yune \6, 1887] 



NATURE 



159 



A DEPUTATION Consisting of Mr. Mundella, Mr. Joseph Cham- 

 berlain, Sir John Lubbock, Sir Henry Roscoe, Sir Lyon Playfair, 

 Mr. John Morley, and others, will wait upon the Chancellor of 

 the Exchequer on the 30th inst. to urge the claims of University 

 Colleges upon the Government. Mr. Goschen has always taken 

 so deep an interest in questions connected with education that he 

 may be expected to consider carefully the arguments which will 

 be submitted to him. It is almost certain that unless the 

 University Colleges receive aid from the State some of them 

 will have to be closed, for it has never been found that institu- 

 tions of this kind can be maintained by fees alone. All that is 

 asked is that the nation shall do for the University Colleges of 

 England what is already done for like institutions in Wales, and 

 for the Universities of Scotland. 



The foundation-stone of the new College of Science at 

 Newcastle-upon-Tyne was laid yesterday by Sir William 

 Armstrong. 



The Rev, J. E. Leefe has presented his botanical collections 

 to Kew. Since the death of Borrer in 1862, Mr. Leefe has 

 been universally recognized as the principal authority on British 

 willows. In early life he lived in Essex and Yorkshire, but for 

 the last generation he has held the living of Cresswell on the 

 coast of Northumberland, opposite Morpeth. Here he got 

 together a very fine collection of living willows, which had been 

 obtained from Borrer, Darwall, the Duke of Bedford's collection 

 at Woburn, and the Botanic Gardens of Kew and Cambridge. 

 His sight having failed, he has retired to live at Coatham, near 

 Redcar, and has given to Kew the collections he is no longer able 

 to use. His principal publication was issued in 1842 under the 

 title of " Salictum Britannicum." This contains ninety speci- 

 mens, with printed tickets, and has been the recognized standard, 

 ever since its publication, by which British willows have been 

 named. His principal published papers are in the jfournal 

 of Botaiiy for 1871 — one entitled "An Arrangement of 

 the British Willows," and another "On Hybridity in Salix, 

 and the Growth of Willows from Seed." The collection 

 he has now presented contains his own copy of the " Salictum," 

 accompanied by a quarto manuscript ; a valuable set of types 

 from Hoch, the author of the classical "Flora Germanica " ; 

 a great many specimens dried from his living collection at 

 Cresswell ; and American types received from his correspondents 

 in the United States. The general herbarium is of a miscel- 

 laneous character, principally British, but containing also a 

 number of plants from Central Europe, Abyssinia, America, 

 and other parts of the world. Amongst the British plants, the 

 collection contains a curious Ammophila, gathered near Cress- 

 well in 1872, with the glumes of ordinary A. arenaria, but with 

 the decidedly tropical inflorescence of .-^. baltica, for which one 

 of the only two known British stations is in Ross links, also on 

 the Northumbrian coast, and which has by some botanists been 

 regarded as a hybrid between A. arenaria and a Calamagrosiis. 



Apropos of our note last week on the invitations to the 

 ceremony at Westminster Abbey, a correspondent writes to us 

 from Dublin : — " We have the same state of things here. Neither 

 the President of the Royal Irish Academy, nor the President of 

 the Royal Dublin Society, as such, have got invitations. Invi- 

 tations have been sent lavishly to Mayors, all of whom, save in 

 three cases, have refused them, thus leaving, as one would have 

 thought, a chance for science coming No. 2." 



In a despatch received at New York from Mexico on the 12th 

 inst. it was announced that shocks of earthquake had been 

 felt throughout Guerrero State on the 29th ult. and on the ist 

 and 2nd inst., and that several of the smaller towns had been 

 injured. 



Severe shocks of earthquake were felt last week in some 

 parts of Turkestan. At Vernoje they began about 5 o'clock on 



the morning of the 9th inst. Almost all the buildings in the 

 town were destroyed, and much life was lost. Great damage 

 was also done at Kashelensk, Tsharkent, and other places. The 

 telegraph line in the neighbourhood of Vernoje was broken down 

 for a distance of about 200 versts. 



The last number of the Annuaire de la Sociiti MeUoro- 

 logique de France (February, 1887) contains an interesting 

 article by M. Herve-Mangon on the distribution of rainfall and 

 its duration in Paris, from observations taken during the years 

 1860-70. These observations, which were made with Herve- 

 Mangon's pluvioscope, show that rain falls on an average 19 

 hours a month. The month with the shortest duration of rain 

 was August, which had only \2\ hours, while March had 26, 

 and October and November a little more than 22 hours each. 

 An examination of the hours of the rainfall during the night and 

 during the day shows that on an average there are fewer hours of 

 rain during the night than during the day. The longest interval 

 without rain was 26 days, from September 1 1 to October 6, 

 1S65. The greatest number of consecutive days of rain was 18, 

 from October 3 to 20, 1867. The month of March had, on an 

 average, the greatest number of rainy days, viz. 2r2, and the 

 month of June the least, viz. 13" i. The months of greatest 

 and least amount of rainfall do not correspond with these 

 months, the maximum being 2 '21 inches in September, and the 

 minimum i "oo inch in February. 



The Monatsbcricht der Deutschen Seewarte for the whole year 

 1886 has been issued simultaneously with the Report for January 

 1887. The delay in the issue of the Reports is owing to some 

 important alterations in the form of the work, especially the 

 extension, considerably to the west, of the chart showing baro- 

 metric minima. The above Report takes the place of the 

 Monatliche Uebersicht der IVUterung, which completed its 

 tenth volume with the year 1885. It is proposed to issue it 

 regularly in the third monlh after that to which it refers, and to 

 include in it (i) a review of the atmospheric conditions over 

 Central Europe, (2) preliminary communications respecting the 

 weather in the North Atlantic, and (3) meteorological tables for 

 Europe generally, and charts of the paths of the barometric 

 minima over ocean and continent. This monthly report will be 

 supplemented by a more complete quarterly review of the 

 weather, which will appear af:er a lapse of about two years, and 

 will serve as the explana'ory text of the daily synoptic charts for 

 the North Atlantic Ocean and adjacent continents lately referred 

 to (May 26, p. 88). This text will be issued separately by the 

 German Admiralty, and will be of great value to all interested in 

 meteorological investigations. 



From a recent report by Dr. Hellmann on statistics of 

 lightning-damage in Schleswig-Hclstein, Baden, and Hesse, it 

 appears that the danger from lightning in these parts (unlike the 

 case of other parts of Germany) has been decreasing of late 

 years. Soft roofed houses are fired about 7 times oftener than 

 those with hard roofs. Windmills are struck 52 times, and 

 church and clock lowers 39 times, oftener than ordinary houses 

 with hard roofs. The marshy regions in Schleswig-Holstein are 

 the most dangerous ; and the land about inlets of the east 

 coast the safest. With like conditions, the relative danger de- 

 creases the more houses are grouped together. In Baden the 

 danger varies more than in any part of Germany (about Heidel- 

 berg it is 24, and in Waldshut 265 per million houses). In 

 Hesse, the low plain of the middle Rhine is the most dangerous- 

 part. In the fifteen years 1869-83, there were killed by lightning 

 for every million men, in Prussia, 4"4 ; in Baden, 3'8 ; in France^ 

 3' I ; and in Sweden, 3"o. The geological nature of the ground,, 

 and especially its capacity for water, has important influence. 

 Thus, calling the danger on lime i, that for sand is 9, 

 while for loam it is 22. This is partly why most of South 

 Germany and Austria is less dangerous than North Germany. 



