DECEMBER 24, 1903] 
NATURE 
189 
Spanish women have made little use of the facilities offered. 
In Sweden, women appear to be excluded from the theo- 
logical faculties, but since a Royal decree of 1870 they 
have been able to take medical degrees, and from 1873 the 
legal and philosophical faculties have been open to them. 
The seven universities of Switzerland are, without excep- 
tion, open to women; the conditions under which they study 
vary somewhat in different univervities. 
AMERICA. 
All courses and degrees of Canadian universities are, as 
a rule, open to women on the same terms as men, though 
in some cases they study for medical degrees in separate 
medical schools. The colleges of the various universities 
do not generally possess boarding accommodation for the 
students, who reside in boarding houses approved by the 
college authorities. 
It is impossible at the end of a general article to do more 
than give one or two salient facts in reference to the higher 
education of the women of the United States. The report 
for 1899 of the Commissioner of Education states: ‘‘ The 
barriers to women’s higher education seem effectually re- 
moved, and to-day eight-tenths of the colleges, universities, 
and professional schools of the United States are open to 
The obtaining of a collegiate education 
gives the women more ambition to enter a profession, or if 
they decide to marry, it is stated that—* The advanced educa- 
tion they have received has added to their natural endow- 
ments, wisdom, strength, patience, balance, and self-control 
- and that in addition to a wise discharge of their 
domestic duties, their homes have become centres of scien- 
tific or literary study or of philanthropy in the communi- 
ties in which they live.’ ”’ 
The number of women undergraduate and resident 
graduate students in the colleges of university standing in 
the United States in the year 1900-1 was very nearly 47,000, 
and of these about 21,500 studied in colleges side by side 
with men. During this year 5050 degrees were conferred 
on women, nearly half as many as were gained by men, viz. 
11,463. 
Such are, in the barest outline, the leading facts as to 
the attitude of the more important countries towards the 
higher education of their women. The reader who desires 
more detailed knowledge should refer to the following sources 
of information, upon which the writer has largely based 
his conclusions :—‘‘ Handbook of British, Continental and 
Canadian Universities, with Special Mention of the Courses 
Open to Women,’’ ‘‘ Supplement to ditto, for 1897,’’ by 
Dr. Isabel Maddison (New York: the Macmillan Co.). 
“Educational Systems of Great Britain and Ireland,’’ by 
Graham Balfour (Oxford: Clarendon Press). ‘* Education 
in the Nineteenth Century,’’ edited by Dr. R. D. Roberts 
(Cambridge: University Press). ‘‘ Growth of Educational 
Ideals during the 19th Century,”’ by Sara A. Burstall (The 
School World, 1902). ‘‘ Englishwoman’s Year-Book, 1903 ”’ 
(Black). ‘‘ Annual Reports of the Department of the 
Interior,’’ by the Commissioner of Education (Washington : 
Government Printing Office). 
A. T. Simmons. 
CAVE EXPLORATION IN IRELAND. 
HERE is little doubt that the visit, a few years back, of 
the enthusiastic M. Martel, whose ‘‘Irlande et 
Cavernes anglaises ’’ forms such pleasant reading, did much 
to rouse new interest in Irish caves. Dr. Forsyth Major 
soon after examined the Irish fossil Mammalia in the Dublin 
Museum of Science and Art, where Dr. Scharff was at the 
same time summarising his researches on the origins of 
the European fauna; on this question the pre-Glacial and 
post-Glacial Pleistocene remains naturally throw a consider- 
able light. Mr. R. J. Ussher, already distinguished by his 
published work on southern caves, was fortunately again 
willing to devote his time to exploration. Circumstances 
were thus favourable to the formation of a committee, 
1 “The Exploration of the Caves of Kesh, County Sligo, being the First 
Report of the Committee, consisting of Dr. R. F. Scharff (chairman), 
George Coffey, Prof. Grenville A. J. Cole, R. J. Ussher, and R. Lloyd 
Praeger (secretary), appointed to Explore Irish Caves”: (Trans. Royal 
Irish Academy, vol, xxxil. sect. B, part iv.). Pp. 46 and 3plates. (Dublin, 
1903). Price 2s. 
