March io, 1892] 



NATURE 



443 



NOTES. 



The annual soirSe of the Royal Society is to be held on 

 Wednesday, May 4. There will be a ladies' conversazione later 

 in the season. 



On Monday Mr. Balfour announced Ihat the draft charter of 

 the Gresham University would be rerriitted for reconsideration ; 

 and promised to make a statement on the subject this evening. 

 The proposal to refer the charter back to the Privy Council has 

 caused much dissatisfaction. The only reasonable course is to 

 refer it to a Committee, on which educationalists and teachers 

 in all the faculties shall be strongly represented. 



At the ordinary meeting of the Royal Meteorological 

 Society, to be held at 25 Great George Street, Westminster, on 

 Wednesday, the i6th instant, at 7 p.m., the President, Dr. C. 

 Theodore Williams, will deliver an address on "The Value of 

 Meteorological Instruments in the selection of Health Resorts," 

 which will be illustrated by a number of lantern slides. The 

 meeting will be adjourned at 8.30 p.m., in order to afford the 

 Fellows and their friends an opportunity of inspecting the Ex- 

 hibition of instruments, charts, maps and photographs relating 

 to climatology, and of such new instruments as have been 

 invented or first constructed since the last Exhibition. The 

 Exhibition will be open from Tuesday, the 15th instant, to 

 Friday, the 1 8th. 



Still another new chemical laboratory in Germany. We 

 hear that Prof. Emil Fischer, at Wiirzburg, is now to have a 

 new laboratory at a cost of 600,000 marks. Prof. Victor 

 Meyer's new laboratory at Heidelberg is to be ready on May I. 



We regret to have to record the death of Sir John Coode, the 

 eminent engineer. He died on March 2 at the age of seventy- 

 six. He was President of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 

 1889 and 1890. 



In connection with the International Congresses of Zoology 

 and Prehistoric Archaeology, which will be held this summer at 

 Moscow, an exhibition of acclimatization will be opened at the 

 end of June. It will contain specimens of all plants acclimatized 

 in Russia. 



The office of Superintendent-General of Education for Cape 

 Colony, rendered vacant by the retirement of Sir Langham Dale, 

 has now been filled. Dr. Thomas Muir, of the High School of 

 Glasgow, to whom it was offered some time ago, having de- 

 finitely accepted the appointment. The Glasgow Herald s^czks 

 of Dr. Muir's departure as " a distinct loss to education and 

 science in Scotland." Some years ago the Royal. Society of 

 Edinburgh awarded to him the Keith Medal for his contribu- 

 tions to mathematics. 



An important memorial will shortly be brought before the 

 Board of the Faculty of Natural Science, Oxford, by the Council 

 of the Association for the Improvement of Geometrical Teaching. 

 It relates to what the Council regard as a serious defect in the 

 Oxford Pass Examination papers in geometry. These generally 

 consist entirely of propositions enunciated without any variation 

 from the ordinary text of Euclid, and scarcely any attempt is 

 made to discover whether a student's answers are other than the 

 outcome of a mere effort of memory. The Council are of 

 opinion that such papers have the effect of a direct incentive to 

 unintelligent teaching, and respectfully ask for the introduction 

 of simple exercises and of simple questions on the book-work 

 set in order to promote the rational study of geometry. 



The relics of the explorers John and Sebastian Cabot, pre- 

 served at Bristol, are to be sent to the Chicago Exhibition. It is 

 expected that they will attract much attention. 



In the electricity building at the Chicago Exhibition there 

 will be no fewer than 40,000 panes of glass. This building will 

 be especially conspicuous at night, as, owing to its extensive glass 

 NO. II67, VOL. 45] 



surface, the brilliancy of its electrical exhibit will be strikingly 

 visible from the outside. 



Last Saturday Prof. Roberts-Austen delivered one of the 

 series of lectures now being given at the South Kensington 

 Museum for the purpose of extending the knowledge of the 

 science and art collections and of making them more gener- 

 ally useful, taking as his subject art metal-work. He pointed 

 out that, as a metallurgist, he could only claim authority to deal 

 with the materials employed for art metal-work. Setting aside 

 wrought iron, the most important of these were alloys, especially 

 those of the copper-tin series (the bronzes), and those of the 

 copper-zinc series (the brasses). When the elder Pliny wrote 

 in the first half of the first century of our era, and described the 

 nature of the early metallurgy, industrial art in bronze was 

 really far advanced. The artist, however, had in point of skill 

 left the metallurgist far behind. Referring to the presence of 

 lead in bronze as giving to the metal a beautiful \elvety paiina 

 by atmospheric exposure, Prof. Roberts- Austen said that there 

 was little use in attempting to compose a bronze with a view to 

 enable it to acquire & patina in the London atmosphere. He 

 took as an instance one of our last erected monuments, the 

 equestrian statue of Lord Napier of Magdala opposite the 

 Guards' Memorial in \V aterloo Place. A few weeks ago the 

 patina had begun to form, and iridescent tints played over the 

 features, while unsightly rain stains ran down his horse ; now 

 the layer was thickening, and a gray-brown tint deepening, but 

 there was no velvety- brown oxide, or rich green and blue car- 

 bonate. The soldier, field-glass in hand, was sternly looking 

 away from the Athenaeum and the learned Societies, as if con- 

 scious that, in the present state of the London atmosphere, he 

 was beyond the aid of science, for science had clearly stated 

 that so long as bituminous coal was burnt in open fire-places 

 London must be smoky, and man and horse would so. in be 

 covered with a black pall of soot and sulphide of copper, such 

 as now enshrouded the unfortunate occupants of the adjoining 

 pedestals. 



The Royal Society of New South Wales offers its medal and 

 £2$ for the best communication (provided it be of sufficient 

 merit) containing the results of original research or observation 

 upon each of the following subjects : — To be sent in not later 

 than May i, 1892 : on the iron ore deposits of New South 

 Wales ; on the effect which settlement in Australia has pro- 

 duced upon indigenous vegetation, especially the depasturing of 

 sheep and cattle ; on the coals and coal measures of Australia. 

 To be sent in not later than May i, 1893 : upon the weapons, 

 utensils, and manufactures of the aborigines of Australia and 

 Tasmania ; on the effect of the Australian climate upon the physi- 

 cal development of the Australian-born population ; on the injuries 

 occasioned by insect pests upon introduced trees. To be sent in 

 not later than May i, 1894 : on the timbers of New South 

 Wales, with special reference to their fitness for use in con- 

 struction, manufactures, and other similar purposes ; on the 

 raised sea-beaches and kitchen middens on the coast of New 

 South Wales ; on the aboriginal rock carvings and paintings in 

 New South Wales. The competition is not confined to mem- 

 bers of the Society, nor to residents in Australia, but is open to 

 all without any restriction whatever, excepting that a prize will 

 not be awarded to a member of the Council for the time being ; 

 neither will an award be made for a mere compilation, however 

 meritorious in its way. The communication, to be successful, 

 must be either wholly or in part the result of original observa- 

 tion or research on the part of the contributor. The successful 

 papers will be published in the Society's annual volume. Fifty 

 reprint copies will be furnished to the author free of expense. 



A PRIZE is offered by Schnyder von Wartensee's Foundation, 

 Ziirich, for the solution of the following problems in the domain 

 of physics. •' As the numbers which represent the atomic heats of 



