Jan. i, 1885] 



NA TURE 



209 



As regards the technological examinations, Mr. Mat 

 that four years ago the institute took over these examinations 

 from the Society of Arts, which had previously conducted 

 them under somewhat different conditions. The candidates 

 have increased very much during these four years, 1 

 those in mechanical trades. At the time of the transfer of the 

 examinations, the number of candidates was 212, whereas this 

 year, iSSj, the number of candidates amounted to 2397. 



The Council of the Institute are very desirous that scholar- 

 ships should be established in connection with the Finsbury 

 College and other similar technical Colleges throughout the 

 kingdom, to enable promising pupils to carry on their education 

 at the Central Institution. If children could be taught sufficient 

 mathematics and elementary science to be transferred from the 

 Board schools to the Finsbury College, or to some other techni- 

 cal school, and thence to the Central Institution, he considered 

 the ladder of technical education would be complete. 



lie thought that the Board might further aid in assisting 

 technical education by the loan of its rooms for the formation of 

 evening classes, it being always understood that, in order that 

 the instruction should be of any use, it must be of a practical 

 character, and that the classes should be well furnished with all 

 necessary models, apparatus, &c. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 



INTELLIGENCE 



Mr. THOMAS Purdie, Ph.D., B.Sc, Associate of the Royal 



School of Mines, has been appointed Professor of Chemistry in 



the University of St. Andrews, vacant by the retirement of Dr. 



Heddle. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 

 London 

 Linnean Society, December 4, 1SS4. — William Carruthers, 

 F.R.S., Vice-President, in the chair. — The following were 

 elected Fellows of the Society: — The Hon. F. S. Dobson, 

 \V. A. Haswell, Geo. W. Oldfield, Dr. G. W. Parker, M. C. 

 . T. J. Symonds, W. A. Talbot, and J. H. Tompson. — 

 Mr. \V. T. Thiselton Dyer exhibited : — (1) Examples of leaves of 

 Sagitlaria montevidensis under different modes of cultivation, 

 inges thus induced as regards size and general facies being 

 most remarkable, so much so that they might be deemed widely 

 ite genera. The small leaves were from a plant raised 

 from seeds collected in Chili by Mr. J. Pall. F.R.S., and sent 

 to Kew in 1883, and grown in a pot half submerged in the 

 Nympkaa tank. The enormously large leaf and spike were 

 those of a plant raised from seeds, ripened at Kew, and sown in 

 spring (18S4). When strung enough the plant was planted in 

 a bed of muddy soil, kept saturated by means of a pipe running 

 from the bed to the Nymphaa tank. (2) A special and peculiar 

 instrument called a " Ladanisterion," from Crete, it being a 

 kind of double rake with leathern thongs instead of teeth, and 

 used in the collecting of gum Labdanum, a drug now dropped 

 out of modern pharmacy. The instrument in question was 

 procured for the Kew Museum by Mr. Sandwith, H.M. Consul 

 in Crete. (3) A collection of marine Algae from West Australia, 

 brought to this country by Lady Eroome. — A paper was read 

 by Dr. Francis Day on the relationship of Indian and African 

 fresh-water fish- fauna. In this communication the author 

 refers to certain papers of his, read before the Society on previous 

 occasions, but he more particularly deals with the differences shown 

 n his own statements therein and those subsequently given 

 by Hr. Gunther in his " Introduction to the Study of Fishes." 

 Dr. Day is inclined to believe that in the consideration of Indian 

 fish distribution there seems a possibility that certain marine 

 . for example, the Acanthopterygian Laics, the Siluroid 

 family Ariinse, and others have been included among the fresh- 

 water fauna by Dr. Gunther, whereas fresh-water genera, such 

 assis, several genera of the Gobies, Sicydium, Cobius, 

 Elect t > is, &c. , have been omitted from the fresh- water fauna of 

 India by Dr. Gunther. Thus Dr. Day attempts to show that 

 there may be less affinity between the African and Indian 

 regions, so far as fresh-water fishes are concerned, than there is 

 between his restricted Indian region and that of the Malay 

 Archipelago. He adds that of 87 genera found in India, Ceylon, 

 and Burmah, 14 extend to Africa, 44 to the Malay Archipelago, 

 whereas out of 369 species only 4 extend to Africa and 29 to the 



Malay Archipelago. — On the growth of trees and protoplasmic 

 continuity, was a paper by Mr. A. Tylor, giving his experiments 

 in the curvature assumed by branches, particularly those of the 

 horse-chestnut. He pointed out that the terminal bud is con- 

 stantly directed upward, but is straightened out at a later stage 

 of growth. Further, he found that terminal buds, when directed 

 by being tied against a tree-trunk or plank, invariably turned 

 away from the obstruction irrespective of the incidence of light. 

