Makcu 3, 1904] 
NATORE 
423 
passing the reports of the committees before they are pub- 
lished, controlling the expenditure, and devising the means 
of raising the necessary funds to carry on the work. This 
main committee has appointed twelve sectional committees, 
and under these again are eighteen subcommittees. The 
first report issued was that on standard rolled sections for 
constructional work, and the standard sections are now 
finding their way into use throughout the Government de- 
partments as well as the general trade of the country. 
Another committee has been engaged in drawing up a 
standard specification for steel used in the hulls of ships, 
and a small subcommittee is drafting a specification for 
boiler steel. The locomotive committee has drawn up and 
forwarded to the Secretary of State for India a report on 
the subject of standard types of locomotives for India. The 
subcommittee on tramway rails has published a series of 
standard sections and accompanying specification. Sub- 
committees on telegraphs and telephones and on cables have 
drafted respectively a standard specification for wires used 
in the construction of telegraphs and telephones, and 
standard lists of sizes of cables, &c. The secretary of the 
committee is Mr. Leslie S. Robertson, 28 Victoria Street, 
Westminster, S.W. 
At a general meeting of the fellows of the British 
Academy held on February 24, Prof. T. W. Rhys Davids 
read a paper on ‘‘ Oriental Studies in England and 
Abroad,’’ in which he made an interesting comparison 
between the facilities for higher teaching in Oriental sub- 
jects in this and in other countries. In the University of 
London there is an imposing array of names, but only one 
salary. At the old universities there are professors of 
Arabic whose stipends are nominal. There is the Boden 
professorship at Oxford, and at Cambridge Sanskrit 
is endowed out of college or university funds. Small 
grants are made at Oxford for Assyriology, for Semitic 
teaching at Dublin, and for Chinese at the older universi- 
ties. Advanced work in Persian is done at Cambridge, and 
to the list may be added a few readers in Indian law. Com- 
pare this with what is done in some Continental countries. 
Holland has eight fully paid chairs and eight readerships. 
Germany has fifty-one professors and fifty readers or 
teachers of lower grade. In Berlin the Oriental Seminar 
enjoys endowments of Soool. a year, and is attended by 162 
university students and 66 other hearers. None of these 
pay fees. In France there are fourteen professors, five 
assistant professors, and five native teachers, a library of 
35,000 volumes, and a valuable collection of MSS. In St. 
Petersburg Oriental learning is more recognised than 
perhaps anywhere else. 
Tue Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union is to be congratulated 
on the energy displayed by its members in collecting 
funguses. As the result of this, the January number of 
the Naturalist contains notices of no less than seventeen 
species not previously recorded from Britain, nine of these 
being regarded as new to science. The paper is illustrated 
with an excellent coloured plate, in which some of the more 
striking forms are depicted. 
HoLtows in the stems of oak-trees would apparently be 
the least likely places in which to find salamanders; never- 
theless, such situations are the haunt of the Californian 
Autodax lugubris. According to Prof. W. E. Ritter, in 
the American Naturalist for 1903, workmen employed in 
clearing oaks in the grounds of the California University 
took numbers of both the salamanders and their egg~ 
clusters from chinks and holes in the bark of these trees. 
NO. 1792, VOL. 69] 
Two other articles in the American Naturalist demand 
brief mention. In one Mr. H. W. Shimer continues 
the series devoted to the description of the adaptations of 
mammals to special modes of life, dealing in this instance 
with fossorial forms. In the other Prof. W. Patten returns 
to his favourite theory as to the arthropod affinities of the 
fish-like Pteraspis and Cephalaspis of the Old Red Sand- 
stone. The subject is rediscussed in considerable detail, 
the author dismissing the theory that the resemblance 
between the two groups is due to mimicry or parallelism 
as unworthy of credence, and reiterating his arguments in 
favour of their genetic affinity. Much importance is 
attached to the ‘‘ fringing lateral plates’’ of Cephalaspis 
as indicative of arthropod relationship. 
Tue habits and life-history of the helothurian Stichopus 
japonicus form the subject of an article by Dr. K. Mitsu- 
kuri in the first part of vol. v. of Annotationes Zoologicae 
Japonenses. As this creature forms a marketable com- 
modity, the author discusses the possibility of increasing 
the supply by cultivation and protection; its roving habits 
are, however, a bar to dividing up the shore into lots for 
separate leasing, after the fashion followed in the case of 
oy ster-beds. 
’ 
A SECOND edition of the ‘‘ Index Bryologicus,’’ compiled 
by M. E. G. Paris, is being published by A. Hermann, 
of Paris; all mosses will be included which were recorded 
before the year 1901. The work will consist of twenty-four 
or twenty-five parts, which will be brought out monthly at 
24 francs the part. The editor requests the collaboration 
of bryologists to send him information with regard to 
corrections or omissions, which will be collected into an 
appendix. 
Tue pioneer work which has been carried out by the 
British Cotton-Growing Association in introducing cotton 
cultivation into our colonial possessions is already beginning 
to show results, and now that the Colonial Office has 
promised to render its valuable assistance, the success of the 
scheme seems to be practically ensured. It is significant to 
find that during the last few weeks samples of cotton grown 
at Ibadan from American seed have arrived from Lagos 
which favourably with the ordinary upland 
American cotton. In the West Indies the Sea Island variety 
has been sown, and it is expected that during this year 
20,000 acres will be under cultivation. Samples received 
from this source have been valued at prices ranging from 
1s. to 1s. 4d. per lb. It is intended to introduce cotton into 
British East Africa and Rhodesia, and samples have already 
been received from British Central Africa. 
compare 
By arrangement with Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co., 
Messrs. Watts and Co. have issued for the Rationalist Press 
Association, Ltd., at sixpence, ‘‘ An Agnostic’s Apology,”’ 
by the late Sir Leslie Stephen, K.C.B. 
WE have received the issue for the present year of the 
“* Annuaire de 1’Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres 
et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique.’’ In addition to the usual 
lists of members and committees, the volume contains bio- 
graphical notices of MM. C. de la Vallée-Poussin and 
P. Benoit, and a historical account of the Royal Academy 
by M. le Chev. Edm. Marchal. 
Tne twenty-fourth annual report of the Wellington 
College Natural Science Society affords interesting evidence 
of the good work which such associations can accomplish 
in connection with public schools. The sectional reports 
