Mar. 28, 1872] 



NATURE 



429 



Architecture at South Kensington. In the same way, 

 from a certain number of shipwrights' apprentices three 

 or four were also selected every year to go up and study 

 at the latter school. As regarded the Engineers, it was 

 proposed that not merely three or four out of the thirty 

 should be sent every year to South Kensington, but that 

 all of them, after having been four years in the yards, 

 should have the advantage of going through a course of 

 one year's education at Greenwich, which should include 

 all the higher branches of engineering education, such as 

 metallurgy and chemistry. It was further proposed to 

 take a similar course with reference to the shipwright's 

 apprentices, but only as regarded a limited number, who 

 would have an opportunity of studying naval architecture 

 at Greenwich. The South Kensington School would be 

 removed to Greenwich. . . With regard to the cadets, 

 it was not proposed that they should go to Greenwich. 

 No definite arrangements 'had as yet been proposed with 

 reference to them, but that there was no great hurry in 

 the matter, because in future they would not be taken 

 under fifteen years of age, and it would be as well to wait 

 until those who had entered at '.thirteen had attained the 

 latter age before new arrangements were entered into with 

 regard to them." 



We heartily congratulate the Government on this com- 

 mencement of a higher scientific instruction of officers of 

 the Navy, and trust that the course thus commenced will 

 be persisted in. 



NOTES 



The Royal Commission on Scientific Instniction and the Ad- 

 vancement of Science have, we are informed, concluded their 

 inquiry into the scientific instruction afforded in training colleges 

 and elementary schools, and in the science classes of the Science 

 and Art Department. 



There will be an election to a Natural Science Fellowship in 

 Exeter College, Oxford, on Wednesday, June 19. The exami- 

 nation will be in Biology. The Fellow elected will be required 

 to reside and take part in the instruction of the College. The 

 election will take place under the conditions of the special ordi- 

 nance of the College with regard to residence. The Fellow 

 elected under the ordinance wUl be subject in all other respects 

 to the Statutes of the College. The examination will probably 

 begin on Tuesday, June 11, and no person can be admitted as a 

 candidate who has not passed all the examinations necessary for 

 the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the University of Oxford, or 

 been incorporated as a graduate in the University. Candidates 

 are requested to make application by letter to the rector on or 

 before June i. 



The examinations for Scholarships in Natural Science, which 

 have recently been held at Clare and at Emmanuel College, 

 Cambridge, have both terminated without an election being made. 

 The reason of this is that at neither of the colleges did candidates 

 present themselves, whose attainments, in the opinion of the 

 examiners, entitled them to receive the distinction. The number 

 of competitors was but small in each case, in one three only. 



The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge has 

 promulgated the text of a memorial addressed to the University 

 upon the subject of higher education, and adopted at a public 

 meeting at Birmingham. It is similar to the memorials ad- 

 dressed upon the same subject from Rochdale, Leeds, Crewe, 

 and the North of England CouncU for the Education of Women, 

 and the prayer of the memorial is that a Syndicate be appointed 

 to investigate the subject, and to inaugurate such means as would 

 produce — firstly, a standard of excellence in the departments of 

 literature, science, and art, fixed by some universally recognised 

 authority, and attainable by students of this class, which would 

 secure for their studies the definiteness and thoroughness that 

 are so much needed ; secondly, an opportunity, offered to all 



who might be inclined to take advantage of it, of bringing their 

 acquirements to the test of an examination ; thirdly, the com 

 mand of teaching power of a high order for the benefit of those 

 who might wish to place themselves under instruction. 



Prof. Huxley is, we learn from the Times, the favourite 

 candidate for the rectorship of St. Andrew's I'niversity. 



The following are the probable arrangements for the Friday 

 evening meetings at the Royal Institution after Easter : — April 

 12, Mr. John Morley, "On Rousseau's Influence on European 

 Thought;" April 19, Mr. Vernon Ilarcourt, F.R.S., " On the 

 Sidphurous Impurity in Coal Gas and the means of removing 

 it ;" April 26, Prof. Blackie, " On the Genius and Character of 

 the Modern Greek Langu.age." May 3, Wm. Spottiswoode, 

 Treas. R.S.; May 10, N. Story-Maskelyne, F.R.S., "On 

 Meteoric Stones ;" May 17, Prof. Abel, F.R.S.; May 24, Prof. 

 Clifford, " On Babbage's Calculating Machines ;" May 31, Mr. 

 E. J. Poynter, A.R.A. June 7, Prof. Odling, F.R.S. And 

 the following lecture arrangements are announced : — Dr. Wm. 

 A. Guy, F. R.S., three lectures, "On Statistics, Social Science, 

 and Political Economy," on Tuesdays, April 9, 16, and 23 ; 

 Mr. Edward B. Tylor, F. R..S., six lectures, " On the Develop- 

 ment of Belief and Custom amongst the Lower Races of Man- 

 kind," on Tuesdays, April 30 to June 4;" Prof. Tyndall, 

 F. R. S., nine lectures, "On Heat and Light," on Thursdays, 

 April II to June 6 ; Mr. R. A. Proctor, five lectures, "On the 

 Star Depths," on Saturdays, April 13 to May 11 ; Prof. Roscoe, 

 F.R.S. , four lectures, "On the Chemical Action of Light," on 

 Saturdays, May 18 to June 8. 



Prof. Thiselton Dyer is about to deliver a course of 

 lectures on flowers and fruits to the Royal Horticultural 

 Society, with the following titles: — Thursd.ay, April 11, 

 "Flowers: their common plan of construction." April 25, 

 Flowers: the variety in their forms, and how brought about." 

 May 9, "Flowers: their colours and odours." May 23, 

 "Fruits: their structure." June 6, " Flow seeds are sown in 

 Nature." June 20, "Flowers and Fruits under cultiv.ation." 

 The lectures will commence at 3 p.m. 



M. SCHIMPER, the celebrated botanist and pakeontologist, is 

 the only one of the old professors in the French University of 

 Strasburg who has consented to continue to hold his post under 

 the German rule. M. Schimper is a Frenchman by birth and 

 descent, and had been offered a superior position elsewhere by 

 the French Goverrunent. 



M. Prillieux, the French botanist, having declined to con- 

 tinue an honorary Associate of the Leipsic Leopold Academy of 

 Natural Science, some German professors call upon their country- 

 men to return the "brevets" they have received from French 

 scientific bodies. But it is satisfactory to see Dr. Virchow 

 coming forward to warn his colleagues against imitating such a 

 bad example. 



An ingenious patent is now being worked, by which leather 

 for the sides of boots and shoes is rendered impervious to wet 

 and damp by exhausting the air from the pores of the leather, 

 and filling them up with a substance which unites with and ad- 

 heres to the fibre, thereby strengthening without impairing the 

 elasticity of the material. It is stated that the patent, known as 

 "Fanshawe's Waterproof Leather," is not only likely to be 

 largely employed for the purpose to which we have referred, but 

 that when asphalte pavement becomes more general, it will be 

 possible to shoe horses with a material as hard as the asphalte 

 itself, and which wiU prevent them slipping. 



A NOVEL and most interesting experiment in the field of 

 elementary instruction has just been resolved upon in Saxony. 

 Hitherto, as everywhere else, so in that small but highly- 

 developed kingdom, the youth of the lower orders, upon being 



