Dec. 14, 1871J 



NATURE 



131 



tance of geological investigation. The donation of the proceeds 

 of the fund was directed by the testator to be accompanied by a 

 bronze copy of the Murchison Medal. 



At the meeting of the Royal Geographiccl Society on Monday 

 last, Sir Henry Rawllnson stated that the Council intended to 

 address the Foreign Oihce, with a view of arranging, either 

 directly from the Foreign Office, or through co-operation between 

 the Foreign Office and the Society, some means of communicating 

 with Dr. Livingstone, either by sending messengers into the 

 interior of Africa, and offering a reward of 100 guineas to any 

 African who will bring back a letter in Dr. Livingstone's hand- 

 writing to the sea-coast, or by organising a direct expedition, 

 headed by some experienced and well-qualified European, who 

 should himself penetrate to the point where Dr. Livingstone is 

 supposed to be. 



By a decree, dated April 18, 1S66, of the Minister of Public 

 Instruction in France, a prize of 50,ooofr. (2,000/.) was offered for 

 the most useful application of the Voltaic Pile, the period for 

 competition to expire in April 1871. From a report of the 

 minutes presented by the President of the Republic, it appears 

 that candidates are few in number, and that in the opinion of the 

 savants to whom the memoirs were submitted, none is of suffi- 

 cient merit to have earned the prize. By a decree of the 29th 

 of November, the competition is now extended for another period 

 of five years, to terminate on November 29, 1S76. 



We learn from the Laiicd that the promoters of the icbeme for 

 commemorating the life and labours of Jolin Goodsir, late Pro- 

 fessor of Anitomy in the University of Edinburgh, have got only 

 700/. instead of 2,000/., and have had to relinquish the idea of a 

 fellowship, and adopt that of a triennial prize, to be open to all 

 graduates of the University of not more than three years' stand- 

 ing, to be given for an essay or treatise containing the results of 

 original investigations in anatomy, human and comparative, 

 either normal or pathological, or in experimental physiology. 

 The Acting Com.mittee of the Association for the better Endow- 

 ment of the University of Edinburgh have prepared the deed of 

 endowment for the Syme Memorial. The capital sum amounts 

 to 2,500/.; whereof 2, coo/, were paid over to the Association 

 by the Syme Memorial Committee, and 500/. was added by the 

 Association. 



The authorities of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at 

 H.arvard College have placed in Prof AUman's hands for deter- 

 mination the whole of the collection of hydroid zoophytes ob- 

 tained by the United States Coast Survey during its late explora- 

 tion of the Gulf Stream. 



The Coimcil of the University of Edinburgh has decided to 

 take into consideration on the 21st inst. the appeal against the 

 decision of the Senate as to rescinding the regulations for the 

 education of women in medicine. 



The Examiners in the Natural Science School at Oxford (W. 

 Ogle, M.D., Corpus ; J. A. Dale, Balliol ; and R. H. M. Bosan- 

 quet, St. John's) on Saturday issued the subjoined class list : — 

 Class I.— H. A. Black, Christ Church ; W. T. Goolden, Magda- 

 len ; E. H. Jacob, Corpus ; A. S. L. Macdonald, Merton ; J. 

 A. Ormerod, Jesus ; A. G. Riicker, Brasenose ; S. H. West, 

 Christ Church. Class 11.— E. H. Forty, Christ Church; J. 

 Turner, Exeter ; J. L. Twynam, St. Mary Hall. Class IIL— 

 Nil. Class W.—iVil. 



Mr. W. a. Brailey, who was second in the Natural Sciences 

 Tripos at Cambridge, has been elected a Fellow of Downing 

 College in that University. 



M. Georges Delaporte, engineer of M. Tessie de Motay's 

 0.\yhydrogen Light Company, has been nominated a Chevalie 



of the Legion of Honour, as an acknowledgment of the services 

 rendered to the State during the Siege of Paris in the application 

 of the Electric Light to strategic operations. 



The Lord President of the Council has nominated Mr. T. S. 

 Aldis, formerly scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge (Second 

 Wrangler in 1866), to be an Inspector of Schools. 



The following are now announced as the probable arrange- 

 ments for the Friday evening meetings at the Royal Im>titution 

 before Easter 1872 :— January 19, Mr. William R. Grove, 

 F.R.S., on Continuity; January 26, the Archbishop of West- 

 niin ster, on the Demon of Socrates ; Febraary 2, Prof Odling, 

 F.R.S., on the new metal Indium; February 9, Prof Hum- 

 phry, F.R.S., on Sleep; February 16, Dr. Gladstone, F.R.S., 

 on the Crystallisation of Silver and other Metals ; February 23, 

 Mr. Henry Leslie, on the Social Influence of Music ; March i 

 Mr. C. W. Siemens, F.R.S., on Measuring Temperatures by 

 Electricity ; March 8, Mr. R. Liebreich, on the Effect of certain 

 Faults of Vision on Painting, with especial reference to Turner 

 and Mulready ; March 15, Mr. John Evans, F.R.S., on the 

 Alphabet and its Origin; March 22, Prof. Tyndall, F.R.S. 



\Ye learn from Les Mondes that the lamentable disagreement 

 between M. Daubree, the director of the mmeralogical depart- 

 ment of the Museum of Natural History at Paris, and his 

 assistant, M. Stanislas Meunier, is now happily terminated, and 

 that the latter is again permitted to carry on his researches at the 

 Museum. 



The Exhibition of the Photographic Society, held in its rooms 

 in Conduit Street, closed on Saturday last. While among speci- 

 mens of portraits the works of Grasshofer of Berlin, Rylander of 

 Paris, and other Continental artists, challenged comparison with 

 any of our home productions, there can be no question that in 

 landscape photography, the exquisite workmanship of Bedford, 

 Robinson, Cherrill, and some other English photographers, 

 easily bore off the palm. There were some very fine specimens 

 of Edwards's heliotype process, as well as of the autotype and 

 other carbon-printing processes. 



We learn from the American Naturalist that the State Micro- 

 scopical Society of Illinois has issued a prospectus of The Lens 

 a Quarterly Journal of Microscopy and the Allied Natural 

 Sciences ; with the Transactions of the State Microscocical 

 Society of Illinois. It will be an octavo, each number contain- 

 ing at least forty-eight pages of reading matter. Terms, 2 dols. 

 per animm in advance. The editor will be Mr. S. A. Briggs, 

 177, Calumet Avenue, Chicago. Though its appearance has 

 been delayed by the fire, we learn that it will soon be issued. 



At a recent meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Mr. W. 

 T. Blanford exhibited a collection of chipped quartzite imple- 

 ments found about forty mUes west of Bhadrachalam, on the 

 Godavari. The thirty-five specimens exhibited were all found 

 within a space of about fifty yards square, and at least as many 

 more were rejected on account of being badly made. The place 

 where they were found was in dense jungle, the rock soft sand- 

 stone, and the implements, as was usually the case in Southern 

 India, had evidently been chipped from pebbles. Several were 

 formed of white vein quartz, an unusual circumstance. The 

 forms of these implements wtxs those of the kind most frequently 

 found in French and English gravels, and they varied from about 

 3in. to 6in. in length. That the spot where they were found was 

 a place of manufacture was probable, not only from the occurrence 

 of ill-formed implements, but also from flakes, evidently chipped 

 from the quartzite being abundant. 



A VERY beautiful and extraordinaiy Aurora Borealis was wit- 

 nessed at Montreal on November 21. The following account of 



