4? 



NATURE 



[December 7, 1899 



been appointed representatives of the University for the 

 organisation of a Congress on Tuberculosis to be held in London 

 in 1901. 



At the annual prize distribution of the Merchant Venturers' 

 Technical College, Bristol, on December 20, an address will be 

 given by Sir W. H. White, K.C.B., F.R.S., Director of Naval 

 Construction to the Admiralty. 



We learn from the British Journal of Photography (Decem- 

 ber I) that Dr. Hans Harting, formerly of Messrs. Zeiss, of 

 Jena, has joined the Board of Management of Messrs. Voigt- 

 lander and Sohn. He succeeds Dr. Miethe, who was recently 

 appointed Professor of Chemistr}' and Spectrum Analysis at the 

 Technical High School, Berlin. 



The annual prize distribution and conversazione of the 

 Northampton Institute, Clerkenwell, will be held to-morrow 

 evening, December 8. Sir Henry Roscoe will distribute the 

 prizes. A comprehensive programme of exhibits and short 

 lectures referring to the various sides of the Institute's work has 

 been prepared. Dr. Walmsley will describe alternating cur- 

 rents ; Mr. John Ashford, flying machines in fiction and fact ; 

 and Mr. A. W. Martin, highspeed telegraphy. There will 

 also be special demonstrations of liquefaction of air, alternate 

 currents, ice-making, mortising by machinery, colour photo- 

 graphy, rapid stereotyping, and other subjects. 



The /"z^wfi^r iT/(Z«V announces that the Government of India 

 have given their cordial approval to the Tata scheme for an 

 India University of Research, recently formulated by a conference 

 at Simla, and already referred to in these columns. As soon 

 as all the details have been worked out, the necessary legislation 

 for the incorporation of the new University will be undertaken. 

 Meanwhile the Government of India commend the scheme to 

 the liberality of the public, and wish it every success, while they 

 acknowledge in the most cordial manner the public spirit shown 

 in Mr. Tata's munificent endowment. The Government of 

 Bombay will be asked to appoint an officer to arrange with Mr. 

 Tata for the transfer of the property which is to constitute the 

 endowment. 



The Calendars of University College, London, and the Uni- 

 versity College of Sheffield, for the session 1899- 1900, have been 

 received. In the former, the Dean of the Faculty of Science, 

 Prof. T. Hudson Beare, refers to the part taken by the College in 

 connection with the reorganisation of the University of London, 

 and expresses pleasure that in the new University engineering 

 is to be put on an equal with the sister professions, law and 

 medicine, and that (if the draft statutes are adopted) it is to 

 have its own Faculty and its own representatives on the Academic 

 Council. A noteworthy addition to the Dean's report is a com- 

 plete list, covering nine pages, of the original memoirs and 

 writings which have emanated from the different scientific 

 departments of the College during the past two years. In the 

 Calendar of the University College of Sheffield it is announced 

 that a bacteriological laboratory has been established, with a 

 special demonstrator to devote the whole of his time to bacteri- 

 ological investigations. 



Some interesting particulars with reference to the relative atten- 

 tion given to science in our secondary schools, as judged by the 

 number of candidates who present themselves in scientific sub- 

 jects in the public examinations usually taken by the pupils, is 

 given in the December number of The School World. It ap- 

 pears that in January of this year, of 1250 candidates examined 

 for matriculation in London University, 842 selected a language 

 as their optional subject, and 408 a branch of science. The 

 total number of candidates who were examined in the five 

 optional science subjects was little more than half the number 

 that selected French as the optional subject. At the last Oxford 

 Senior Local Examinations, the number of papers worked in 

 English subjects was 6977, in languages 2418, in science sub- 

 jects 796 ; in addition to which 969 candidates took mathe- 

 matics. In the Senior Cambridge Local E.xaminations in 1898, 

 the number of papers in English subjects was 10,327, in lan- 

 guages 3391, in mathematics 1590, and in science 1838. Similar 

 proportions are shown to exist among candidates who present 

 themselves for other general examinations. The numbers show 

 clearly that in most of our secondary schools science still occu- 

 pies but a minor place in the curricula. 



NO. I 57 I, VOL. 61] 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Microscopical Society, November 15.— Mr. E. M. 