NO. 1782, VOL. 69] 
which, aided by grants from the Royal Irish Academy and 
the British Association, has examined certain caves near 
Ballymote, in the county of Sligo, and is actively engaged 
on others near Edenvale, in Clare. 
The present report is a well edited quarto paper, with 
several illustrations. Mr. George Coffey, keeper of the 
collection of Irish antiquities in the Dublin Museum, deals 
with the traces of human occupation, and, like most of the 
contributors, has personal knowledge of the caves. The 
geological section is greatly strengthened by the visit of 
Mr. G. W. Lamplugh to Keshcorran, and his association 
as joint-author in the report. Messrs. A. S. Kennard and 
B. B. Woodward describe the Mollusca, and are known as 
specialists in this comparatively unworked branch. Mr. 
E. T. Newton, F.R.S., has identified the remains of birds, 
while Prof. D. J. Cunningham, F.R.S., describes the scanty 
human bones. In work where wide deductions may be 
founded on a single fragmentary relic, this specialisation 
among the contributors cannot be too highly praised. 
Mr. Ussher’s general description provides an interesting 
introduction to the detailed essays. Messrs. Cole and 
Lamplugh then show that the caves depend for their form 
on the joint-planes in the massive limestone, and that they 
were excavated by solution in pre-Glacial times. Glacial 
detritus then became banked against the slope, and crept 
into the caves from their mouths. As the ice melted, 
characteristic mounds of similar material were deposited 
in the lowland below Keshcorran. 
A good part of the deposit within the caves is derived 
from the solution of the limestone, and includes character- 
istic bipyramidal crystals of quartz. A spicular crystalline 
material, mingled with the calcareous tufa, affecting 
polarised light, and soluble in acids, has unfortunately so 
far eluded determination. The possibility of the discovery 
of pre-Glacial remains in such caves in Ireland is pointed 
out. 5 
As Mr. Ussher indicates, in commenting on Mr. Newton’s 
list of the bones of birds from the caves, the smew, the grey 
plover, and the little auk are now rare inland, even in 
winter ; the discovery of their remains has therefore some 
bearing on the climate during their occupation of Kesh- 
corran. Dr. Scharff, in his account of the mammals, 
identifies the Arctic lemming, not previously known in 
Ireland. The remains of horse, obtained, with one excep- 
tion, from the upper stratum of the principal cave that was 
examined, show that “‘ horse-flesh probably formed one of 
the principal articles of diet of the cave-men.’’ The traces 
of the mountain or Irish hare, the true Lepus timidus of 
Linné, indicate a larger animal than that now prevalent 
in Ireland. Bear (Ursus arctos) is represented by a fine 
left ramus of a lower jaw and very numerous remains. 
The distribution of the bones of all these animals is easily 
realised from the small maps provided, on which those found 
in the upper stratum are indicated separately ftom those 
in the lower. 
Mr. George Coffey considers that man’s occupation of 
the caves does not date back to a very remote period. 
Charcoal is frequent in the upper layers, and its distribu- 
tion, together with the objects found, suggests a_ brief 
occupation of the caves in Neolithic times, and a more pro- 
longed settlement when bronze and iron were both common. 
This latter occupation seems to have been as recent as the 
eighth to the eleventh century of our era, and Mr. Coffey 
ingeniously pictures the bear as responsible for the general 
avoidance of the locality in earlier times. 
Mr. R. Lloyd Praeger, now editor to the Royal Irish 
Academy, summarises the results, and his detailed plan and 
the illustrative plates are worthy of the body which has 
undertaken their publication. GaAs Tene: 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
Pror. A. G. Bourne, F.R.S., professor of biology. at the 
Presidency College, is to take up the duties of Director of 
Public Instruction, Madras. 
Mr. H. J. Mackinper, lecturer in economic geography 
at the London School of Economics, has been. appointed 
director of the School in succession to Prof. W..A. S. 
Hewins, who has resigned the post. 
