190 
NATURE 
[ DECEMBER 24, 1903 
ANNOUNCEMENT is made that Sir J. S. Burdon-Sanderson, 
F.R.S., regius professor of medicine at Oxford, has placed 
his resignation of the professorship in the hands of the vice- 
chancellor of the university. 
Tue Mysore Durbar has, says the Pioneer Mail, estab- 
lished four scholarships of 40 rupees a month each to 
encourage the study of analytical chemistry in the labor- 
atory of the agricultural department. The scholarships will 
be tenable for one year, and will be open to candidates 
who have taken the B.A. degree in physical or any other 
branch of natural science. Students awarded scholarships 
will have to give an undertaking to serve the State for one 
year if required to do so, or to refund the money in case 
they refuse to serve. 
IN a recent address at the distribution of prizes to the 
students of the classes held under the Liverpool School of 
Science subcommittee, Sir Philip Magnus, referring to the 
progress made in the provision of technical education in 
this country during the last few years, said that in 1886 the 
number of students in technological classes registered by 
the City Guilds Institute was 7660, and, during the past 
session, that number has increased to 38,638. Moreover, 
apart from the sum of more than 1,000,0001. which local 
authorities expended last year on technical instruction as 
defined by the Technical Instruction Act, the State con- 
tributed the sum of 605,143/., as against a total of 107,583]. 
in the year 1886, whilst the total State contribution last 
year to education generally amounted to more than 
9,000,000/., as against little more than 3,000,000l. in 1886. 
AN appeal is being issued by the Senate of the University 
of London for funds to build and endow an institute of 
medical sciences under the control of the university. <A 
letter signed by the chancellor of the university, Lord 
Rosebery, the vice-chancellor, principal and others has 
been circulated urging the claims of such an_ institute. 
Owing to the great changes which have taken place in 
medical education of late years, due to the increasing atten- 
tion given to the teaching of the scientific subjects, it has 
become impossible, the letter states, for each medical school, 
out of the income derived from the fees of students, to 
build, equip, and maintain the laboratories, fitted with 
costly apparatus, which are necessary for modern scientific 
teaching. The faculty of medicine, a body consisting of 350 
recognised teachers of the university, has ascertained the 
views of the teachers of the medical schools, and has re- 
commended the Senate to establish an institute for the 
teaching of physics, chemistry, biology, anatomy, and 
physiology. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
Lonpon. 
Royal Astronomical Society, December 11.—Prof. 
H. H. Turner, F.R.S., president, in the chair.—Dr. 
A, A. Rambaut read a paper on two drawings of the Mare 
Serenitatis by John Russell, R.A., which afforded some 
hitherto unpublished evidence with regard to the appear- 
ance of Linné in 1788. Dr. Rambaut showed photographs 
of the original drawings, on which Linné appeared as a 
white spot, and not as a crater.—Mr. Saunder showed and 
described a photograph of one of the earliest maps of the 
moon, made by Langrenus about 1645.—The Astronomer 
Royal showed photographs of Comet Borrelly 1903 and 
Comet Perrine 1902, and pointed out their great similarity 
in appearance.—The Astronomer Royal also gave an account 
of the observations of the recent shower of Leonid meteors 
on the morning of November 16.—Mr. Denning’s paper 
on the same subject was also read. There was complete 
agreement among the observers as to the maximum being 
between 17h. 30m. and 18h.—Mr. J. C. W. Herschel read 
a paper on an examination of the relative star density on 
different parts of the plates forming the Harvard photo- 
graphic star map, from which it appeared that the maxi- 
mum density was at about 9° from the centre of the plate, 
after which it fell off very rapidly.—Mr. Crommelin pre- 
sented his ephemerides for physical observations of Saturn, 
NO. 1782, VOL. 69] 
1903-4, and gave the different values that had been found 
for the planet’s rotation period.—The secretary read a 
paper by Prof. G. W. Hough on the rotation period of 
Saturn deduced from his observations of the white spot 
first observed by Prof. Barnard on June 15.—Mr. Maunder 
read a letter from Mr. Percival Lowell, in which the latter 
affirmed his conviction of the reality of the canals of Mars, 
and also of the markings on Venus.—Prof. Turner de- 
scribed his graphical method for determining the local or 
Greenwich time of sunset at different places within a given 
region, and Mr. Benson spoke of a somewhat similar 
method previously devised by him.—The secretary read a 
paper by Mr. P. H. Cowell on the semidiameter, 
parallactic inequality, and variation of the moon derived 
from the Greenwich meridian observations from 1847-0 to 
1g01-5.—Mr. H. C. Plummer described and illustrated his 
paper on oscillating satellites. 
