Feb. 15, 1 872 J 



NA TURE 



3ir 



from the Thames to Zanzibar direct. The three gentlemen 

 engaged in it had been given every assurance that their under- 

 taking would be assisted at home in every possible way. The 

 subscriptions to the fund for its maintenance amounted to 5,000/., 

 of whicli upwards of 2,000/. was received from London alone ; 

 Edinburgh had contributed 350/. ; and the little town of Hamd- 

 ton, the native place of Dr. Livingstone, 200/. ; while the cor- 

 poration of the City of London had subscribed one hundred 

 guinea?, and the leading commercial firms of the City had come 

 forward in an equally liberal manner. The Admiralty has 

 refused to allow Lieut. Dawson his full pay while engaged on 

 the expedition. 



The important article which we are able to give this week, 

 on the Po.'-ition of the Centre of Gravity in Insects," by M. Feli.x 

 Plateau, is an abstract of a long memoir by that author, to be 

 found in the " Bibliotheque Universelle, Archives des Sciences 

 Physiques et NaturelUs," vol. .\Iiii., for 1S72. 



The Naval and Military Gazette asserts that the Challenger, 

 screw corvette, will be commissioned early in the summer for a 

 voyage of e.\ploration and research. Some scientific gentlemen 

 will be accommodated on board the vessel, and it is probable 

 that Captain George S. Nares, now serving in the surveying 

 vessel Shearwater, in the Red Sea, will be placed in command. 

 The actual places which will be visited have not yet been 

 determined, but it is anticipated that the groups of islands in the 

 Pacific will have special attention bestowed upon them. This 

 movement on the part of the Admiralty is in encouraging con- 

 trast to the fact that Arctic voyages have been abandoned to 

 other nations, and to the late refusal of the Lords of the Treasury 

 to grant any assistance whatever to the Livingstone seal ch ex- 

 pedition. 



The following is the list of officers and council of the Royal 

 Microscopical Society elected on the 7th of February : — Presi- 

 dent—Mr. W. K. Parker, F.R.S. Vice-Presidents— Dr. W. B. 

 Carpenter, F. R.S., Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S. , Sir John Lubbock, 

 Bart., M.P., F.R.S., Mr. John Millar. Treasurer— Mr. John 

 W. Stephenson. Secietaries — Mr. Henry J. Slack, Mr. Jabez 

 Hogg. Council — Dr. Robert Braithvvaite, Mr. John Berney, Mr. 

 Charles Brooke, F.R.S., Mr. T. W. Burr, Dr. W. J. Grav, Dr. 

 Henry Lawson, Mr. Henry Lee, Mr. S. J. M'Intire, Mr. Henry 

 Perigal, Dr. G. W. Royston-Pigott, Mr. Charles Stewart, Mr. 

 T. C. White. 



The International Scientific Series, to be published by Henry 

 S. King and Co., is an indication of a movement of great im- 

 portance. The series will be published simultaneously in New 

 York by Messrs. D. Appleton and Co., in Paris by M. Germer 

 Bailliere, and in Leipzig by Messrs. Brockhaus. The first 

 volume, by Prof. Tyndall, F.R.S., on "The Forms of Water, 

 in Clouds, Rain, Rivers, Ice, and Glaciers," is now in the press, 

 and will be published in March next. Among others already 

 arranged for are Prof. T. H. Huxley, F.R.S., on Bodily Motion 

 and Consciousness; Dr. W. B. Carpenter, F. R. S. ,onlhe Principles 

 of Mental Physiology; Sir John Lubbock, Bart., F.R.S., on the 

 Antiquity of Man ; Prof. Rudolph Virchow, on Morbid Phy- 

 siological Action ; Prof. Alexander Bain, on Relations of Mind 

 and Body; Prof. Balfour Stewart, F.R.S., on the Conservation 

 of Energy ; Mr. Walter Bagehot, on Physics and Politics ; Dr. 

 H. Charlton Bastian, F.R.S., on the Brain as an Organ of 

 Mind ; Mr. Herbert Spencer, on the Study of Sociology ; Prof. 

 William Odiing, F.R.S., on the New Chemistry; Prof. \V. 

 Thiselt jn Dyer, on Form and Habit in Flowering Plants ; Dr. 

