November i, 1900] 



AM TURE 



21 



land. Mr. W. M. Watts considered that the amount of dew 

 ■ could hardly exceed i^ inches per annum, and Mr. Barrowman 

 ■was not aware of the existence of dew-ponds in Scotland. 

 Mr. G. P. Hughes said that dew-ponds were unknown in his 

 district (Berwickshire). He thought they might prove useful in 

 Australia and South Africa, dry countries where the dews were 

 hea.vy. The Rev. E. P. Knubley noted their existence in Wilt- 

 -shire, and Prof. H. Louis thought that the exact composition of 

 the water in these ponds was one of the essential points to be 

 exan>ined. Prof. Potter noted the existence of ponds in War- 

 wickshire, Suffolk and the South of Portugal, which he thought 

 might prove analogous to dew-ponds. 



Prof. Miall referred to various points which had been raised 

 in the discussion. Ponds to be classed with dew-ponds must not 

 be fed by springs or surface drainage. He had hitherto found 

 that ponds in the Midland counties, supposed to be analogous 

 to dew-ponds, were not really so. He hoped that the cor- 

 responding societies would take up the subject. 



Sectien C. — Mr. Monckton, representing Section C, drew 

 attention to the labours of two committees wishing to obtain the 

 co-operation of the corresponding societies in their work, the 

 Geological Photographs Committee and the Erratic Blocks 

 Committee. The secretary of the Geological Photographs Com- 

 mittee was Prof. W. W. Watts ; the secretary of the Erratic 

 Blocks Committee Prof. P. F. Kendall. 



Section D. — The Rev. E. P. Knubley, representing Section D, 

 was anxious that the corresponding societies should go on 

 observing the migration of birds ; also the food-supply of birds 

 and the life- histories of insects. 



Section H. — Mr- E.Sidney Hartland, representing Section H, 

 brought before the Conference the work of the Anthropological 

 Photographs Committee. That committee wished to collect 

 photographs of objects of anthropological interest which were 

 now scattered over the country, and almost unknown outside 

 their own localities. They wanted photographs of prehistoric 

 stone monuments and implements, of primitive pottery and of 

 objects connected with local superstitions. The collection would 

 be placed in the rooms of the Anthropological Institute. The 

 secretary of the committee was Mr. J. L. Myres. 



The Rev. J. O. Bevan urged the committees of the cor- 

 responding societies to lay before their members the desirability 

 of a systematic survey of their counties with respect to their 

 ethnography and ethnology, archjeology, folklore, meteorology, 

 botany, ornithology, &c. This kind of work was being done in 

 part at various places. The committee of the British Asso- 

 ciation which had been concerned with ethnography and 

 ethnology had been dissolved at the Dover meeting. He 

 hoped that the local societies would take up the work, and 

 inform the Corresponding Societies Committee what was being 

 done. 



After a few remarks from Mr. Hembry, who suggested that at 

 future meetings sectional matters should be taken before the 

 reading of a paper on any special subject, the meeting came to 

 an end. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — The Vice-Chancellor announces that Mr. W. 

 W. Astor has contributed the sum of ;^io,ooo to the University 

 Benefaction Fund. 



Mr. F. G. Kenyon, assistant keeper of the manuscripts in the 

 British Museum, has been appointed Sandars Reader in biblio- 

 graphy. 



Dr. Haddon, F.R.S., has been appointed University 

 lecturer in ethnology, and Mr. J. J. Lister, F. R.S. , to be 

 demonstrator of comparative anatomy. 



A University lectureship in experimental physics is vacant 

 by the resignation of Prof. Wilberforce. Applications should 

 reach the Vice-Chancellor by Saturday, November 3. 



The portrait of Charles Darwin, now in the Philosophical 

 Library, has been lent for the exhibition of the works of Sir 

 W. B. Richmond, to be held in the New Gallery. 



Mr. J. A. McClelland, M.A., has been appointed to the 

 chair of Natural Philosophy in the University College, Dublin, 

 which was rendered vacant by the death of Prof. Preston. Mr. 

