92 



NATURE 



\Nov. 30, 1871 



runs towards the north-east ; in all this course it is impelled by 

 the rotation of the earth with a force correspondine; to a fall of 

 from nine to ten feet, and rises from left to right about I '2 feet. 



From the Bay of New York the Gult Stream runs eastward 

 towards the shores of Europe, and, throughout the passage, 

 obeys the impulse of the force of rotation, which raises it from 

 left to right by a total elevation of about one foot. Having 

 reached the neighbourhood of Europe, the current divides into 

 two nearly equal branches, one of which, under the influence of 

 the diminished force of the action of the earth's rotation, runs in 

 a south-easterly direction towards the coast of Africa, with an 

 elevation from left to riglit. The other branch, meanwhile, is 

 forced to skirt the coasts of Great Britain, taking a more 

 northerly direction on account of the resistance it meets with 

 from the land, the action of the force of rotation causing it to 

 advance in its nortlierly course with an elevation from left to right 

 facing the land of one and-a-half feet. If we try to estimate the 

 inlluence which the earth's rotation exercises upon the Gulf 

 Stream from St. Augustine to the 60th degree of N. latitude, we 

 find that the force is nearly the same as tliat which would act 

 upon the current, if, between these two points, a distance of 

 abiut 950 miles, the Atlantic showed a difference of level of 

 twenty-five feet. When the Gulf Stream has passed the northern 

 extremity of Scotland, the resistance whicli obliged it to take a 

 more northerly direction disappears, and, from this time, the 

 ]5rincipal current inclines more to the east towards the coast of 

 Norway, which it then skirts to the north-east, sloping towards 

 the land on account of the earth's rotation. Another branch of 

 the Gulf Stream is arrested by Iceland in its course to the north, 

 and turned to the north-west, striving against the earth's rota- 

 tion, which elevates it towards the south and south-west coast of 

 the island just mL'ntioned, it ought consequently to present a 

 slope towards the north-west as far as the polar current. 

 ( To be continued. ) 



SCIENCE IN GERMANY* 



T N his address at the opening of the present University Session 

 -*■ at Berlin, the out-going Rector quoted some interesting figures 

 showing the effect of the recent war on the activity of the Uni- 

 versity. In October 1S70 there matriculated in all the faculties 

 1,236 students, while the number of entries for the winter session 

 of 1S69 was 2,421. Of the 1,236 students who entered their 

 names in (!)ctober, only 904 continued their attendance through- 

 out the winter. The actual number of medical students last win- 

 ter was 173, while in the previous winter session they amounted 

 to 550. The falling off in numbers extended about equally to 

 a!l the four faculties ; but it appears that none of the theological 

 s udcnts who entered at the beginning of the session were required 

 to break off their studies. The courses of lectures, public and 

 private, that were announced amounted to 366, and of these 27 1 

 actually came off. Forty students took their degrees — Sin juris- 

 prudenc;, 19 in medicine, and 13 in philosophy. The number 

 of deatlis, so far as was ascertained, amounted to 32. The Uni- 

 versity seems now to have returned to its full activity, to judge 

 fr jm ihe crowded state of many of the class-rooms. A few 

 of the students are to be seen wearing the ribbon of the Iron 

 Cro-s. 



Two ladies from America have applied to the Berlin University 

 authoiities for permission to attend the medical classes. One 

 laly, a Russian, is studying chemistry in Prof Hofmann's labora- 

 tory. An American lady has been studying medicine at Bres'au, 

 and has sent to an Amtrican newspaper a glowing account of 

 her friendly reception at the Silesian Universi y. Another pioneer 

 of the same sex is studying engineering at the Polytechnic School 

 of Aix-la-Chapelle ; and two ladies recently joined tiie University 

 of Pra^iue, where they are studying under the professor of his- 

 tory. During the past summer a solitary American lidy, M.D., 

 attended the clinics at the Vienna General Hospital, and appeared 

 to sufl'er, to the full extent, the inconveniences of being in so 

 considerable a minority. 