 Nelson, the President, in the chair.— Mr. C. L. Curties 

 exhibited a new form of portable microscope by Leitz. It had 

 a folding foot and a movable stage, to enable the instrument to 

 be packed in a small compass. The body was not made to 

 incline, but was furnished with coarse and fine adjustment, and the 

 stage was fitted with a modified form of Abbe condenser, with iris 

 diaphragm. The President thought the instrument would be 

 useful to those requiring a very portable one ; its great com- 

 pactness was effected in an ingenious manner, while the working 

 parts were well made and finished. — The President read a short 

 note descriptive of a set of three simple hand microscopes on 

 the Coddington principle sent for exhibition by Mr. Edward 

 Swan. They were apparently made for a medical man, and 

 could not be very old. Dr. Hebb said Prof. Groves had made 

 some modification in the form of a hand microtome, and had 

 sent it for exhibition. The President called attention to six 

 photomicrographs of the larvae of gnats, taken from life by Mr. 

 J. T. Holder. The President exhibited an old Gillett condenser, 

 dated July 20, 1849, which had a collar adjustment. — Dr. H. 

 C. Sorby's paper on the preparation of marine worms as 

 microscopical objects was read by the President in the unavoidable 

 absence of the author. The subject was illustrated by beauti- 

 fully mounted slides under microscopes. — The attention of the 

 meeting was then directed to a fine exhibition of Fora)innifera 

 by Mr. A. Earland, shown under a large number of microscopes, 

 with written descriptions explaining the points of interest in each 

 slide. 



Linnean Society, November 16. — Mr. G. R. Murray, 

 F.R.S., in the chair. — Mr. J. E. Harting communicated par- 

 ticulars of several cases in which parrots had been poisoned by 

 eating parsley. After commenting on instances in which plants 

 that were innocuous to man had proved fatal to some of the 

 lower animals, he mentioned in support of the converse case 

 that the berries of the yew and privet, which are generally con- 

 sidered to be poisonous to man, were greedily eaten by black- 

 birds, thrushes, bullfinches, and other birds ; while, on the 

 other hand, several cases were on record of pheasants having 

 been poisoned by eating yew leaves. The immunity of goats 

 from yew poisoning was remarkable in view of the fact that 

 deer and cattle died after eating the leaves of that tree, although 

 it had been stated that the ill effects were due to the leaves 

 having been eaten in a desiccated state, and not while growing 

 on the tree. — Mr. W. C. Worsdell read a paper on the com- 

 parative anatomy of certain species of Encephalartos. The 

 chief features of the anatomy were shown to be the presence 

 of several vascular cylinders in the stem, a character found also 

 in Cycas and Macrozamia ; and the 7/tedullary system of vas- 

 cular bundles, forming, as in Macrozamia Fraseri, Miq., a com- 

 plex network, intimately united with a corresponding network 

 of mucilage-canals. The system of mucilage-canals in the pith 

 is continuous with that of the cortex, but the medullary bundles 

 form an independent primary system. The mucilage-canal- 

 system is probably of use as a storehouse of moisture during 

 the dry season, when the roots and foliage die away. — Mr. W. 

 T. Caiman read a paper on a collection of Brachyura from 

 Torres Straits. These Crustacea had been collected by Prof. 

 Haddon on his first expedition to Torres Straits in 1888. It 

 comprised about seventy-five species, three of which were de- 

 scribed as new, namely, Cryptocnemus Haddoni, Ptlumnus 

 cristipes, and Lambrus confragosus. Among the species already 

 known, concerning which some fresh details were given, was 

 the minute parasitic Hapalocarcinus marsupialis. Although 

 described forty years ago by Stimpson, it had escaped re-exami- 

 nation until now, notwithstanding that the curious gall-like 

 growths to which it gives rise on corals are well known. The 

 occurrence in this collection of the three known Indo-Pacific 

 species of Palicus {Cymopolia), two of which have been recorded 

 hitherto only from widely distant localities, afforded the author 

 of this paper an opportunity for a detailed examination of their 

 distinctive characters. 



Geological Society, November 22. — W. Whitaker, F.R.S., 

 President, in the chair. — On some remarkable calcisponges from 

 the EoceneTertiary Strata of Victoria (Australia), by Dr. George 

 Jennings Hinde, F.R.S. The greater number of the sponges 

 described were discovered by Mr. T. S. Hall, of Melbourne 