 McClelland is a native of North Ireland, and studied physics 

 under Prof. Anderson at Queen's College, Galway. After 



NO. 1618, VOL. 63] 



graduating M.A., he went to Cambridge and continued his 

 studies in physics under Prof. J. J. Thomson, obtaining the B. A. 

 (Research) degree for his original work in the Cavendish Labor- 

 atory. In Ireland Mr. McClelland gained an " 1837 Exhibi- 

 tion " Science Scholarship, and later a Junior Fellowship of the 

 Royal University of Ireland. 



A NOTEWORTHY announcement in the Calendar of University 

 College, Bristol, is that a clinical and bacteriological research 

 laboratory has been established at the college, under the direction 

 of Prof. A. F. Stanley Kent. The value of such a laboratory 

 in a port like that of Bristol cannot be over-estimated, and the 

 City authorities should show their appreciation of it in a practical 

 way. The laboratory will not only provide a means of obtaining 

 trustworthy information and reports upon pathological material,, 

 but will also give medical men an opportunity of carrying out 

 bacteriological investigations. Should plague ever appear in 

 Bristol, as it has done at Glasgow, the City authorities will know 

 the value of the laboratory now established at their University 

 College. At present the college does not receive nearly so- 

 much local support as some of the other provincial colleges, 

 and there seems to be little hope that there will ever be a West 

 of England University with its centre at Bristol, analogous to 

 the University of Birmingham. 



In the course of her able and suggestive address at the opening 

 of the Passmore Edwards Museum of the Essex Field Club on 

 October 18, the Countess of Warwick made the following state- 

 ment with respect to local museums : — " I am convinced that 

 museums are destined to play such an important part in educa- 

 tion in the future that no town of any importance will be able to 

 be without an institution of this kind. But one of the chief 

 reasons why this part of the club's work has not hitherto been 

 practically realised is because the establishment and maintenance 

 of a museum requires considerable financial resources. How- 

 ever zealous the members of a county natural history society may 

 be, their aims and objects rarely rouse popular enthusiasm to the 

 extent of raising an adequate fund for such purposes. In some 

 counties private munificence had compensated for the lack of 

 public interest. In other cases — and I am glad to be able to 

 quote as an example another Essex town, Colchester — an en- 

 lightened Town Council has enabled a local museum to find an 

 appropriate home. And again, in other instances, some of the 

 County Councils have given financial aid from the Technical 

 Instruction Grant, quite a legitimate expenditure as it appears 

 to me, and, if I may express a personal opinion, a most valuable 

 way of assisting in the spread of that knowledge which is the 

 core an essence of all sound scientific education — a knowledge 

 of nature at first hand as distinguished from the knowledge im- 

 parted through books or didactically taught in the class-room. 

 But I am afraid that we as a nation have hardly yet risen to that 

 high- water mark of scientific culture which should characterise 

 a great civilisation. I do not mean to imply that we are lacking 

 in scientific ability, that we are devoid of originality, or that we 

 have failed to contribute our share of knowledge to the sum total 

 of human progress. But I fear that the spirit of modern science 

 has not sunk into the public mind — it has not permeated the 

 rank and file to that extent which is required by the age in 

 which we live, the century of science /ar excellence. Our purses 

 are ever open, and have always been opened, in the names of 

 charity and philanthropy, religious endowment and missionary 

 enterprise, political organisation and popular sports. But 

 science, upon which the national welfare and our position in the 

 scale of nations ultimately depends, has to go begging for her 

 tens, while thousands are forthcoming for these other objects." 

 These remarks, which were received with loud applause by the 

 audience at West Ham to whom they were addressed, coming 

 from the mouth of a lady who has set such a brilliant example 

 by her pioneering work in rural education, should be productive 

 of good throughout the country. Most cordially will our readers 

 endorse Lady Warwick's sentiments. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



The Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society for October 

 contains a further instalment of Mr. F. W. Millett's paper on 

 recent Foraminifera of the Malay Archipelago ; a short article on 

 a new projection eye-piece and an improved polarising eye- 

 piece, by Mr. E. B. Stringer; and the conclusion of Mr. r 

 E. M. Nelson's note on the microscopes of Powell, Ross, and 

 Smith, the present instalment dealing with the instruments of 



