356 
NATURE 
[ FEBRUARY II, 1897 
nection with the post of lecturer to the Committee. There 
is a difficulty in obtaining a competent mam at the salary 
originally decided upon. 
THE Technical Education Committee of the Berkshire County 
Council have advised the Council to establish four agricultural 
exhibitions of the value of £35 each, to be open to boys be- 
tween fourteen and sixteen, and tenable for two years at the 
Dauntsey Agricultural School, which has been established to 
give a thoroughly practical instruction in the various branches of 
farm work. 
THE Committee of Graduates of the University of London 
unanimously resolved, at a recent meeting :— ‘‘ That the Com- 
mittee of Graduates of the University of London in favour of 
the scheme of Lord Cowper’s Commission, express the earnest 
hope that her Majesty’s Government will again introduce a Bill 
for the creation of a statutory commission for the reconstitution 
of the University of London, and assure the Government that 
such a measure will have their active support.” 
THE Chairman of the Leicestershire Technical Education 
Committee informed the County Council, at their meeting on 
the 3rd inst., that at the present time there was not a single 
student from Leicestershire at the Midland Dairy Institute, 
though there were as many as forty last spring. This is owing 
to the fact that Leicestershire only interests itself in the practice 
of cheese-making, which cannot be satisfactorily carried out in 
the winter. But since there are so many branches of agriculture 
which can be properly studied during the winter months, it 
seems a misfortune that Leicestershire should reap no advantage 
from its contributions to the support of the Dairy Institute during 
so large a part of the year. 
THE following are among recent appointments :—Dr. Johann 
Riickert to be professor of anatomy in the University of 
Munich; Dr, Liznar to be professor of meteorology and 
terrestrial magnetism in the Technical High School at Vienna ; 
Dr. R. Schiissler to be professor of geometry in the Technical 
High School at Graz; Dr. C. J. Martin to be provisionally the 
successor to Dr. G. B. Halford as professor cf physiology in the 
University of Sydney ; Dr. Arnaldo Maggiora to be professor 
of experimental hygiene in Modena University ; Dr. A. Serafina 
to be professor of experimental hygiene in the University of 
Padua. Among recent calls are:—Dr. Felix Auerbach, of 
Jena, to be professor of physics at Strasburg; Dr. Franz, 
assistant in the Observatory of Kénigsberg, to be associate pro- 
fessor of astronomy at Breslau. 
Ir is announced in the Zazcet, that the present Lord Rector 
of the University of St. Andrews—the Marquis of Bute—has 
undertaken to erect at his own cost, under certain conditions, 
four new laboratories, lecture-rooms, museums, work-rooms, 
Xc., for the departments of anatomy, physiology, materia 
medica, and botany. These laboratories will be provided with 
al modern appliances for teaching and research purposes. 
They will form a most important addition to the existing natural 
philosophy, natural history, and chemical departments. As the 
laboratories are to be built apart from the existing colleges on 
ground of their own, they will, of necessity, form the head- 
quarters of the extended medical school there, which school will 
henceforth be known as the ‘‘ Bute School of Medicine,” in 
commemoration of the generous donour. 
AT a recent meeting of the Senate of the University of 
Wales, the question of fellowships, scholarships, exhibitions 
and prizes, to be established in connection with the University, 
was again discussed. The Senate recommended that there 
should be four fellowships of at least £100 per annum, tenable 
for two years, with possible renewal for a third year in recogni- 
tion of exceptional merit. The prizes will be open both to 
graduates and undergraduates, and will be awarded for excel- 
lence of attainment in departments of study recognised by the 
University. The fellowships, scholarships, and exhibitions will 
be confined to graduates of the University. Fellowships will 
be only conferred for very distinguished merit, and will be 
tenable on condition of residence at some approved seat of 
learning or research, and on the active pursuit of original in- 
vestigation. They will be awarded by the Court on the recom- 
mendation of the Senate, the Senate acting on the recommend- 
ation of a small Standing Committee specially appointed for 
this purpose. The Standing Committee will require informa- 
Hon as to the subjects of research or advanced study to which 
NO. 1424, VOL. 55 | 
candidates propose to devote themselves, and (in the event of 
their election) receive from time to time reports as to their 
work and progress. 
