232 



NATURE 



{Jan. 1 8, 1872 



Mr. Samuel Sharpe has presented the sum of 4,000/. to 

 University College towards the building fund, and Mr. ]. Peni- 

 berton Heywood has given a donation of 1,000/. towards the 

 same object. The executors of the late Mr. Felix Slade have 

 given 1.600/. towards the cost of the fine-art buildings and to 

 provide casts and other appliances for the students. 



At a recent session of the Council of University College, it 

 was decided to admit ladies attending the class of politicil 

 economy to compete for the prizes and also for the Hume and 

 Ricardo Scholarships awarded for proficiency in that science. 



Thf young Hippopotamus, which we announced as having been 

 born on Tuesday last week at the Garden of the Zooligical 

 Society, died the following day. The body has been sent for 

 dissection to Prof Humphry at Cambridge. We may hope 

 therefore to hear more of him in the pages of the Journal 0/ 

 Anatomy and Physiology, which is edited by the professor. 



We are informed that the next number of the Qiiarlerly 

 Journal of Science will contain a detailed account by the editor 

 of the scientific principles involved in the A B C Sewage 

 Company's process, of which, according to the Times, Mr. 

 Crookes, F.R.S., has accepted the scientific direction. 



The first part is just published at Leipzig of a new edition of 

 Pritzel's "Thesaurus Litteraturn; Botanic;?, ' or index of works 

 on the various branches of botany, pubbs'ied in all languages, 

 from the earliest times. As it is more than twenty years 

 since the publication of the last edition, the additions are very 

 numerous. 



The President of the Medical Society of the county of New 

 York, Dr. Abr.iham Jacobi, has p'aced in the hands of its 

 treasurer 40odols. , to be awarded for the best es^ay on "A 

 History of the Diseases of Infancy and Childhood in the United 

 States, and of their Pathology and Therapeutics." Competitors 

 will send their essays in English, with motto attached, and 

 addrfss of the writer, with the same motto, in a sealed envelope, 

 to the present Secretary of the Society, Dr. Alfred E. M. Purdy. 

 123, East Thirty-eighth Street, on or before January I, 1S73 

 The committee are authorised by the society to withhold the prize 

 if the essays submitted should not merit it. 



Dr. J. W. Foster, President, and Mr. William Stimpfoii^ 

 Secretary of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, have issued a 

 circular informing the scientific world of the txtent of the losses 

 suffered by the Institution through the calamitous fire in that city. 

 These comprise, besides a very largenumber of other collections of 

 great value, the Audubon Club collection, con-.is;ing of very 

 finely mounted specimens of the game birds and mammals, both 

 of America and of Europe and Asia, about 400 in number ; the 

 State coUecti ar of Insecs, recently purchased by ihe State of the 

 heirs of the late State Entomologist, Mr. B. D. Walsh, for 2,000 

 dots , but of great scientific value from the number of types i' 

 contained ; the splendid series of specimens i lu tr.itive 01 the 

 natural history of Alaska, collect-- 1 in 1865-69 by Bischoff and 

 the naturalists of the W. U. Telegraph E<i)edition ; the Smith- 

 sonian collection of Crustacea, undoubtedly the lirijest alcoholic 

 collection m the world, which filled over 10 000 jar.';, and con- 

 tained the types of the species deicrib.-.d by Prof. Dana and other 

 American author*, besides hundreds of new .species, many of 

 which were describe 1 in manuscripts lost by the same fi'e ; the 

 Invertebrates of the U.S. North Pacific Exploring E.\pedition, 

 collected in great part in Japanese seas by the secretary in 

 1853-56, which besides Crustacea, included in the last item, em- 

 braced great numbers of Annelides, MoUusca. and Radiata, most 

 of which remain as y;t undesc ib;d, etce )t in minus; lipts also 

 lo~t ; the collection of the marine shells of the coast of the 

 United States, made by the secretary an 1 his correspon^ienis 

 during twenty years of dredgi ngs and general research on every 

 part of the coast from Maine to Texas ; nearly every species was 



illustrated by specimens from every locality in which it oc- 

 curs, not only on our own shores, but on those of Europe and 

 the Arctic Sea, and in the Tertiary and Quaternary formations, 

 showing the effect of climatic influences, geo'ogical age, «S:c. ; 

