March 28, 1895J 



NA TURE 



525 



elevation there followed one of general subsidence, and first 

 Jamaica, then Cuba, and afterwards Haiti and Puerto Kico 

 were separated. The connection between the Antilles and the 

 mainland was broken, and the Bahama region, if it had been 

 previously elevated above the sea, was submerged, the sub- 

 sidence continuing until only the summits of the mountains of 

 the four Greater Antillean islands remained above the water. 

 Then followed another period of elevation, which has lasted no 

 doubt until the present time, and the large areas of lime- 

 stone uncovered (of Miocene, Pliocene, and post Pliocene age) 

 in the Greater Antilles have furnished an admirable field lor 

 the development of the groups of land snails that survived on 

 the summits of the islands. The Bahamas and the Lesser 

 Antilles were subsequently raised above the surface, and have 

 been colonised by forms chiefly drifted in the former case from 

 Cuba and Haiti, and in the latter case from South America, 

 while a few stragglers have been carried by sea no duubt from 

 the Greater Antilles, and have settled on the more northern of 

 the Windward Islands. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



A DEPUT.\TI0N from the Association of Head Masters of 

 Higher-Grade and Orjjanised Science Schools was received on 

 Thursday last, by Mr. Acland, at the offices of the Scien> e and Art 

 Department; MajorGeneral Sir John Donntlly being present 

 at the interview. The deputation was the outcome of a very 

 large and representative meeting of the association, held at 

 Derby, to consider the new rules for organised science schools 

 lately issued by the Department. The impoitance of the new 

 regulations lies in the (act that under them a system of secondary 

 schools will be inaugtiraled and carried on under the control 

 of, and supported to a great extent by, the Science and Art 

 Department. The organi-ed science schools at present in 

 existence include nearly all the more important higher-grade 

 schools, the day schools of technical institutions, and a con- 

 siderable number of grammar schools. The principal changes 

 proposed in the new rules are the parfal substitution °of 

 inspection for examination, the introduction of special courses 

 of instruction for women students, the inclusion of a fair 

 proportion of lierary work in the curriculum, and the addition 

 to it of practical work in physics and biology. A long dis. 

 cussion, lasting over two hours, took place, at the end of which 

 Mr. Acland stated that he hoped to be able to meet the wishes 

 of the deputation with regard to many of the points raised, and 

 promised, at the end of a week or ten days, to make a definite 

 statement of the alterations the Depaitment would be prepared 

 to make. 



Geometrical Drawing has hitherto been included in Science 

 Subject I. (Practical, Plane, and Solid Geomeirv ) of the Science 

 and Art Department. It has just leen decided, however, to 

 make Geomettiial Drawing a separate subject under the A^t 

 portion of the Department's Diiecioiy ; so the syllabus of the 

 Elementary Stage of Scif nee Subject I. will in future include 

 only plane geometry, solid geometry, and graphic arithmetic. 

 The changes will come into lorce for the session 1S95-96. 



The Senate of Glasgow University have resolved to confer 

 the degree of Doctor of Laws on the following : — Sir John 

 Neilson Cuthbe rison ; Mr. James G. Fraser, Fellow of Trinity 

 College, Camliridge; Mr. W. E. H. Lecky ; Mr. David 

 Robertson, Millport; Dr. T. E. Thorpe, F.R.S. ; Surgeon- 

 Major Lawrence A. Waddell, I. -M.S., Bengal. 



The ninth Session of the Edinburgh Summer Meeting is 

 arranged 10 take place in August. Prof. Geddes and Mr. 

 William Sfiarp lecture in the section of Philosophy, .Social 

 Science, and Anthropology ; and the prospectus also inchiies 

 the name~ of M. Demolins, editor of the Science Sociale, of Dr. 

 Wenley, Dr. Delius, and others. Under Civics and Hygiene 

 are the nanus of Dr. Dyer, M. Paul Desjardins, M. Elisee 

 Reclus, Dr. Irvine, Miss Jare Hay, and Dr. Stephens. Mr. 

 Goodchild and Mr. Herbertson undertake the dcp;iitment of 

 Geography in its widest st nse ; while Mr. J. Arthur Thomson 

 and Mr. Turnliull have charge of the Biology. There will be 

 many other features of interest, including a series of educational 

 conferences. 