The autumn season on the Continent, as in England, is marked 

 by the occurrence of various scientific gatherings. At several 

 of these. Prof. Virchow has been receiving invitations, which the 

 Berlin newspapers have chronicled from time to time. At the 

 Assembly of German Naturalists and Physicians, held at Ros- 

 tock, his speech was the great event of the meeting. During 

 the Bologna Conference of Archixologists, he was entertained at 



* From a Conespoudeut of the British Medical yoiirtial. 



a banquet by the Italian dignitaries and men of science ; and 

 at a scientific assembly held in Rome, the audience rose to their 

 feet to welcome the celebrated Berlin professor, who made them 

 a speech in French. In his address to the Rostock Conference, 

 Virchow made some remarks upon the nature of annual scientific 

 gatherings, of which he himself is an assiduous frequenter. "It 

 was a matter of encouragement to me," he said, " when I read 

 in the proceedings of the recent meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion, in the opening address of its renowned President, Sir William 

 Thomson, that Brewster, in his letter by which he called the 

 Association into existence, expressly stated that he was led to 

 this step from considering the great and beneficent results that 

 the German Naturalists' Association {Xatiirfoischcrversammlung) 

 had achieved during its nine years' previous activity. We were 

 the first to advance among all nations ; the English followed, and 

 the number of these associations has gradually increased. They 

 have, by degrees, extended into every possible province of human 

 activity, and we have thereby become accustomed, by the co- 

 operation of the many, to define more clearly the common objects 

 at which the whole has to aim." And again, speaking of the 

 results of these meetings, he says : " Not only the pleasures of 

 fellowship, which are inseparable from a great congress of indi- 

 viduals ; not only the amenities of personal acquaintance, which 

 cannot be too highly valued ; the forming of friendly ties, where 

 perhaps, under other circumstances, harsh and even bitter oppo- 

 sition would have sprung up ; the reconciling of many controver- 

 sial antagonisms through personal intercourse — all this is the 

 smaller result. Tliere is yet a greater — the communication of 

 knowledge, the explanation of methods, the clearing up of the 

 directions in which research should be undertaken — and these are 

 things which can be nowise better told than by word of mouth." 

 The main subject of Professor Virchow's addre>s was the part 

 that science would have to play in the new national life of (i-r- 

 many. Their work, he held, was to introduce into the popular 

 life of the nation the great and all-pervading idea of evolution. 

 Space will not permit even to give an abstract of his views. 



Among the books that have is-ued from the German press 

 within the last month or two are — the new edition of Virchow's 

 '■ Cellular Pathology," much improved and enlarged ; Professor 

 Traube's " Contributions to Physiology and Pathology," in two 

 bulky volumes, one containing experimental and the other clinical 

 researches; anew instalment (the fifth) of Strieker's" Handbuch;" 

 a treatise on Leuchcemia, by Professor Mosler of Greifswald ; 

 and an elaborate work with plates, by Barkow of Breslau, on 

 " Dilatations and Tortuosities of the Blood-vessels," with special 

 reference to aneurism of the aorta in its various sites. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 



The fourth numlier of the Zeilschrift fiir Ethnologie for the 

 present year begins with Dr. A. Erman's concluding part of his 

 " Ethnological Observations on the coasts of Behring's Sea." He 

 draws attention to the bold and often successful surgical treatment 

 which was found to have been practised by the Aleutians v hen they 

 were first visited by Eurojicans. The influence exerted by the 

 Russians on these primitive people has tended to make tliem 

 conceal, or even gradually relinquish the practice of many of their 

 old national habits, and, amongst other usages, they have almost 

 wholly given up their heroic surgical operations. Dr. Erman 

 met, however, with one skilled Aleutian operator, from whom 

 he learned many particulars in regard to the native practice of 

 his art. It would appear that their vaiiously-sized lancets are 

 formed of finely-polished and sharpiy-edged flakes of obsidian. 

 With these instruments bleeding in the leg as well as the arm is 

 performed, and incisions made in various parts of the body, in- 

 cluding the thoracic walls, for the purpose of removing blood or 

 pus, in cases of their eflfusion into the cavity of the pleura, or in 

 pulmonary disease. But although we are told that this practce is 

 not found to be attended with any ilangerous results, we aie not 

 informed how the injurious effect of any possible admission of air 

 into the chest is guarded against. The Aleutians exhibit great 

 dexterity in removing various parts of the bodies of whales, and 

 of sea-lions and other seals which they have killed, as, for instance, 

 the mucous membrane of the neck, without in any way in- 

 juring the contiguous parts. And they show woncJerful skill 

 in fabricating from such membranes thoroughly water-proof and 

 highly elastic coverings for the feet and legs, as well as those 

 invaluable rowing dresses known as " Kamlejkes," which, when 

 drawn over the head and upper art of the body and fastened 



