562 



NATURE 



[April 1 6, 1885 



Nancy. Meantime the recruiting of lawyers and doctors 

 goes on at Strasburg with foreign elements, not without 

 some regret on the part of the native inhabitants. But 

 little by little the force of circumstances is tending to 

 bring the young Alsatians to constitute the University of 

 Strasburg in spite of sentiment. Instead of 69 students, 

 natives of Alsace-Lorraine, registered in 1872, the Univer- 

 sity registers showed 252 in 1884— a notable increase. 

 As against 5,990 matriculated students at the University 

 of Berlin, 3,399 at Leipzig, 2,276 at Munich, 1,646 at 

 Breslau, 1,452 at Halle, 723 at Heidelberg, 625 at Frei- 

 burg, there were to be reckoned but 858 at Strasburg 

 during the summer semester of 1SS4. No doubt this 

 number will increase rapidly ; for in no other centre of 

 the higher education are the means of work so abundantly 

 provided. As to the professorial staff, it includes many 

 celebrities, amongst whom may be named Labaud in the 

 faculty of law ; Reuss in the faculty of theology ; Brentano, 

 Krapp, and Merkel in political science ; Kussmaul, Lucke, 

 and Recklingshausen in the faculty of medicine ; Gerland, 

 Michaelis, and Studemond in the faculty of philosophy ; 

 Kundt. Benecke, von Bary, and Fittig in the faculty of 

 natural sciences. In selecting these names we do not 

 forget the gloryof the former university of the last century, 

 when Strasburg had amongst the number of its celebrities 

 Profs. Blessig, Lauth, Schcepnin, Schweighasuser, Oberlin, 

 worthy predecessors of the Duvernoys, Schimpers, Ger- 

 hardts, Pasteurs, Daubrees, Se"diIlots, Janets, Fustels, 

 Coulanges, Forgets, and Kusses of our time. On August 

 6th, 1771, Goethe graduated doctor of laws of the Univer- 

 sity of Strasburg, with a thesis on the respective rights of 

 State and Church. If to-day the new University has as 

 an accessory function that of contributing to the Germani- 

 sation of the annexed provinces, it may at least be said 

 that the staff of professors of the older university of last 

 century had rallied to French politics in the most open 

 manner. Witness the address to King Louis XV. dated 

 October 6th, 1744 :— " Sire, the most faithful of the univer- 

 sities in your kingdom offers to your Majesty its homage 

 and its good wishes. Penetrated with joy at the convales- 

 cence and at the arrival of its august monarch, it to-day, 

 Sire, finds united in you the father of the people, the 

 protector of the muses, the liberator of Alsace, and the 

 hero. It is to these glorifications of your rare virtues, 

 great king, that we consecrate our work, happy if our 

 words may correspond to the effusion of our hearts, and 

 merit the continuation of the good graces of the most 

 puissant and most beloved of the sovereigns of Europe." 

 Formerly the Acaddmie of Strasburg took up the special 

 task of serving as an intermediary between France and 

 Germany for the propagation of ideas and of the scientific 

 movement. More richly endowed, the new University, 

 applying its greater powers to the development of the 

 human mind, will recognise that the representatives of 

 the people of Alsace-Lorraine have wished to promote its 

 efforts in the largest and most generous manner in the 

 higher interests of science. Science ought to contribute 

 to the union of the people ; it has no exclusive national 

 character, and it serves to advance the reign of peace in 

 the world by assuring to us greater prosperity and greater 

 light, whilst developing in us all the love of our own 

 country. 



NOTES 



The Royai Medals of the Royal Geographical Society will 

 this year be awarded to Mr. Joseph Thomson and Mr. H. E. 

 O'Neill — to the former for his well-known work in Africa, 

 and to the latter for his thirteen journeys of exploration 

 along the coast and in the interior of Mozambique. The 

 Murchison Grant for 1SS5 will be awarded to the Pandit 

 Kreshna for his four explorations made while attached to the 

 Survey of India, and especially for his extensive and important 



journey in the interior of Tibet. The Back Grant goes to Mr. 

