NATURE 



[June 9, 1892 



reason to believe, that will not be wanting. Such pro- 

 fessorial opinion will include that of the staffs of the 

 Colleges and Schools, and of those members at least of the 

 Senate and Convocation of the University of London 

 who are or have been engaged in professorial work. 

 So powerful a body of opinion cannot but exert a great — 

 indeed, a decisive — influence upon what maybe termed the 

 lay elements of the governing bodies, whom we can only 

 reach through their professorial colleagues. 



It is difficult to see how the arguments of eminent 

 specialists in support of the general arguments called forth 

 by the occasion can be rejected, when once the novelty 

 of their proposals has been got over. Convocation, with 

 an appeal to the Privy Council, will have a far more 

 usable and useful power than is inherent in the bare 

 obstructiveness or quasi-terrorism of the veto. The 

 Senate in Burlington Gardens will scarcely refuse to 

 complete the University character of the great institution 

 it governs, and perfect its educational machinery, by 

 placing the responsible direction of the higher education 

 of all its students, without exception or distinction, in 

 the hands of the most eminent representatives of those 

 who have made such education the business of their 

 lives. The Medical Schools will only give up the teach- 

 ing they are least adapted to furnish, and in lieu of being 

 scattered entities, will become integral portions of a great 

 whole. The private arts student will retain every ad- 

 vantage and privilege he possesses, and cannot but gain 

 by working under syllabuses prepared by past masters in 

 the art of teaching. 



Perhaps the best procedure to be adopted by the 

 Professoriate, with whom the initiation] of any active 

 propaganda must lie, will be to lay their views before 

 the governing bodies by deputation, and before the Com- 

 mission by the individual testimony of such among them 

 as may be invited to give evidence on the question. 

 Here a word of caution may not be out of place. Details 

 of a ministerial nature should be avoided as much as 

 possible, for until the main lines of any scheme are 

 settled, it is difficult to say what details are possible 

 or necessary. It is still more important to shun any 

 approach to doctrinairism, the besetting vice of pro- 

 fessordom, and treat every principle as modifiable by 

 the circumstances of history, national habit, and environ- 

 ment. 



On the financial aspect of the question we can say little. 

 The establishment of a new University will cost money, 

 but no great sum will be needed to start with. The Uni- 

 versity will, of course, be independent, and the necessary 

 expenses will be defrayed in part by an annual Govern- 

 ment grant. Among other sources of income, the funds 

 at the disposal of the County Council may perhaps be 

 counted, and with a view to such assistance it might be 

 found advisable that the University should have a com- 

 mercial and technical, as well as a purely acadeinical 

 side. 



But for the moment, what is of most importance is, we 

 repeat, that the London Professoriate should organize 

 itself, formulate its principles of action in the sense above 

 indicated, and use its influence, publicly and privately, to 

 procure their acceptance as far as circumstances may 

 show to be possible. 



NO. I 180, VOL. 46] 



INDIAN BOTANY. 



Attnals of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta. Vol. III. 

 (i) The Species of Pedicularis of the Indian Empire and 

 its Frontiers, by D. Prain, M.B., F.R.S.E., Curator of 

 the Herbarium. (2) The Magnoliaceae of British India, 

 by G. King, M.B., LL.D., F.R.S., CLE., Superin- 

 tendent of the Garden. (3) The Genus Gomphostemma, 

 by D. Prain. (4) The Species of Myristica of British. 

 India, by G. King. 4to, pp. 350, tt. 174. (Calcutta: 

 Printed at the Bengal Secretariat Press, 1891.) 



THE two previous volumes of this publication are 

 devoted entirely to the illustration and description 

 of the arboreous element in the Indian Flora, and the 

 letter-press is solely the work of Dr. King. Volume I. 

 deals with the difficult genus Ficus^ illustrated by 232 

 plates ; and the second volume treats of the almost 

 equally difficult genus Quercics ?ir\.di the allied Castanopsis, 

 as well as the genus Artocar pus , of which seventeen 

 species are described and figured. As may be seen from 

 the list of papers given above, the work in the present 

 volume is partly by Dr. King, and partly by his Curator, 

 Dr. Prain ; the former continuing his valuable labours on 

 the trees of India, whilst Dr. Prain has taken up two 

 herbaceous genera. A critical review of this ponderous 

 volume would require more space than could be given to 

 it in the pages of Nature, and a much deeper knowledge 

 of the subjects than the writer possesses ; but it is not a 

 difficult task to give an idea of the nature and quality of 

 the series of monographs it contains. At the outset one 

 is disposed to find fault with the bulk and fourteen 

 pounds weight of this book, because it is really fatiguing 

 to handle, and smaller volumes are in every way more 

 desirable. Fortunately, the present volume may be con- 

 veniently bound in three nearly equal parts, as each 

 monograph has its separate title-page and index. Indeed, 

 it might be preferable to bind each of the four mono- 

 graphs separately. 



The present volume, it will be perceived, is partly 

 devoted to utilitarian botany, which will be welcome to the 

 forestry department, as well as to botanists generally, and 

 partly to botany of a kind that appeals more especially 

 to the biologist. Dr. Prain's elaborate and painstaking 

 monograph of the genus Pedicularis belongs to the latter 

 category, and may be recommended for study to the 

 young aspirant for honours in the same direction as a 

 model of thoroughness, so far as external morphology 

 goes. To persons acquainted only with our two native 

 species of Pedicularis, the wide range of modification 

 exhibited in the forms of the corolla is surprising, and re- 

 minds one of Prof. Huxley's remark that the genus Gen- 

 tiana, as generally circumscribed, presents nearly as much 

 variation in the shape of the corolla as all the genera of 

 the Gentianacese combined. This polymorphism is suffi- 

 ciently illustrated in the comparatively recent monograph 

 of the whole genus Pedicularis by the late Mr. Maximo- 

 wicz. He figures the flowers of all the species known to 

 him, whilst Dr. Prain figures the plants, or portions of 

 the plants, of all the Indian species, as well as their 

 flowers. Great as is the variety, however, in the size and 

 shape of the corolla in Pedicularis, it would be wrong to 



