4io 



NATURE 



\ . lugust 30, 188; 



hurst College and Whalley Abbey, the Lake District, 

 Haigh Hall, St. Helen's and Widnes, the Wigan Coal 

 and Iron Company's Works, Chester and Eaton Hall, 

 Liverpool including a visit to a White Star steamer and 

 a run along the dock's front), Clitheroe District (Geologi- 

 cal), and others which maybe announced in these columns 

 next week. 



Rufford Park and Rufford Old Hall will also be 

 visited, as well as the county town, Lancaster, which 

 deserves more than passing mention. There is the old 

 church there, the ancient castle (the residence, ages ago, 

 of John of Gaunt), aqueducts of some importance, the 

 Roman camp in the vicarage grounds, the assize courts, 

 and many other objects of attraction and public buildings, 

 including asylums and hospitals of ancient and of modern 

 establishment, and of very various character. 



There will be garden parties at Knowsley (by the kind- 

 ness of the Earl and Countess of Derby), at Lathom 

 House (on the invitation of the Countess of Lathom), and 

 at I nee Blundell (the residence of Mr. T. Weld Blundell). 

 In addition, the Mayor of Southport will give a garden 

 party at Hesketh Park on Friday, September 2 1 ; and it 

 is rumoured that he will also have two afternoon recep- 

 tions, on days to be arranged hereafter, at his own resi- 

 dence, Woodbank. The Rev. C. Hesketh Knowlys, the 

 rector of the mother parish of North Meols, will also 

 give a garden party in his grounds. 



The three railway companies running into the town, 

 two of which have terminal stations at Southport, are all 

 offering advantages and facilities in order to help making 

 the meeting a success. For instance, the London and 

 North Western Railway will run through carriages to 

 Southport on September 17, iS, and 19, from London 

 (Euston Station), Willesden Junction, Northampton, 

 Stafford, and Crewe, by the 7.15 a.m., 11 a.m., 1.30 p.m., 

 3.0 p.m., and 4.0 p.m. trains, and similar arrangements 

 will be carried out for the return journey. 



Liberal arrangements have also been made by the 

 local railway companies for the benefit of excursionists to 

 the many attractive districts in the north and west of 

 England. 



The arrangements at the Reception Room in Cam- 

 bridge Hall will be of the usual complete kind at these 

 gatherings, including postal, telegraph, ticket, reserved 

 seats, lodgings, inquiry, lost property, daily journal, 

 members' lists, local programme, guide-book, and other 

 departments. The hall has been newly decorated through- 

 out for the occasion, and, when furnished and in full 

 work, will doubtless bear favourable comparison with 

 similar rooms at previous meetings of the Association. 

 The telephone will also be brought into play, so as to 

 connect all the Section Rooms both with the Reception 

 Room and the Winter Gardens, as well as with the prin- 

 cipal hotels and other large establishments in the town. 



A local fund has been raised of over 2600/., and 

 strenuous efforts are being made to increase that amount 

 to 3000/. This will most probably be accomplished. 



Looking to all these facts — bearing in mind that South- 

 port has a promenade of over a mile facing the sea, on 

 which are three of the chief hotels and a string of hand- 

 private residences and lodging-houses ; a pier, 

 which, with its extension, is within a few hundred yards 

 of a mile in length ; the boulevards (in Lord Street and 



its continuations east and west), bordered by handsome 

 edifices, public buildings of no mean architectural pre- 

 tension, banks, &c. — enough has been said to justify the 

 hope that Lancashire will once more distinguish herself 

 as the hostess of the British Association, as she 

 undoubtedly did in 1S70 (the last time that it met 

 within her borders), when, under the presidency of Prof. 

 Huxley at Liverpool, one of the most characteristic, as 

 well as one of the most numerously attended and in every 

 way brilliant and successful meetings of the British Asso- 

 ciation was held. 



PROFESSOR HAECKEL ON CEYLON 

 A Visit to Ceylon. By Ernst Haeckel ; Translated by 

 Clara Bell. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co., 

 1883.) 



WHEN a man of scientific genius writes a popular 

 book, it will generally be found to be either a 

 great success or a great failure ; mediocrity, as a rule, 

 does not attend the work of such a man in either direc- 

 tion. Now Prof. Haeckel is already well known to all 

 the world as one of the few leaders in science whose 

 literary ability is on a level with his more professional 

 attainments, and whose genius is therefore exhibited in 

 exposition as conspicuously as it is in research. Thus it 

 was that when we heard he intended to publish a popular 

 account of his six months' travel in the tropics, we ex- 

 pected a great treat in the way of literary performance. 

 We had, of course, read a good deal about Ceylon before, 

 and thus knew that it was a part of the world which in 

 point alike of natural scenery and natural history was 

 well calculated to arouse the enthusiasm of such an 

 artistic-minded naturalist as Prof. Haeckel ; and knowing 

 that his pen can paint almost as vividly as his brush, we 

 were prepared for something of unusual interest in the 

 story of his " Visit to Ceylon." Perhaps, therefore, it is 

 not possible to say anything in higher praise of his book 

 than that it has even surpassed our anticipations. The 

 man of science has retired, as it were, into the back- 

 ground, and left the way clear for the man of letters, the 

 shrewd observer of men and things, the poetic lover of 

 Nature — the frank, open-hearted, wide-minded German 

 character which finds so admirable an expression in this 

 great German biologist. Whether he is diving down among 

 the coral reefs, forgetting his wounds in the keen joy of 

 exploring the beauty and the wonder of those biological 

 treasure-houses, or whether he is scrambling to the 

 " World's End " through almost untrodden and untread- 

 able jungles 8000 feet above the sea ; whether he is 

 moving in English society and deeming it needlessly 

 formal in the matter of dressing for dinner under a 

 tropical climate, which has turned his carefully-provided 

 swallow-tail coat as white as a sheet with mildew ; or 

 whether he is living for six weeks at a time zoologising in 

 a remote native village without ever seeing a white man — 

 wherever he is and whatever he is about, we are alike 

 charmed by the character of the man which unconsciously 

 looks out at us in every page, and throws around him, as 

 it were, a halo of romance. 



We have said that in all this the man of science has 

 been allowed to retire into the background. But not on 

 this account has the man of science been idle. Prof. 



