Marcu 28, 1907 | 
NATURE 
511 
The annual amount raised by private munificence for 
American universities and colleges has in a few years 
been doubled; and, as recent notes in these columns 
have shown, there is no sign of any decline in the 
generosity of the men of wealth in the States. The 
amount of money raised in this way in the United 
Kingdom during the period 1871-1901 was only one- 
eighth of that contributed in the United States in the 
same time; and if the present scale of American gifts 
be continued, the comparison at the end of 1931 will 
be such as to leave us at a still more hopeless dis- 
advantage. 
All the statistics here brought together tell the 
same story; alike as regards number of students, 
number of university teachers, total value of uni- 
versity property and total annual income, from what- 
ever point of view looked at, there is evidence of a 
strong and healthy growth in the system of higher 
education in the United States; and, though it 
can by no means be suggested that similar worl: in 
this country has remained stagnant, the most opti- 
mistic student of British affairs will hardly maintain 
that our universities and colleges can show progress 
and development at all commensurate with that the 
report of the Commissioner of Education reveals as 
true of the United States. It is clear that patriotic 
men of science among us cannot afford to relax their 
efforts to increase the efficiency of our universities 
and colleges, and to supplement their number. 
Students of science do not need to be reminded of the 
intimate connection between cause and effect, but it 
behoves them to take every opportunity to convince 
statesmen and the public that industrial supremacy 
is, in the long run, one of the effects of an adequately 
equipped and generously endowed system of higher 
education. IN At Si 
THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL. 
he Asiatic Society of Bengal, since its found- 
ation in 1784 by that pioneer of oriental studies, 
Sir W. Jones, has played a leading part in the ex- 
ploration of the natural history, philology, antiquities, 
and other branches of scientific inquiry connected 
with the East. Its Journal has been enriched by 
contributions from many eminent authorities, among 
whom may be named, in addition to its founder and 
older scholars such as H. H. Wilson, Prinsep, Sir 
A. Cunningham, Jerdon, Blyth, and Ball, men like 
Drs. Hoernle, Grierson and Annandale, Messrs. 
T. H. Holland and V. A. Smith, who are happily 
still at work. Like all scientific organisations in the 
Fast, it has suffered vicissitudes. The short and 
broken residence of Europeans in the country, pres- 
sure of official work, lack of native co-workers, want 
of libraries of reference, and last, not least, the in- 
difference of the Indian Government, which prefers 
that its servants should devote their spare time to the 
judgments of the High Courts or the circulars of the 
Board of Revenue rather than to the science and 
literature of the country, have at times interrupted 
its progress. But under its present managers it 
seems to be inspired by a new spirit of enthusiasm. 
Its membership has increased within the last year 
by more than 50 per cent.; the Indian Government 
has at last begun to regard it seriously, and through 
the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, who now acts as 
president, has suggested a scheme for bringing its 
work into closer relation with that of European 
officials. 
These gratifying signs of progress are reflected in 
its new publications. Besides its well-known Journal, 
it has commenced the issue of a series of monographs 
prepared by competent writers, well illustrated, and 
sold to the public at a very moderate price. These 
NO. 1952, VOL. 75 | 
memoirs cover a wide range in the fields of natural 
science, philology, and anthropology. Among the 
most energetic naturalists is Dr. N. Annandale, the 
author of ‘‘ Fasciculi Malayenses’’ and a study of 
primitive life in the Hebrides and Orkneys, who has 
now found a fresh field of activity as curator of the 
fine Calcutta collections. It is one of the ironies of 
fate that his name will survive in the scientific litera- 
ture of the future linked with that of a new species 
of earwig, Anisolabis annandalei. He has recently 
contributed to the Journal a valuable series of papers 
on the fresh-water fauna of India, special monographs 
on Malaysian barnacles and the common Hydra of 
Bengal, and has opened an almost new field of 
study in his monograph on the ‘*‘ Fauna of a Desert 
Tract in South India,’’ Ramanad, in the Madura dis- 
trict, a region which might naturally, for zoological 
purposes, be regarded as worked out, but where his 
trained eye has discovered much new and interesting 
material. 
In anthropology the society is judiciously working 
in connection with the Ethnographical Survey recently 
revived and extended by Lord Curzon, and has re- 
ceived from it several valuable communications. Mr. 
Sherring, who recently published an account of 
explorations in western Tibet, gives a further account 
of the Bhotiyas, and Mr. A. H. Francke of the Dards 
of the same region; the late Father Dehon, S.]J., 
describes the religion of the Uraons of Bengal, and 
Mr. E. H. C. Walsh discusses the remarkable cup- 
mark records in the Chumbi Valley. Here, again, 
Dr. Annandale has made a new departure in the 
first of a series of notes dealing with the arts, indus- 
tries, and implements of the more primitive tribes, 
which describes the blow-gun, which seems to have 
been imported into southern India by the Malays. 
Studies such as these will, we trust, lead to the found- 
ation of an Indian Pitt-Rivers museum, the ample 
materials for which at present in existence will soon 
disappear unless their collection is taken up in 
earnest. 
In another direction the society has 
able work by establishing a medical 
proposes to organise the workers now engaged in the 
study of tropical disease. In this connection the 
monograph by Messrs. Hooper and Mann on earth- 
eating, already described in Nature (vol. Ixxiv., 
p- 543, September 27, 1906), is full of interest. This 
remarkable craze appears to be spreading rapidly 
among the coolies in tea-gardens in Assam, and the 
dangers resulting from the practice are attracting 
serious attention. It is not a racial characteristic, 
but is found in all parts of the country; it appears to 
depend on the purely mechanical effect of various 
kinds of earth in relieving gastric or intestinal irrita- 
tion. When once indulged in, the craving becomes 
uncontrollable, and leads to serious disease of the 
digestive canal. 
All classes of students will accept these new publi- 
cations as a record of excellent scientific work, and 
will congratulate this historic society on its recent 
satisfactory progress. 
started a valu- 
section, which 
ROBERT WARINGTON, F.R.S 
E_ regret to learn of the death of Mr. Robert 
Warington, F.R.S., at Harpenden on March 20. 
Mr. Warington was the son of Robert Warington, 
F.R.S., for a long time chemist for the Society of 
Apothecaries, and was born in 1838. Being of deli- 
cate health, he was educated entirely at home, and 
learnt his first chemistry from his father. In 1859 
he worked for some time as a voluntary assistant in 
the Rothamsted Laboratory, and in 1862 went to the 
Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester as assist- 
