate increase, 

 and a capital expenditure of ;i^30,ooo is needed for museums, 

 laboratories, lecture-rooms, &c. 



The following is the subject for the Adams Prize to be ad- 

 judged in 1891 : — The motion of a satellite about a spheroidal 

 planet, and the reaction on the planet. The ordinary approxima- 

 tion is supposed to be inadequate, either because the elfipticity 

 of the planet is too great, and the distance of the satellite too 

 small, or because the obliquity of the orbit is too great. It is 

 also desired that the influence of a distant disturbing body (such 

 as the sun) may be taken into account in so far as is found prac- 

 ticable. The successful candidate will receive about ;^i7o, but is 

 required to print the essay at his own expense. 



The report on the local examinations of last December states 

 that in chemistry the answers were on the whole satisfactory, but 

 chemical calculations were in general inaccurately performed. 

 In heat, the juniors answered badly, the senior boys better, but 

 many of the senior girls were quite ignorant of the subject. In 

 statics, dynamics, and hydrostatics, the juniors had not grasped 

 the elementary ideas, while the seniors did better, except in the 

 arithmetic of calculations. The answers seem to show that these 

 physical subjects are not suitable for juniors. In electricity and 

 magnetism, taken only by seniors, the boys did well. The 

 botanical answers varied greatly at different centres, and ques- 

 tions on flowering plants were much better answered than those 

 on cryptogams. In zoology the elements were known, but 

 many answers were very wordy and irrelevant. Several seniors 

 described the structure of a Vorticella rather well, but also named 

 and described the mouth-appendages of a crayfish (the specimen 

 being before them) likewise as a Vorticella. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



American Journal of Science, March. — Some determinations 

 of the energy of the light from incandescent lamps, by Ernest 

 Merritt. Two ^eries of experiments are described, which have 

 been carried out for the purpose of determining what portion of 

 the energy supplied to a lamp is given off as light, and what 

 proportion is wasted practically as dark heat. In the first, 

 based on Melloni's caloriroetric method, the light is separated 

 from the dark heat by passing the radiations to be measured 

 through a thin layer of water, or, better still, through a solution 

 of alum in water. The energy of the dark heat, which is almost 

 entirely absorbed, is then measured by the rise in temperature 

 of the water, and that of the light by a thermopile. In the 

 second process the calorimeter was abandoned, and a cell, l 

 decimetre thick, containing a strong solution of alum, was used 

 for absorbing the dark heat. The light, after passing through 

 this cell, was allowed to fall on a thermopile, and the deflection 



was observed. Then the alum cell was removed, and the deflec- 

 tion corresponding to total radiation was observed, the ratio of 

 the two deflections giving the ratio of the light energy to the 

 total energy. This being determined by electrical measurements, 

 the energy of the light could be calculated. — On the ophiolite 

 of Thurman, Warren County, New York, with remarks on the 

 Eozoon canadense, by George P. Merrill. This ophiolite, a kind 

 of verdantique marble, is found to be an alteration, or meta- 

 somatic product after a mineral of the pyroxene group. Its con- 

 stitution promises to throw some light on the Eozoon problem. 

 — On the origin of the deep troughs of the oceanic depression ; 

 are any of volcanic origin ?, by James D. Dana. A general 

 survey of the oceanic regions leads to the inference that volcanic 

 action can only have had a very subordinate part in determining 

 the origin and position of the great marine depressions. Their 

 source must be sought still less in superficial causes, such as 

 erosion, but rather in the interior agencies of primordial deve- 

 lopment. The paper is accompanied by a bathymetric map of 

 the Pacific and Atlantic, based on the recent charts of the British 

 and United States Hydrographic Departments.— Description of 

 a problematical organism from the Devonian, at the Falls of the 

 Ohio, by F. H. Knowlton. These puzzling organisms, here 

 provisionally named Calcispluvra lemoni, from the collector, 

 have been submitted to various American and European palae- 

 ontologists, and the evidence both for and against the view that 

 they are a fruit of Chara, is given in detail. — Papers are contri- 

 buted by George H. Williams, on the geology of the Island of 

 Fernando de Noronha (part 2, petrography) ; by S. L. Penfield, 

 on some curiously developed pyrite crystals from French Creek, 

 Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and on some crystallized 

 bertrandites from Maine and Colorado ; and by J. S. Diller and 

 J. E. Whitfield, on dumortierite from New York and Arizona, 

 peridotite from Kentucky, and gehlenite occurring in furnace 

 slag in Pennsylvania. 



The Memoirs of the Novorossian (Odessa) Society of Natur- 

 alists, vol. xiii. fasc. i, contain a series of papers on the 

 late L. Cienkowski, by P. Boutchinsky, W. Zalensky, L. 

 Richavi, G. Sadkowsky, and S. Karwatzky, being full reviews 

 of the late Professor's extensive scientific work, and giving a full 

 bibliography of his contributions to science. — The next papers 

 of importance are : on the rainfalls in South- Western Russia, 

 by A. Klossovsky ; on the copulation of the nuclei of cells 

 during the sexual processes of Fungi, and on the absorption of 

 water by the overground parts of plants, by W. Chmielevsky ; on 

 the Jurassic beds of Orenburg and Samara, by I. Sintsoff, being 

 revised lists of fossils found in various parts of these provinces ; 

 on the action of methylene-iodide upon the ether of malonic 

 acid, by S. Tanatar ; and on the influence of the medium, 

 and especially of temperature, upon Planorbis vertia, by Mary 

 Balashova. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, March 7.—" On the Cranial Nerves of 

 Elasmobranch Fishes. Preliminary Communication." By J. 

 C. Ewart, M.D., Regius Professor of Natural History, Uni- 

 versity of Edinburgh. Communicated by Prof. Burdon 

 Sanderson, F.R.S. 



This paper contains a short account of the cranial nerves of 

 Lccmargus microcephahis and of Raia batis, and it is especially 

 shown that in connection with the roots of the trigeminal and 

 facial nerves there are altogether five large ganglia — one of 

 them apparently representing two ganglia — and that in connec- 

 tion with the vagus there are three separate ganglia in Lae- 

 margus and six in Raia. It is further pointed out that the nerve 

 to the lateral line arises by a special root (luite distinct from the 

 rest of the vagus complex, and that it is provided with a separate 

 ganglion, and also that the mucous canals of the head and trunk,, 

 together with the numerous ampullae of the sensory tubes, are 

 either supplied by nerves belonging to what is termed the facial 

 complex or the lateralis division of the vagus complex. 



Attention is especially directed in Laemargus to the following 

 facts : (i) that the ganglion of the ophthalmicus profundus lies only 

 very slightly in front of the ganglion (Gasserian) of the trige- 

 minal ; (2) that there is no connection between the oculo-motor 

 nerve and the ophthalmicus profundus ganglion ; (3) that the 

 ciliary nerves spring from the trunk of the ophthalmicus pro- 

 fundus some distance in front of its ganglion ; (4) that neither in- 