NO. I 326, VOL. 51] 



The Professorshipof Natural History at the Royal .\giicultural 

 College, Cirencester, rendered vacant in December last by the 

 death of Prof. Harker, has now been filled by the appointment 

 of Mr. Theodore T. Groom, late Scholar of St. John's College, 

 Cambridge, and Lecturer and Demonstrator at the Yorkshire 

 College, Leeds. Mr. Groom at one time occupied the Cam- 

 bridge table at the Zoological Station, Naples, where he success- 

 fully carried out some valuable researches, the results of which 

 were communicated to the Royal Society of London, and 

 (lublished in their Philosophical Trainactioiu. The chair of 

 Natural History at the College has been filled by a succession of 

 very able men, among whom, in addition to Prof. Harker, may 

 be mentioned such names as Buckman, McNab, and Thiselton- 

 Dyer. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



American yoiirnal of Science, Match. — The Appalachian 

 type of folding in the White Mountain Range of Inyo County, 

 California, by C. D. Walcott. In the broad palaeozoic area 

 between the Sierra Nevada on the west and the early paLTiozoic 

 shore-line on the east (Colorado) a period of folding and 

 thrust-faulting was followed by a peiiod of vertical faulting, 

 which displaced the strata that had been folded and faulted in 

 the preceding epoch. The extent and character of this dis- 

 turbance can only be determined by a careful study of each of 

 these mountain ranges for a distance of over five hundred miles 

 east and west, and probably one thousand miles noith and south. 

 — The succession of fossil faunas at Spiingfield, Missouri, by 

 Sluail Weller. The rocks studied are teds of grey limestone 

 with lenticular chert concretions, and form part of the 

 Mississippian series. The faunas of the lower part of the 

 section may be correlated with the Burlington faunas of Iowa, 

 and those of the upper part with the Keokuk faunas. The 

 whole series of faunas is continuous, and the whole series of 

 rocks should be designated by a single name. The term Osage, 

 suggested in 1S91 by II. S. Williams, is recommended. — 

 Drift boulders between the Mohawk and Susquehanna rivers, 

 by A. P. Brigham. The Archaean and the more northern 

 Palsczoic fragments are strewn over the whole district at all 

 altitudes, but diminishing southward in size, and sparse in 

 amount on the highest hills, especially to the southward, where 

 the tops of the ranges are often surprisingly free from trans- 

 ported ma'erial. .Actual reduction of the general surface 

 towards base level doubtless proceeded rapidly duiing glacial 

 time, but even then the process was rapid only in the geological 

 sense, and the result a minute fraction of what has been accom- 

 plished since the region became a land surface. 



Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, vol. i. 5. 

 (New York, February 1895.)— On a certain class of canonical 

 forms, by Mr. R. \. Roberts, is a paper, read before the 

 Society at its December meeting, which treats of an interesting 

 class of theorems occurring in the consideration of algebraical 

 quanlics. — " Ha) ward's Vector Algebra" is a review, by Prof. 

 M. B<jcher, of the algebra of coplanar vectors and trigono- 

 metry, which deals out praise and its opposite in about equal 

 proportions. — Ai^olar triangles on a conic is a very interesting 

 paper by Prof. F. Morley. — The remaining short notices com- 

 prise an instance where a well-known test to prove the sim- 

 pl city of a s:mp!e group is insitfiitient, by G. H. Miller, and 

 an account of the Lobachevsky Memorial Volume, 1 793-1893. 

 Amorgst the notes is a bare statement of Prof. Cayley's death. 

 — The usual new publications list concludes the number. 



Symons's Monthly Meleoi ological Magazine for March con- 

 tains another striking piool of the severity of the frost in 

 February last, as shewn hy the temperature of the earth at 

 Camden Square, in the rorih-west cf Lon'cn. The ther- 

 mometer w ith its lulb one foot below the surface was first read 

 on January I. 1S71. Prior to 1895, it was never below 32', and 

 only reached that point in 1S80. But in February last there 

 weie twelve ccnsecuiive days on which the thermometer was 

 1 elow 32'. In country districts, the frost penetrated to a much 

 greater depth, and this sufjcct will prcbably be referred to in a 

 future number of the magazine. A careful observer at Bcrk- 

 hamsted states that the frost there penetrated to a depth of 

 I f ot S inches. 



Internationales AicJ.iv Jiir Elhi.igiajl.ie, Band. vii. Heft 

 V. and vi. 1804.— Piof. H. H. G'glioli, in his "Notes on seme 