 Edward Smuh, F.R.S., on Food and Diets; Prof. W.Clifford, 

 on the First Principles of the Exact Sciences explained to the 

 non-mathematical ; Mr. J. N Lockyer, F.R.S., on Spectrum 

 Analysis ; Dr. VV. Liud<:r Liidsiy, on Mind in the Lower 

 Animals ; Dr. J. B. Pettigrew, F.R.S., on Animal Locomotion ; 



Prof. A. C. Ramsay, F.R.S, on Earth Sculpture; Dr. Henry 

 Maudsley, on Responsibility in Disease ; Prof. W. Stanley 

 Jevons, on the Logic of Statistics; Prof. Mich.iel Foster, on 

 Protoplasm and the Cell Theory ; Rev. M. J. Berkeley, on 

 Fungi ; their nature, influences, and uses ; Pr.if. Claude Bernard, 

 on Physical and Metaphysical Phenomena of Life ; Prof A. 

 Queteiet, on Social Physics ; Prof. H. Sain'e-Claire Deville, 

 Introduction to General Chemistry ; Prof. Wurtz, on Atoms 

 and the Atomic Theory ; Prof. Quatrefages, on the Negro 

 Races ; Prof. Lucaze-Duthiers, on Zoology since Cuvier ; Prof. 

 Berthelot, on Chemical Synthesis. 



The death of Dr. Harvey, Professor of Botany in the Univer- 

 sity of Dublin, arrested the progress of the Flora Capensis 

 shortly after the publication of the third volume had brought the 

 work half-way towards its co.npletion. It is hoped that if the 

 Cape Legislature will accede to Dr. Hooker's request for a re- 

 newal of the grant towaids the expenses of printing, the remaining 

 volumes may be at once taken in hand. The general super- 

 vision will be undertaken by Prof. Thiselton Dyer, who will 

 probably receive assistance in monographing dift'erent families 

 from Profs. Lawson and Perceval Wright, Drs. Sonder, Trimen, 

 Masters, and MacNab, and from Messrs. Carruthers, A. W. 

 Bennett, Hiern, Britten, aild Baker. 



Dr. Miller Coughtrey is engaged on a long paper on 

 the long- handled combs, Roman, Swiss, bone cave, Mexican, 

 and other forms. It is now in proof for the Proceedings of the 

 Antiquarian Society of Scotland. 



We note the appearance of the first number of a new monthly 

 magazine, " The Earth : a popular magazine on Geology," whose 

 object is " to collate and bring together facts and discoveries 

 bearing on advanced and truthful views of Geology, and to oppose 

 false and current opinions on the subject." Aoiong the fallacies 

 to be exposed are : — " That there has been an evolution of one 

 creature into another," "that vegetable life either preceded or 

 succeeded animal life on the globe," " that granite is a rock of 

 fusion," cXc. ; and among the truths to be advocated are : — "That 

 the configuration of the earth is a result of the agency of the 

 wuids and tides, of Yolcanic action, and of fluviatile and glacial 

 action," "that there has been no evolution of species," and 

 " that basalt is a crystallisation from solutions." 



We are glad to see that the labours of the English Strasburg 

 Library Committee, consisting of Mr. Hepworth Dixon, Lord 

 Houghton, Prof. Huxley, Lord Lytton, the Duke of Manchester, 

 Sir J. G. ToUemache Sinclair, Bart. M. P., and Mr. Triibner, 

 secretary, are being crowned with success. From the list we 

 have just received of books already presented, we see that almost 

 every department of Government has presented its publications. 

 This remark also applies to the following scientific societies :— 

 The University of Oxford, the Trustees of the British Museum, 

 the Astronomer Royal, the Royal Geographical Society, the 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, 

 the Early English I'e.xt Society, the Historic Society of Lanca- 

 shire and Cheshire, the Meteorological Society, the Radcliffe 

 Observatory, Oxford, the Royil United Service Institution, the 

 Philosophical Society of Gla.sgow, th; Royal Institution of Great 

 Britain, and Owens College, Manchester. In this list we may 

 remark that some of the most important of our societies are still 

 conspicuous by their absence. 



The problem, " What to do with our juvenile criminals," ap- 

 pears to have been solved by the Government of the State of 

 New York in a most satisfactory manner. We have before us, 

 and hope to be able to return to it again, a pamphlet issued by 

 the "Department of PubUc Charities and Correction," bearing 

 the title, inexplicable to English bumbledom, of " Crui.se of 

 School-ship Mercury in Tropical Atlantic Ocein. " It is, in 

 fact, an account of a cruise undertaken in the interests of science, 