WE are glad that the Prince of Wales has again shown his 
interest in the excellent work of the Technical Education Board 
of the London County Council, by presiding at the distribution 
of prizes and certificates on Friday last. The magnitude of the 
work of the Board is shown by the fact that the number of 
scholars and exhibitioners who were elected in 1896 is 893, 
made up as follows :—5 senior county scholars ; 70 intermediate 
county scholars ; 588 junior county scholars ; 18 schools of art 
scholars ; 21 artisan art scholars ; 95 junior artisan evening art 
exhibitioners ; 85 evening science exhibitioners; 2 horticul- 
tural scholars; 9 domestic economy training scholars. The 
total pecuniary value of these scholarships and exhibitions 
amounts to about £40,000. Theamount placed at the disposal 
of the Board for the coming year is £150,000. In the course 
of an address at the close of the presentation of the certificates, 
the Prince of Wales pointed out that the Technical Education 
Board has made grants to University College, King’s 
College, and Bedford College, under such conditions as are cal- 
culated to place the highest technical teaching of these institu- 
tons within the reach of those students who could not otherwise 
afford to devote several of the best years of their lives to a 
course of University study. Under these conditions evening 
classes in certain subjects, especially in those connected with 
mechanical and electrical engineering, have been conducted on 
precisely the same lines as the day classes, and by the same 
professors and lecturers ; and on Saturdays the professors have 
undertaken to give instruction in several classes to teachers, who 
thus enjoy the advantages of all the resources of the best 
University institutions. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
LONDON. 
Royal Society, January 21.—‘‘ Experiments on Examination 
of the Peripheral Distribution of the Fibres of the Posterior 
Roots of some Spinal Nerves, Part II.” By C. S. Sherrington, 
F.R.S., Holt Professor of Physiology, University College, 
Liverpool. Received November 12, 1896. 
This paper is in continuation of one brought before the Society 
in 1892, and published in P&z’. Zrans., vol. 184, B. The 
communication is divided into four sections. In Section I. the 
field of peripheral distribution of each root is described from the 
Vth cervical to the lower end of the brachial region. Particular 
attention was paid to the question of the skin-fields of the 
several divisions, ophthalmic, maxillary, and mandibular of the 
cranial Vth, in order to see if the fields possessed the characters 
of segmental skin-fields, or those of peripheral nerve-trunk skin- 
fields. They were found to conform with the latter, not with 
the former. A curious relation of the posterior edge of the field 
of the Vth to the external ear is found to exist, indicating that 
the position of the visceral cleft is still adhered to as a boundary 
line for the field of the trigeminus. The sense of taste as well 
as of touch is found to be destroyed in the anterior two-thirds of 
the tongue after intracranial section of the Vth; this makes it - 
extremely doubtful whether the corda tympani can have gustatory 
functions in the monkey, as has been believed in some cases in 
man. No loss of eye-movements, or interference with them, 
has been found to result from intracranial section of the Vth. 
After cranial Vth and all the upper cervical posterior roots 
have been severed, there still persists a small field of sentient 
skin, which includes the external auditory meatus and a part of 
the pinna. This field, although not corresponding to the 
situation given by anthropotomists to the distribution of the 
auricular branch of the vagus, may come either from it or the 
glossopharyngeal. It presents interest as being the only field 
representing the whole cutaneous distribution of a nerve, which 
does not conform with the rules of zonal distribution holding 
good in the case of each of the other nerve-roots examined, and 
these now include the whole craniospinal series. The posterior 
root of the Ist cervical nerve has a skin-field in the cat, which 
includes the pinna. The posterior root of the same nerve in 
Macacus has no skin-field at all, its skin-field having apparently 
been included in the IInd cervical of Macacus, not in the cranial 
Vth. The root fields contributing to the surface of the brachial 
limb are IIIrd, 1Vth, Vth, VIth, VIIth, and VIIIth cervical, 