 this collection embraced about S.ooo separate lots of specimens ; 

 the deep-sea Crustacea and Mollusca, dredged in the Gulf Stream 

 by M. Pourtales of the U. -S. Coast Survey, in the years 1867, 

 '68, and '6g, which had been placed in the hands of the secretary 

 fir description ; the results of the deep-sea dredgings in Lake 

 Michigan, by the Academy in iS/oand 1871, the work of the latter 

 year having been performed by Mr. J. W. Milner ; the Arctic col- 

 lections of the late Director of the Academy, Robert Kenicott, 

 made during the years 1859 61. The general collection contained 

 about 2,000 mammals, 30 mounte I skeletons, including two masto- 

 dons, an African elephant, sea otter, elephant-seal, &c., lo.oco 

 birds, 1,000 nests of eggs, and a great quantity of eggs without 

 nests, 1,000 reptiles, 5,000 fishes, including many large sharks and 

 rays, 1 5 ,000 species of insects and other articulates, 5,000 species of 

 sh-lls, with immense numbers of duplicates, 1,000 jars of 

 molluscs in alcohol, 3,000 jars or "lots" of radiates, including 

 several hundred corals, 8,000 species of plants, 15,000 specimens 

 of fossils and 4,000 minerals. In Archreol >gy there were about 

 1,000 specimens, all American ; and the Ethnological collection 

 embraced a very fine series of the clothing and implements of 

 the Esquimaux of Anderson River, coUec ed by Robert Keni- 

 cott and his Arctic friends, and presented by the Smithsonian 

 Institution. The Academy desires to announce that although 

 now laid pro.-trate by the terrible disaster it has suffered, 

 it will soon rise to refill its place among its sister institutions. 

 The trus ees have determined to baild up again the material 

 interests of the Institution, notwithstanding the terrible losses 

 which they, in common with all of its patrons, have suffered. 

 The publication of its Transactions wdl soon be resumed. The 

 Academy would therefore take this opportunity to appeal to its 

 correspondents for the donation of their own publications of the 

 past few years, to replace those lost, for which it was also in- 

 debted to their generosity. 



Prof. Nathan Sheppard, of the University of Chicago, 

 has written to the papers to state the present position of the 

 University of Chicago, and of the Observatory, which is well 

 known in the astronomical circles of Europe. The buildings 

 fortunately escaped, but the fire has lelt the Univci'sity in very 

 serious financial difficulties. Many of the gentlemen upon whom 

 the University, and especially the Observatory, was dependent 

 are so reduced in circumstances as to be unable to meet their 

 engagements. The consequence is that the resources of the 

 University are suiden'y and greatly abridged. In fact, its in- 

 come, aside from its tuition fees, is entirely cut off. The Obter- 

 v.itory is the first department to feel this lo'ss. A letter just 

 received from Chicago says it is feared that the eminent director. 

 Prof. Truman H. Satford, would be obliged to leave his post for 

 want of support. This will be sad news to the professional cor- 

 respondents of Prof. Safford in Europe. When the University 

 was founded, about fifteen years ago, a few public-spirited gentle- 

 men rallied around it, and under their self-sacriricing care it has 

 been housed in a comm.idious and elegant (ahhough unfinished) 

 building, at a cost, including Observatory, telescope, &c., of 

 about forty thousand pounds ; and now ha.<, in all departments 

 of study (preparatory, classical, scientific, and law), twelve pro- 

 fessors and about 250 students. In conclusion, the Professor, 

 dating from 77, Upper Thames Street, London, asks any reader 

 who would care to lend a helping hand to do so, and to follow 

 in the wake of a Scotch gentleman who has generously offered 

 to head the subscription list with 50/. 



Inoculation has by the Indim Legislature been forbidden 

 in the districts of the twenty four Pergunnahs, Nuddwa, 

 Burdwau, Hooghly, and Howrah in Bengal. 



