Mar. 21, 1872J 



NATURE 



411 



manufacture. We heartily commend this movement on the part 

 of the Society of Art?, and may probably recur to the subject at 

 some future time. 



The Geologists' Association has made the following excursion 

 arrangements for March and April : — Thursday, March ?.\, a 

 visit to the Museum of Practical Geology, under the guidance 

 of Prof. Morris. Tuesday, April 2, an excursion to Maidstone, 

 under the direction of Mr. W. H. Bensted and Prof. Tennant. 

 Upon arriving at Maidstone the party will visit tlie Charles 

 Museum, and afterwards the fine sections of the Lower Green- 

 sand, exposed in the " Iguanodon Quarries." The Kentish 

 Rag is here well seen in situ. Subsequently the party will pro- 

 ceed to Aylesford, crossing the Medway at AUington Lock, and 

 the Gault, Lower Greensand, and Valley Deposits yielding 

 Mammalian Remains, there exposed, will be inspecttd. Satur- 

 day, April 13, an excui'sion to Watford and Bushey, under the 

 leadership of Mr. John liopkinson. The special object of 

 interest will be the sections of the Chalk, the Woolwich and 

 Reading Series, and of the London Clay (Basement Bed). 

 Saturday, April 27, excursion to Hampstead, direcfed by Mr. 

 Caleb Evans and Mr. S. R. Pattison. The party will visit the 

 shaft of the Midland Railway Tunnel, and afterwards proceed to 

 Hampstead Heath to observe the sections of the Bagshot Sands 

 here exposed, as v.ell as the Physiography of the District. 

 The Annual Report of the Association for 1871 furnishes satis- 

 factory evidence of the prosperity and progress of this useful 

 institution. We have from time to time given so full a report 

 of its proceedings that we need not do more thair congratulate 

 the Society on its success. 



The Board of Directors of the Edinburgh School of Art have 

 appointed Dr. Robert Brown to the newly-created Lectureship 

 on Geology and Pala3ontology, viewed more especially in the 

 relation of the science to landscape painting, sculpture, architec- 

 ture, and other fine arts and industries. 



A LECTURE -will be delivered for the Society of Telegraph 

 Engineers at the Institution of Civil Engineers, 25, Great George 

 Street, Westminster, on Wednesday, March 27, at 7.30 p.m., by 

 Captain P. H. Colomb, R.N., on "Telegraphing at Sea." 



A LECTURE will be delivered at the London Institution, 

 Finsbury Circus, this evening (March 21) at 7.30 P.M., on 

 "How Plants are Fertilised," by Mr. A. W. Bennett. 



Messrs. Sampson Low and Co. have in the press Captain 

 Butler's account of his connection with the Red River Expedi- 

 tion in 1S69-70, and of his subsequent travels and adventures in 

 the Manitoba country and across the Saskatchewan Valley as 

 civil agent for the Government . 



One of the best papers on local geology which we have re- 

 cently come across was read by Mr. Thos. Beesley at the Annual 

 Meeting of the Warwickshire Naturalists' and Archaeologists' 

 Field Club on March 5, "On the Geology of tlie neighbour- 

 hood of Banbury." Mr. Beesley gave a detailed account of the 

 various strata represented in the neighbourhood, and the fossils 

 found in them, and he ably sustained the view, in opposition to 

 that held by Prof. Phillips, that the Inferior Oolite extends far 

 into Oxfordshire. 



The Traveller, which has now been in existence nearly a year, 

 continues to contain excellent articles on travel and geographical 

 research, of special interest to English and Americans. 



We have received the seventh Annual Report of the Massa- 

 chusetts Institute of Technology. It was established on the 

 principle that all the studies and exercises of the first and second 

 years should be pursued by the whole school. At the beginning 

 of the third year, each student selects one of the following special 



courses of study :— i. A course in Mechanical Engineering ; 

 2. Civil and Topographical Engineering ; 3. Geology and Mining 

 Engineering; 4. Building and Architecture; 5. Chemistry; 

 6. Science and Literature ; 7. Natural History. These courses 

 differ widely, but certain general studies are common to them all. 

 It is intended to secure to every student, whatever his special 

 course of study, a liberal mental development and general culture, 

 as well as the more strictly technical education which may be his 

 chief object. The course in Science and Literature, and the 

 course in Natural History, differ from the others in having a less 

 distinctly professional character. The former offers a sound 

 education, based on the sciences and modern literature, and fur- 

 nishes, with its wide range of elective studies, a suitable prepara- 

 tion for any of the departments of active life, or for teaching 

 science. The course in Natural History affords an appropriate 

 general training for those whose ulterior object is the special 

 pursuit of Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, Zoology, or of Medicine, 

 Pharmacy, or Rural Economy. 



Since the days of its foundation, the Federal School at Zurich 

 has, s.cco-nims.loiheMiningMagaziiieaiidRrjiezv, not only fulfilled 

 its object, but has even surpassed the most well-founded hopes. 

 In fact, each year the number of students has increased ; the 

 most distinguished professors have been happy to accept the offer 

 of a chair in a college so flourishing ; and it has already pro - 

 duced a number of distinguished pupils, whose reputation has 

 placed it among the first establishments of the kind in Europe. 

 The Swiss pupils are surpassed in number by students drawn 

 from all the other nations of Europe, but chiefly from Russia, 

 Poland, and Hungary, while there is a fair proportion both of 

 Americans and Asiatics. All the cantons, however, are well 

 represented, and the French and Italian cantons, in spite of the 

 difference of tongue, send a very good contingent of their chil- 

 dren. So many candidates presented themselves for admission 

 in 1S71, that it was not possiljle to accommodate them all ; and 

 this has again brought to the surface the idea of a Federal Uni- 

 versity, which will no doubt be speedily realised. 



The British Medical Journal says that the people of Rome 

 are very much interested just now in the fate of a poor fellow, 

 Cipriani, who has swallowed a fork in public, prongs down- 

 wards, and who is now suffering, in consequence, agonies which 

 are the subject of daily bulletin. Some comfort may be derived 

 by his friends from the record lately published of Mr. Lund's 

 patient at Manchester, who survived swallowing a dessert 

 knife six inches long ; and from the perusal of a recent article 

 in the Journal de Medecine et dc Chirurgie, in which instances 

 are cited where the alimentary canal has safely supported the 

 most unexpected foreign bodies — among others, lizards, a file, a 

 tea-spoon, a bat ; and, finally, from the whimsical but melancholy 

 instance of a man who, to amuse himself, swallowed successfully 

 and safely a five-franc piece, a closed pocket-knife, and a coffee- 

 spoon, but killed himsalf at last in the vain effort to digest a 

 pipe. 



The Medical Times and Gazette of March 16 contains some in- 

 teresting remarks on Prof. Laycock's Lecture on Ears delivered 

 in Paris in 1S62, a subject of special interest in connection with 

 the recent Tichburne trial. The woodcuts with which the article 

 is illustrated show the remarkable similarity between the square 

 lobeless ear, met with in cases of dementia, and the ear of the 

 chimpanzee. 



During the last few days of December 1871, Adelaide, in 

 South Australia, was visited, according to the Gardener's 

 Chronicle, by dense clouds of locusts. Dr. Schomburgk de- 

 scribes the visitation as a very remarkable one. He says the air 

 was quite darkened with them. They came from the north, and 

 devoiu-ed everything looking green. Nothing remained of the 

 fine lawns in the Botanic Garden but the bare brown earth. 