 When the growing points of neighbouring branches were turned 

 directly towards each other, they mutually turned aside or one 

 stopped growth. Some co-ordinating system svas necessary to 

 enable the ] arts to act in concert, and he attributes this to a 

 continuity of the threads of protoplasm. — A paper was read on 

 Heterolepidotus grandis, a fossil fish from the Lias, by James W. 

 Davis. The author describes the specialities of this form, and 

 remarks that the genus had been instituted by Sir Philip Egerton 

 for certain forms closely related to Lepidotus, but differing in 

 their dentition and scaly armature. The // grandis has interest, 

 among other things, in the attachment of the dorsal and anal 

 fins with the series of well-developed interspinous bones, in the 

 peculiar arrangement of the articular apparatus of the pectoral 

 tins, and in the heterocercal form of the tail. 



Chemical Society, December 18, 1884. — Dr. Russell, 

 F.R.S., in the chair. — The following gentlemen were elected 

 Fellows :— W. P. Ashe, Sir B. V. S. Brodie, Bart., J. F. 

 Ballard, W. Briggs, M. T. Buchanan, W. G. Brown, H. M. 

 Chapman, W. H. Eley, J. Frost, T. P. Hall, 11. J. Hodges, 

 H. Jackson, F. Johnson, J. D. Johnstone, G. F. Kendall, C. 

 W. Low, F. M. Mercer, P. C. Porter, V. E. Terez, A. Rickard, 

 K. B. B. Sorabji, R. B. Steele, H. Smith, E. G. Smith, C-. 

 Thorn, W. Tate, P. C. Thomas, T. Wilton, J. II. Worrall, W. 

 C. Wise, W. H. Wood. — The following paper was read : — 

 Chemico-physiological investigations on the cephalopod liver 

 and its identity as a true pancreas, by A. B. Griffiths. The 

 author could not detect any bile acids or glycogen in this organ, 

 but a ferment obtained from it by glycerine converted starch 

 paste into sugar, and formed from fibrin, obtained from the mus- 

 cular fibres of a young mouse, leucin and tyrosin, the latter body 

 giving, with a neutral solution of mercuric nitrate, a red pre- 

 cipitate. It was announced that at the next meeting, January 

 15, Prof. Thorpe would read a paper on the atomic weight of 

 titanium, and that Dr. Frankland would give a lecture in 

 February on chemical changes produced by micro-organisms. 



Royal Microscopical Society, December 10, 1884. — Rev. 

 Dr. Dallinger, F.R.S., President, in the chair. — Mr. Crisp ex- 

 hibited Dr. Cox's radial microscope, a simplified form of Mr. 

 Wenham's stand. — Mr. J. Mayall, jun., exhibited a new stage 

 which he had devised, in which the thin upper plate was abo- 

 lished and a frame to hold the slide substituted, which is not 

 liable to flexure. — Mr. Crisp also exhibited Ward's eye-shade, 

 Bausch's adapter for a spot lens, and Kain's mechanical finger. 

 — Mr. Rosseter's paper on the gizzard of the larva of Corethra 

 plumicomis and its uses, and one of Mr. G. F. Dowdeswell, on 

 variations in the development of a Saccharomyces, were read 

 and discussed. — A communication was read from Dr. Cox, the 

 President of the American Society of Microscopists, expressing 

 scepticism as to the possibility of making sections of diatoms so 

 thin as those claimed by Dr. Flogel, as recently published in the 

 Society's Transactions. — Mr. Parsons exhibited the hydroid 

 form of Limnocodium Sawerbii, the fresh-water Medusa which 

 he had found in April last at the Botanic Gardens, 

 Park. — Dr. Zenger's method of mounting diatoms so as 10 show 

 both sides was explained, and some mounts exhibited. — Mr. 

 Cheshire gave a resume of his paper on some new point! in the 

 anatomy of the bee. It has long been known that the queen 

 bee, in common with many insects, stores the spermatozoa she 

 receives from the male in a small sac, which is called the 

 spermatheca. A long chain of evidence has also satisfied ento- 

 mologists that in some way these spermatozoa are transferre I to 

 those eggs which are to be converted into undeveloped females 

 known as workers, but the manner of this fertilisation has not 

 hitherto been demonstrated. By carefully dissecting out a 

 spermatheca with its attachment to the oviduc unbroken, and 

 then by 'needle-knives cutting through the trachea which incloses 

 it completely, the spermatheca and its valve m b isolated. It 

 is then seen to be accompanied by a long don gland having 

 a centrally-placed duct, provided with a sphi] r muscle near 

 its junction with the aperture of the spermatheca. The sperma- 

 theca itself carries a sphincter and three muscl 'to aid and 