 W. O. Hodkinson for his Australian explorations, and the 

 Cuthbert Peek Grant to Mr. J. T. Last for his surveys and 

 ethnological researches in the Southern Masai, Nguru, and 

 other neighbouring countries. The following will be made 

 Honorary Corresponding Members : — Chief-Justice Daly, Presi- 

 dent of the Geographical Society of New York ; M. Elisee 

 Reclus, the eminent geographer ; and Herr Moritz von Dechy, 

 the distinguished Austrian explorer of the Sikkim Himalayas, 

 the Caucasus, and other regions. 



It is announced that the next meeting of the American Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Science will be held on August 

 26 and following days, at Ann Arbor, Mich. 



At the annual conference of the French learned societies, 

 which met on the 8th inst. in Paris, MM. Faye, Mascart, and 

 Darboux, were appointed president and vice-presidents respect- 

 ively of the section for the mathematical and physical sciences ; 

 and MM. de Quatrefages, Milne-Edwards, and Maunoir to the 

 same offices in the section for geographical and natural sciences. 



M. Herve-Mangon, the new French Minister of Agriculture, 

 is a Member of the Academy of Sciences in the Section of Rural 

 Economy and a Professor of Agronomy to the Conservatoire 

 des Arts et Metiers. He was for some time a Director of the 

 establishment, but resigned in order to secure a seat in the 

 French Lower House. He married the daughter of the late 

 M. Dumas. 



The next Ordinary General Meeting of the Institution of 

 Mechanical Engineers will be held on Thursday, April 30, and 

 Friday, May 1, at 25, Great George Street, Westminster. The 

 chair will be taken by the President, Mr. Jeremiah Head, at 

 half-past three o'clock p.m. on Thursday, and at half-past seven 

 o'clock p. m. on Friday. The following papers will be read and 

 discussed, as far as time will admit : — Description of the Maxim 

 automatic machine-gun, by Mr. Hiram S. Maxim, of London ; 

 Abstract of results of experiments on riveted joints, witli their 

 applications to practical work, by Prof. Alexander B. W. 

 Kennedy, of London (including the latest experiments described 

 in Prof. Kennedy's Report, issued to the members in February) ; 

 Description of the Tripier Spherical Eccentric, by M. Louis 

 Poillon, of Paris ; Description of a blooming mill with balanced 

 top roll at the Ebbw Vale Works, by Mr. Calvert B. Holland, 

 of Ebbw Vale. 



The Annual Report of the French Central Meteorological De- 

 partment states that the weather forecasts last year were verified in 

 90 cases out of every ioo, the percentage having steadily risen 

 from 81 in 1881 to 83 in 1882 and to S7 in 1883. Out of 189 

 alarm signals sent to the ports, 128 were fully verified, 24 were 

 fairly correct, 37 incorrect, and only two gales were not fore- 

 seen. This year the gale of January 11 was foretold, but that 

 of March 22, which did such damage at Cherbourg, was not 

 predicted. It took place in exceptional circumstances, and was 

 of short duration. 



During the second half of last year several communications 

 appeared in Nature relating to the nests from which the 

 Chinese birds'-nest soup is made. Mr. Pryer, whose ac- 

 count of his visits to the Gomantin Caves in North Borneo, 

 where the nests are chiefly found, initiated the discussion, has 

 now addressed a long communication on the subject to an 

 English journal published in Japan, the main points of which 

 appear to be as follows : — (1) Owing to a misapprehension, Mr. 

 Pryer was represented as saying that the bats which inhabit the 

 caves constructed the nests as well as the swifts. The bats have 

 nothing to do with the nests. (2) Mr. Layard, in his letter 

 published in Nature (Novembei 27, 1884), speaks of "traces 

 of blood, from the efforts of the birds to produce the saliva." Mr. 



