Oct. 30, 1884] 



NA TURE 



641 



and inspected the new buildings which have been erected during 

 the summer, and which were now declared open. The new 

 buildings include additional bedrooms and observing rooms, a 

 tower for exit during winter and for self-registering wind instru- 

 ments, and a tourists' shelter, the whole having cost over 2000/. 

 The Observatory is now very completely equipped. Provisions 

 and stores for a year have been conveyed to the top, and the 

 observers are now fully provided for in their long winter resi- 

 dence. It is just a year since the Observatory was opened, and 

 during this time hourly observations have been taken day and 

 night without a single break. Over 2000 persons have ascended 

 the mountain during the summer, and 1046 telegrams have been 

 despatched by tourists to their friends in various parts of the 

 world. 



The list of awards, medals, &c. , made by the International 

 Juries of the Health Exhibition have been announced. The 

 total number of gold medals awarded is 278 ; the Society of Arts 

 present 1 1 medals. The Society's Siemens Prize for the best 

 application of gas to heating and cooking has been awarded to 

 Mr. Thomas Fletcher. Medals for meteorological instruments, 

 diagrams, models, &c. , have been awarded to Messsrs. Casella, 

 Negretti and Zambia, Richard Freres, and Richardson and Co. 

 For science teaching the Japanese schools have carried off 

 medals, as well as Allan Glen's Institute, Glasgow, the Oldham 

 School of Science, and the Ecole Lemonnier, Paris. The 

 Brothers of the Christian Schools have obtained in the Educa- 

 tional Section two gold and two silver medals and two diplomas 

 of honour. 



We regret to announce the death of Mr. Robert Sabine, C.E., 

 the son-in-law of Sir Charles Wheatstone. Mr. Sabine, as our 

 readers know, has done good work in connection with the 

 applications of electricity. 



Much interest is manifested, both in Canada and the United 

 States, in the enterprise of Lieut. W. R. Gordon, who was 

 selected by the Canadian Meteorological Service for the expedi- 

 tion to Hudson's Bay, to establish stations for scientific observa- 

 tions. The work has already begun, and at each of the seven sta- 

 tions selected the usual meteorological observations will be made. 

 Heavy tides will be measured ; the drift of water will be noticed ; 

 and the conditions and state of the ice. Cape Hope is the most 

 important station, and here a temporary magnetic station has 

 been opened. This first expedition has been provided for by 

 votes of 70,000 dollars by the Dominion Government for the 

 purpose of obtaining reliable information as to the navigation of 

 the Strait to the Bay, and to decide upon the feasibility of the 

 adoption of the route as a summer outlet for the produce of the 

 North- West. Each station party consists of two men and an 

 Esquimaux interpreter, besides the officer in charge, and sufficient 

 provisions and fuel for fifteen months are supplied. Lieut. 

 Gordon, the head of the present Expedition in the Neptune, has 

 been for ten years in the British Navy and five years in that of 

 Canada. He is accompanied by Dr. Robert Bell, geologist, 

 Charles R. Tuttle, of Winnipeg, historiographer, and seven 

 officers. The seven stations are to be established in the following 

 places, six on the Strait and one on the west shore of Hudson's 

 Bay : — The first at Cape Chadley, the second on Resolution 

 Island, the third at Cape Hope, the fourth on the north bluff of 

 the mainland or on one of the Upper Savage Islands, the fifth on 

 the south-east end of Nottingham Island, the sixth on the south 

 side of Mansfield Island, and the seventh at Fort Churchill, on 

 the mouth of the Churchill River. 



In the course of a lengthy communication to Sir Arthur 

 Gordon, the Governor of Ceylon, suggesting improvements in 

 the public instruction of that colony, the Rev. S. Langdon advo- 

 cates the establishment of a University in Colombo, on the 

 ground that the Universities for which Singhalese youth are now 



prepared are ill adapted to the requirements of Ceylon. The 

 English University examinations are, he says, intended for a 

 different class of candidates. They tend to a total separation 

 of the scholarly youth of Ceylon from their own classics in 

 favour of those of Greece and Rome. The physical science 

 references are to examples found commonly in the British Islands, 

 but rarely in Ceylon. With regard to the Cambridge Local 

 Examinations, the science master of the colonial Royal College 

 points out that in botany the Ceylon students are placed at con- 

 siderable disadvantage compared with those in England, and 

 suggests that the Cambridge Syndicate be requested to arrange 

 that plants of tropical well-known orders of equal structural 

 value be substituted for those given in England, and that answers 

 to general questions, such as those referring to useful timber- 

 trees, useful vegetables, and other plants of economic use, be 

 recognised, if correctly given for Ceylon, as of equal value with 

 English answers. He then selects, as an illustration of the 

 difficulty under which a Ceylon candidate labours, questions 

 such as these : — Compare the daisy with the dandelion ; com- 

 pare the rose with the buttercup ; describe a fir cone, &c. ; all 

 easy enough for an English but not so for a Ceylon boy. This 

 objection is stated to be true not only of botany, but also of 

 other branches of natural science. The complaint is that the 

 higher examinations for which alone the youth of the colony can 

 be prepared are destitute of all local references, and are there- 

 fore neither calculated to develop or test an intelligent acquaint- 

 ance with the subject. Besides, as the masters can prepare for any 

 one of four foreign Universities (London, Cambridge, Calcutta, 

 or Madras), there is little unity in the system of higher educa- 

 tion. Moreover the expense of residing at one of these Uni- 

 versities deters many students from taking a University degree 

 at all. On the whole, the case made out by Mr. Langdon in 

 favour of a local University is, regarded from the purely educa- 

 tional point of view, a very strong one. He sums up this por- 

 tion of his report by stating that the advantages of such a Uni- 

 versity would be — (1) unity of higher education, (2) a higher 

 education adapted to Ceylon rather than to English requirements, 

 (3) the correction of many present defects, especially the neglect 

 of practical and technical studies, (4) the granting of degrees 

 no-v only attainable with much expense, (5) the encouragement 

 of vernacular education. 



Commander Crawford Pasco, R.N., writing from Elster- 

 wick, Victoria, N.S.W., says : — " If at all coast stations (light- 

 houses, &c. ) the tide was as regularly recorded as the barometer, 

 &c. , ascertaining, where ■ practicable, its force as well as direc- 

 tion, and, monthly, one simultaneous observation made at a 

 given time, to be called a term day, similar to that at magnetical 

 observatories where the clocks were set to Gbttingen mean time, 

 and for tidal purposes may be iGreenwich, Washington, or any 

 other meridian, I feel sure valuable results would be obtained." 



With reference to the recent experiments on directing 

 balloons, M. W. De Fonvielle explained in a recent paper, with 

 the aid of diagrams, an elongated balloon which could be steered 

 to the extent of being kept with the longest axis in the direction of 

 a given current, and could be made to ascend or descend by the 

 use of horizontal propelling screws. He further explained an 

 adaptation he proposed of M. Dupuy de Lome's device of 

 placing an air pouch in the balloon to compensate for loss of gas 

 so as to form ballast air-chambers in the elongated machine. 



It will be seen from our advertising columns that some friends 

 and fellow-workers of the late Frank Hatton desire to perpetuate 

 his memory in the creation of an annual prize in a branch of 

 chemistry in which he had distinguished himself at home. We 

 heartily commend the scheme to our readers. 



In the last number of the Agricultural Students' Gazette, 

 edited by students of the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, 