Zoological Society, December 1.—Dr. Henry Woodward, 
F.R.S., vice-president, in the chair.—Prof. E. Ray 
Lankester, F.R.S., exhibited and made remarks upon some 
specimens of Medusze reported to come from the Victoria 
Nyanza. Prof. Lankester also exhibited some drawings 
showing the hair-whorls on the face of two specimens of 
the okapi—Mr. F. E. Beddard, F.R.S., exhibited and 
made remarks upon a portion of the large intestine and the 
cecum of a boa (Boa constrictor) which had died in the 
Society’s Gardens. The walls of the intestine in the neigh- 
bourhood of the cacum and of the caecum itself were 
thickened and inflamed. The czecum was filled with a hard 
mass consisting of small stones and a number of the snake’s 
own teeth, the presence of which, it was thought, had given 
rise to the inflammation.—Mr. Beddard also exhibited, on 
behalf of Mr. G. A. Doubleday, a hairless specimen of the 
common rat (Mus decumanus) which agreed in_ its 
characters with a so-called variety (Mus nudo-plicatus) of 
the common mouse figured in the Society’s Proceedings 
(1856, p. 38, mamm. pl. xli.).—Dr. Walter Kidd exhibited 
a drawing of an Oryx beisa showing a reversed area of 
hair along the median line of the back, a character which 
was found only in ruminants, but not in all of them.— 
Mr. Oldfield Thomas exhibited an example of the naked 
rodent which he had in 1885 described as Heterocephalus 
phillipst, but now thought should form a special genus, 
proposed to be called Fornamia, as its possession of only 
two cheek-teeth proved to be constant. The specimen had 
been presented to the British Museum by Dr. A. G. W. 
Bowen, R.N. A second species of Heterocephalus, dis- 
tinguished by its smaller size and much smaller teeth, was 
described from British East Africa and named H. ansorgei. 
—Mr. G. A. Boulenger, F.R.S., exhibited a young hybrid 
newt (Molge marmorata $ x M. cristata Q) obtained by 
Dr. Wolterstorff, of Magdeburg, in his aquarium, as re- 
ported in the Zoologischer Anzeiger, September 21. This 
specimen agrees in all external characters with M,. blasii, 
de I’Isle, of which one of the original specimens, from near 
Nantes, S. Brittany, forming part of M. Lataste’s collection, 
was also exhibited.—Mr. F. E. Beddard, F.R.S., read a 
paper on the tongue and windpipe of the American vultures, 
and remarked upon the inter-relations of the genera 
Sarcorhamphus, Gypagus, and Cathartes.—A communica- 
tion from Miss Dorothy M. A. Bate contained an account 
of the species of mammals—fifteen in number—hitherto re- 
corded from Cyprus. One subspecies—Crocidura russula 
cypria—was described as new to science.—The secretary, on 
behalf of Dr. R. N. Salaman, read a report on the 
post-mortem examination of the polar bear which had 
recently died in the Gardens. It stated that death was un- 
doubtedly due to an aneurism of the aorta, which was 
possibly caused by a sharp bone at some previous time 
penetrating the cesophageal wall and lacerating the aortic 
wall.—A communication from Sir Charles Eliot, K.C.M.G., 
contained an account of thirty species of cryptobranchiate 
molluscs of the family Doridida from the east coast of 
Africa and Zanzibar. Of these eighteen were described as 
new.—A communication from Dr. A. G. Butler contained 
evidence in proof of the fact that the cardinal finch known 
as Paroaria cervicalis was only an immature condition of 
P. capitata.—Dr. P. Chalmers Mitchell read a paper on 
the occasional transformation of Meckel’s diverticulum in 
birds into a gland. 
