i6 



NA TURE 



\_May 3) 188- 



The President of the Parkes Museum, II.R.H. the Duke of 

 Albany, has fixed Saturday, May 26, for the opening of the Museum 

 in its new premises, 74A, Margaret Street, VV. The central position 

 of the new premises will make the Museum more useful than it 

 has hitherto been to professional men, owners of property, em- 

 ployers of labour, artisans and others, both men and women ; 

 and in order that the benefits of the Museum may be extended to 

 all classes, it will be open daily between the hours of ten and 

 seven, dui x ~g which hours admission will be free, from five to 

 seven and from two to nine on Mondays and Saturdays ; while 

 free admission to the library and reading-room may always be 

 had on the recommendation of a member. 



The honour of a baronetcy has been conferred upon Mr. 

 Spencer Wells. 



Messrs. Macmillan and Co. are about to publish "Ele- 

 mentary Lessons in Practical Physics," by Prof. Balfour Stewart 

 and Mr. Gee, Demonstrator in the Physical Laboratory at 

 Owens College, Manchester. 



The Indian Pioneer states that a member of the Alpine Club, 

 attended by an experienced Swiss guide, has left Darjeeling, for 

 the purpose of attempting the highest possible ascent of the 

 Kinchinjunger. The task will be a hard one, especially as the 

 difficulties to be overcome are in many respects altogether 

 different from those encountered in Switzerland. 



A TORNADO of wide range and great force swept over the 

 states of Mississippi, Georgia, and South' Carolina on Sunday 

 week, killing large numbers of people and injuring many more, 

 and destroying hundreds of buildings. The first place struck is 

 stated to have been Georgetown, Mississippi. The tornado is 

 said to have cut a path 1000 yards wide through a swamp in 

 Barnwell county, South Carolina, felling the timber as neatly as 

 if it had been cut to form a highway. 



The diary of the Marquis Tseng, Chinese Minister in London, 

 to which attention has been already drawn in the Pall Mall 

 Gazette, contains one or two passages which will be of especial 

 interest to readers of Nature. His Excellency is in favour of 

 the acquisition of a knowledge of foreign languages by Chinese 

 youth ; he thinks that, " if young people with good vocal organs 

 were made to apply themselves, during the intervals of school 

 duties, to the study of a foreign language, they could gain a 

 fluent knowledge of it in four or five years." The sudden with- 

 drawal of the Chinese educational mission in the United States 

 a year ago was the subject of much astonishment abroad, but 

 the Envoy's views on the subject before the mi-sion was de- 

 spatched in the first instance, will explain the mystery. "The 

 result of sending boys who had not studied their own classics to 

 devote themselves exclusively to the acquisition of Western 

 knowledge in a country like America, where there was no 

 distinction of classes, would be simply to contribute so many 

 citizens to the United States, and to furnish the foreign firms at 

 the Treaty Ports with compradores and interpreters." The 

 advantages derived by the youths in America were far less than 

 the successes of the pupils at the Foreign College in Peking and 

 the schools at Shanghai and Foochow. A Mr. Chang, whom the 

 envoy met in Shanghai, and whose opinion he seems to have 

 valued highly, suggested the establishment at Government 

 expense of a Chinese school for foreigners, where a knowledge 

 of the Chinese language and literature might be attained. The 

 students, he hoped, would translate foreign books for diffusion 

 in China. In addition translations of the educational curriculum 

 used in schools and colleges in the West should be made, and 

 schools where young Chinese might be trained " upon the system 

 practised in olden times, with a slight admixture of foreign 

 methods," should be established. " Education," Mr. Chang 

 says, "is the basis of State administration, and its success is 

 essential to the establishment of [proper government." Marquis 



Tseng does not precisely cliirn that China in times past had 

 steamers and steam engines, akh ugh his language at first sight 

 seems capable of such interpretation ; he says, however, that 

 China had no lack of mechanical appliances until her material 

 prosperity declined, when her people fell into idle and thriftless 

 habits, and the mechanical art was lost in transmission. He 

 prophecies that the day will arrive here as it has in China, "when 

 Western workcraft, now so deft, will grow inept, and Western 

 ingenuity give way to homelike simplicity. The fact is," he 

 concludes, "the earth's productions being limited, are not 

 sufficient to provide for the manifold wants of its countless 

 people, and deterioration is one of nature's laws." His Excel- 

 lency is clearly a man of remarkable shrewdness and capacity • 

 let us hope that to his other gi f ts he does not add that of 

 prophecy. 



The North China Herald reports that Dr. Bretschneider, the 

 physician to the Russian Mission in Peking, and one of the 

 ablest and most industrious students of China, is about to leave 

 that country for ever. Dr. Bretschneider is, we believe, chiefly 

 a botanist, and a few months ago we noticed an elaborate paper 

 of his on Chinese botanical knowledge ; but he has laboured in 

 many other fields of research. One of his best known works is 

 a pamphlet on the Early Chinese Travellers in Central Asia, 

 which was published a few years ago. The same journal states 

 that this gentleman, although he has already published much, is 

 reserving his magnum opus until his return to Europe. The 

 great advantage of sinologues working in China and Chinese 

 literature on the subjects of which they are otherwise masters is 

 obvious. Thus a botanist, with a knowledge of Chinese, will 

 clearly work to greater advantage on Chinese knowledge of 

 botany, the flora of China, and similar subjects, than he will in 

 any other subject, or than a non-botanical Chinese scholar can 

 do. Dr. Bretschneider seems during his long residence in China 

 to have recognised this, and certainly in his hands the already 

 great scientific reputation of the Russians in Peking has not 

 suffered. 



The work of education in Hong Kong Mould appear to be 

 conducted under some curious difficulties. Dr. Eitel, the 

 Inspector of Schools, in his last report mentions that he noticed 

 several cases in which Chinese girls, living at a great distance 

 from school, and having to traverse on their way to and fro the 

 most crowded portion of the town, were dressed like boys, and 

 attended the girls' schools all through the year in boys' dresses. 

 This was owing to the prevalence of the practice of kidnapping 

 girls, and the curious change of dress was adopted to deceive 

 the kidnappers. 



We notice in M. Bunge's review of "European Literature 

 in Chemical Technology," published in the yournal of the 

 Russian Chemical Society, the appearance of an elaborate Russian 

 work, by M. Radivanovsky, on "Gunpowder, Pyroxyline, 

 Dynamite, and other Explosives," in two large volumes, one of 

 which is devoted to theory, and the other to practice. M. Bunge 

 considers it as decidedly the best work on the subject in Europe 

 for its completeness and lucidity of exposition. 



M. Yagu, of the Russian Physical Society, while making 

 experiments with a new parachute-hydromotor on the Neva, 

 came to the unexpected result that the velocity of the current in 

 this river is only half the rate in winter that it is during the 

 summer. It is supposed that this retardation depends upon 

 accumulations of ice at the outflow of the Neva from Lake 

 Ladoga, which accumulations diminish the section of the 

 channel. 



M. Pompeieu has made, before an immense crowd, two suc- 

 cessful ascents with an elongated balloon (measurement 1300 

 cubic metres, elongation 1 to 3J). On both occasions the 



