March 23, 1893] 



NATURE 



495 



pairs of injuries to the hulls of vessels by collisions, stranding, 

 and explosions, by Captain J. Kiddle. Evening meeting, at 

 seven o'clock: Some experiments with the engines of the s.s. 

 Iveagh, by John Inglis j on the cyclogram, or clock-face diagram, 

 of the sequence of pressures in multi-cylinder engines, by F. 

 Edwards ; presentation of an address from the Institution to the 

 Right Hon. the Earl of Ravensworth, on his retirement from the 

 office of president. In addition to the above there is a paper 

 by Lord Brassey on merchant ships as cruisers. The annual 

 dinner was held at the Holborn Restaurant yesterday evening. 

 In summer ihe Institution will meet at Cardiff. 



On Friday a deputation will wait upon Mr. Campbell Banner- 

 man to make some representations as to the position of those 

 Woolwich cadets who have taken up science at the entrance 

 examination. The existing system at the Royal Military 

 Academy, as we have repeatedly taken occasion to point out, is 

 very unfavourable to cadets of the scientific type, and it is 

 hoped that the approaching interview may lead to the adoption 

 of more reasonable methods. Among the members of the depu- 

 tation will be Sir Henry Roscoe, Sir Henry Howorth, and the 

 head masters of Rugby, Cheltenham, and Clifton. 



Mr. W. L, Calderwood has resigned the post of director 

 of the Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association at 

 Plymouth. He vacates the residence early in April, 



We are privately informed of the death, on the 7th instant, of 

 Dr. G. Vasey, the chief of the botanical section of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture at Washington. He was a 

 native of Yorkshire, we believe, and emigrated to America many 

 years ago. The grasses of North America were his special 

 study, and he published several important works on this family. 

 The " Grasses of the Pacific Slope" and the "Grasses of the 

 South-west," fully illustrated, are his latest works; but the former 

 is not yet completed. Dr. Vasey wrote also on the agricultural 

 value of the grasses of the United States. Last year he visited 

 England, and made many friends through his amiable disposition. 



We learn with regret, from the daily papers, that the Rev. W. 

 WooUs, of Burwood, near Sydney, New South Wales, has 

 Jately died. It is stated that he emigrated from England as long 

 ago as 1831, and he certainly did much to promote science in 

 4:he country of his adoption. Botany was his favourite study, 

 and he made several important contributions to botanical liter- 

 ature, chiefly on the botany of New South Wales. He was 

 president of the "Cumberland Mutual Improvement Society," 

 and in that capacity delivered a number of carefully compiled 

 instructive lectures on the vegetable products and resources of 

 the colony, and other branches of botany. One of the most 

 interesting of his published lectures is on the progress of botanical 

 discovery in Australia, which is indeed a concise and correct 

 history of the subject. It was he who wrote the appreciative 

 reviews of the volumes of Bentham's " Flora Australiensis "that 

 appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, and he himself pub- 

 lished separate accounts of the plants of the neighbourhood of 

 Sydney, of the Paramatta district, and of the colony of New 

 South Wales. 



The Botanisches CentralblaU announces the death of Dr. 

 Karl Prantl, Professor of Botany in the University of Breslau, 

 and director of the Botanic Garden there. For some years past 

 Dr. Prantl has edited Hedwigia, a journal devoted to crypto- 

 gamic botany ; but it was chiefly as a teacher that he was known. 

 An English edition of his " Lehrbuch der Botanik " was edited 

 by Dr. S. H. Vines in 1880. 



The following are among the lecture arrangements at the 

 Royal Institution after Easter:— Mr. John Macdonell, three 

 Jectures on symbolism in ceremonies, customs, and art ; Prof. 

 WO. I 22 I, VOL. 47] 



Dewar, five lectures on the atmosphere ; Mr. R. Bowdler 

 Sharpe, four lectures on the geographical distribution of birds ; 

 Mr. James Swinburne, three lectures on some applications of 

 electricity to chemistry (the Tyndall lectures). The Friday 

 evening meetings will be resumed on April 14, when a discourse 

 will be given by Sir William H. Flower, on seals ; succeeding 

 discourses will probably be given by Prof. A. B. W. Kennedy, 

 Prof. Francis Gotch, Mr. Shelford Bidwell, the Right Hon. 

 Lord Kelvin, Mr. Alfred Austin, Mr. Beerbohm Tree, Prof. 

 Osborne Reynolds, Prof. T. E. Thorpe, and other gentlemen. 



Dr. H. Woodward, F.R.S., is the president of the Mala- 

 cological Society which was founded lately at a meeting held at 

 67, Chancery Lane. The Society will meet at the same place 

 on Friday, April 14, at 8 p.m., and again on the second 

 Fridays in May and June, after which there will be no meeting 

 till November. 



Any one who may desire to learn all that is best worth know- 

 ing about the progress and prospects of technical education 

 should read an admirable lecture on the subject delivered by Sir 

 Philip Magnus last week before the Society of Arts, and printed 

 in the current number of the Society's Journal. Sir Philip is of 

 opinion that what is now wanted is the co-ordination of our 

 resources and the simplification of our machinery. The Tech- 

 nical Instruction Committees, with the help of their able secre- 

 taries, are doing good and useful work, although much of it is 

 necessarily impeded by the restrictions of the Acts of Parlia- 

 ment under which they work. Between these bodies and the 

 School Boards, Sir Philip urges, there should be earnest co- 

 operation. To them, acting together, and strengthened by the 

 representatives of other educational interests, should be ulti- 

 mately submitted the duty of making that further provision 

 for secondary education, the need of which is generally ad- 

 mitted. 



A MEETING was held at the First Avenue Hotel on Saturday 

 last for the purpose of forming a Cage-bird Club. Dr. Martin, 

 chairman of the Norton Ornithological Society, and vice-presi- 

 dent of the London Cage-bird Association, occupied the chair ; 

 and a paper was read by Mr, W. H. Betts, who explained that 

 the object of the club was the enrolment among its members of 

 ladies and gentlemen who, from the fact that the majority of 

 cage-bird clubs were held at public-houses, were debarred from 

 membership thereof. He said the club would endeavour to 

 train novices in the management of cage-birds, would give 

 encouragement and assistance to ornithological societies 

 generally, would circulate literature with the object of 

 improving the moral tone of the cage-bird fancy, and would 

 endeavour to prevent cheating at shows and to put an end to 

 brutality. On the motion of the Rev. W. K. Suart, president 

 of the Cage-Bird Association, seconded by Mr. George Crabb, 

 president of the London and Provincial Ornithological Society, 

 it was determined that the club should be founded. Mr. Betts 

 was appointed honorary treasurer, and Miss E. A. Darbyshire 

 honorary secretary. 



Dr. James Rorie, writing from Westgreen House, Dundee, 

 sends us the following note on a brilliant meteor :— " A very 

 brilliant meteor, or fire-ball, was seen here about 6.23 p.m. on 

 Saturday evening, the i8th inst. When fitst observed it was 

 about 70° above the horizon south-south-west from the asylum, 

 and moving in a direction from east south- east to westnorlh- 

 west. It was visible for about five seconds, and appeared like 

 a large pale blue ball of fire throwing off jets of red-coloured 

 flames, and leaving behind it a pale white silvery streak, mark- 

 ing its course across the sky like a very thin line of vapour, but 

 at the point near the horizon where the meteor disappeared 

 leaving a shining electric blue colour. This streak was in all 

 probability composed of dust particles thrown off by the meteor 



