NA TURE 



[April 23, 1885 



electricity employed for lighting purposes. The elec- 

 trical works of the school are very remarkable. They 

 include two engines, each of forty horse-power, 

 which were presented by the makers. These work 

 an Edison dynamo of 200 lamps, and three Gramme 

 machines. The latter are each used alternately, and 

 work six ventilators, which act over the whole building. 

 Next to the electrical machines are two pumps which 

 pump up water from a well ; the school is also supplied 

 with town water. Near the boilers is an Egrot 

 alembic for distilling water for use in the laboratories. 

 The steam from the water is conveyed by pipes into 

 the laboratories, where it is employed in heating the water 

 for washing, the stores, &c. In the basement are the 

 cellars, store-rooms for glass, rooms for the study of 

 stereotomy, for the construction of models, for stone- 

 cutting, &c. The ground-floor includes a large court- 

 yard, in the centre of which has been left the old fountain 

 of St. Martin's Square. To the right of the entrance 

 from the Rue Montgolfier is a staircase leading to a large 

 vestibule, where the busts of the founders are placed. On 

 this floor are the Mineralogical Museum, the dining-room 

 of the Inspectors, stationery room, and the laboratory of 

 industrial physics, the restaurants, the laboratory of in- 

 dustrial chemistry, and other special first year's labora- 

 tories, all opening on the court, the students working in 

 the open air when dealing with noxious gases. The offices 

 of the administrative bod)- are on the first floor, and in- 

 clude director's and secretary's rooms, committee-rooms, 

 steward's offices, and the like. These are lighted both by 

 gas and electric light. The remaining rooms on the floor 

 are devoted to students in their first year. Each storey 

 has its large amphitheatre, capable of holding 250 

 students. These are formed at angles of the building, 

 and are lit both by gas and electricity. The large 

 blackboards behind the professors are raised and lowered 

 by hydraulic machinery. The halls of study are ranged 

 in two rows on one side of the building, with a corridor or 

 passage between the rows for purpose of superintendence. 

 Twelve pupils can occupy each room, and there are 

 twenty-two rooms on each floor. The second and third 

 stories are arranged on the same principle, except that on 

 the former are the library and cabinets of collections. 

 The fourth storey contains the large laboratories of the 

 second and third year. The laboratory of the third year, 

 of which an illustration is given, is the most important 

 one in the school. Its appliances are of the most con- 

 venient and useful kind. Each student has all that he 

 wants for his experiments at his hand. 



NOTES 

 H.R.H. the Prinxe of Wales laid the first stone of the 

 Museum of Science and Art and the National Library of 

 Ireland on the icth inst. 



Mr. Raphael Meldola has been appointed Professor of 

 Chemistry in the Finsbury Technical College in succession to 

 Dr. H. E. Armstrong, who holds the Professorship at the 

 Central Institute. 



A special general meeting of the London section of the 

 National Association of Science and Art Teachers will be held 

 at the Technical College, Cowper Street, Finsbury, on Saturday 

 next, the 25th inst., at 7.30 p.m., when Sir PI. E. Roscoe, 

 Y.P. R.S., President of the Association, will deliver an address 

 on its object-;. All interested in the teaching of science and art 

 are cordially invited to attend. The above association was 

 started in Manchester about three years ago for the purpose of 

 advancing th; teaching of science and art and improving the 

 position of teachers. It already has strong sections in Man- 

 chester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Newcastle, and other large 

 towns in the north, r and the London section was started last 

 year. 



McGill College, Montreal, has received, since September 

 last, two donations from the Hon. Donald A. Smith, amounting 

 in the whole to 24,000/. sterling (120,000 dollars), for the estab- 

 lishment of separate Lectures for Women, preparatory for the 

 ordinary B.A. or an equivalent degree. 



The project for making Paris a seaport was brought before 

 the Congress of Learned Societies on the nth inst in a paper 

 by M. Bouquet de la Grye. He said the subject was of import 

 ance from two points of view. The first and most important was 

 the military one. The defence of Paris demanded imperatively 

 the establishment of a port which would assure the victualling of 

 the capital and its suburbs at all times. The commercial and in- 

 dustrial importance of the project is evident. The port should be 

 established in the Poissy basin, and the Seine should be dredged 

 to a mean depth of 6i metres. M. de la Grye's system requires 

 neither dams nor lochs, but only the deepening of the bed of the 

 river by dredging. It could be executed in four or five years. 

 The total expense would be about 100 millions of francs. 



Dr. Rowell, of Singapore, is stated to have made a valuable 

 icthyological addition to the Raffles Museum there in the shape 

 of a very complete collection of the fish and Crustacea in- 

 habiting the seas and rivers of the Malay Peninsula. Dr. 

 Rowell, it is said, intends making a second similar collec- 

 tion to send to the Italian and Colonial Exhibition next 

 year. 



The Bulletin of the Essex Institute (U.S.) contains a paper 

 on American archteology, by Mr. F. W. Putnam, in which he 

 refers to chipped stone implements. Referring to the statement 

 often made that the making of arrowheads and similar objects is 

 one of the lost arts, he says, that at the present time there are 

 Indians in America who continue to manufacture them, and 

 even work pieces of glass bottles into symmetrical and delicate 

 arrowpoints. The method appears to be as follows : — A piece 

 of stone is selected and roughly shaped by striking blows with a 

 hammer-stone. If it is found to chip readily, it is shaped still 

 further by light blows along the edges, each blow striking off a 

 chip. Partly wrapped in a piece of skin, it is then held in the 

 left hand and finished by flaking off little bits. This delicate 

 part of the work is done with a flaking tool made usually of a 

 piece of bone or antler. This is a few inches long, and about 

 half an inch wide, having one end rubbed down to a blunt 

 edge, which may be either straight, pointed, or notched. The 

 other end is fastened to a piece of wood, so as to give a firm 

 support to the hand. Sometimes this wooden handle is long 

 enough to be held under the arm, thus steadying the implement 

 v, Inch is grasped by the right hand. The edge of the flaker is 

 1 firmly against the edge of the stone, then with a slight 

 rotation of the wrist a small flake is thrown from the edge of the 

 stone. With a little practice this flaking can be done with con- 

 ible rapidity and precision. Some stones flake better after 

 being heated. The various forms of chipped implements known 

 as scrapers, drills, knives, spearpoints, and arrowheads probably 

 were made by the method here described. 



According to the Colonies and India, Baron F. von Midler, 

 K.C.M.G., has issued, under the auspices of the Victorian 

 Government, a second supplement to his systematic census of 

 Australian plants. It appears from the information now pub- 

 lished thai, whilst the known plants of Australia and Tasmania 

 are about 9000, they occur in the following proportions in the 

 respective colonies — viz. Western Australia, 3455 ; Queensland, 

 3457 ; New South Wales, 3154 ; Northern Australia, 1829 ; 

 Victoria, 1820; South Australia, 1816 ; and Tasmania, 1023. 

 The progress of botanical discovery in Australia within the last 

 quarter of a century has been very marked, and the colonies are 

 mainly indebted to Baron Muller for this result. In the be- 

 ginning of the century (1805) Robert Brown, who maybe called 



