A-ugusi 25, 1 881] 



NATURE 



385 



arranged to meet the requirements of artisans and those 

 engaged in mechanical trades, and include mechanical 

 drawing, building, construction, modelling, model draw- 

 ing, outline drawing, and shading." 



This section includes science teaching also, and classes 

 were formed last year in inorganic chemistry, botany, 

 principles of agriculture, fully illustrated by experiments ; 

 shorthand also, a useful help to all such studies. 



Section C is Entertainments, and is set going or stopped 

 as occasion offers ; of course it is expected to be a help 

 to the general fund. 



Section D is the Youths' Institute, supported also by 

 special honorary subscribers and by one penny a week 

 paid by its members for admission to the reading-room, 

 because luithoiit that the room was too frdl. Let us hope 

 that such a very unsatisfactory statute of limitations may 

 soon cease to be necessary. An extra rate would hardly 

 be grudged in such a case, and it is a strong argument 

 for Parliament authorising one. 



Section E is a Private Subscription-room, supported by 

 about a hundred members, who subscribe ten shillings a 

 year each, spent in newspapers and periodicals, made 

 available to the public after their use by the club. 



Section F is a School of Music, where some of the best 

 masters obtainable in London are engaged, two of whom 

 take the combined instruction, and four take separate in- 

 struction. Nme different classes of lessons are arranged 

 for, again not free, but all made available to those who 

 wish for them, at very little expense or labour to them- 

 selves. It is now supported by 160 students, and by 

 subscriptions from the vice-presidents. 



Section G is the nucleus of a Museum ; and how trea- 

 sures of local interest are lost to a town for want of such 

 a nucleus in trustworthy hands, the writer knows well ! 

 Central museums also can easily supply duplicate trea- 

 sures to such institutions in almost perpetual succession. 



Section H, the English Literature Club, meets weekly 

 through the winter, at the library rooms, adding greatly 

 to the care with which books are real, and, consequently, 

 to the pleasure and information drawn from them. A 

 very small subscription pays its, no doubt very small, 

 expenses. 



Even needlework in elementary schools, though spread 

 about half the County of Herts, and patronised by a 

 goodly company of influential ladies throughout the 

 district, has its " head centre " in a committee of three 

 gentlemen of the Watford Public Library. Fifty-four 

 schools compete, and 1500 specimens are shown, in six 

 classes of work, all having undergone a strict and very 

 systematic examination. 



The same association supports also a School of 

 Cooker}'. 



Other offshoots of the Library are the Herts Natural 

 History Society, the Foresters' Club, Junior Foresters' 

 Club, and the Shepherds' Club, each having its meeting- 

 place at the library rooms. 



Now among this variety of work there is probably 

 none which is not carried on in nearly all the larger 

 towns of England by so/ne means. What we wish to set 

 forth is the reasonableness of its all forming together the 

 work of a single " committee of education," not neces- 

 sarily elementary only by any means ; and that a rate- 

 supported public hbrary should be the central institution, 

 whose committee should set in co-ordinate motion all the 

 parts of this local educational machine. Such a committee 

 need not attempt to take into its hands the entire control 

 of each separate branch, but should work all together 

 with as httle friction and loss of labour as possible, and 

 especially should this be the case, as we have said, in our 

 smaller towns. Very great is the economy of one institu- 

 tion working all together, in the matter of rooms, adver- 

 tising, and printing; in one man receiving, as the 

 librarian does at Watford, all the subscriptions and fees 

 paid to these various societies, the s per cent, allowed 



him upon all giving him a tangible interest in increasing 

 each, as such a central worker must have the means of 

 doing, and in stirring all up to a friendly rivalry in well- 

 doing. And the advantage can hardly be over-stated of 

 the power of such an organisation to bring together 

 earnest workers, who might otherwise have followed 

 either a secluded path or one crossing that of other 

 workers ; in the one case, occurring most frequently in 

 small communities, doing little for the advance of intelli- 

 gence and information ; and in the other case, to which 

 large cities are most liable, wasting time and efforts which 

 are often thwarted by mere local jealousies. 



NOTES 



In June of the present year the freshwater jelly-fish (Limno- 

 codium Sawerbii) reappeared in the Royal Botanical Society's 

 Gardens, Regent's Park, though in no great numbers. At the 

 suggestion of Mr. GeorJe Busk, F.R.S., and with the courteous 

 assistance of Mr. W. Sowerby, a s nail number were captured 

 and transferred to the Victoria tank in Number 10 House at the 

 Royal Gardens, Kew. Nothing was known of their fate till 

 about a week a^o, when it was observed that the whole tank 

 was swarming with the progeny of the small colony brought 

 from London. 



The Local Committee at York have been making laudable 

 e.\ertions for the accommodation of those who intend to be present 

 at the meeting of the British Association next week. They have 

 prepared a lon^ list of hotels and lodgings, with prices, at the 

 same time stating that the prices of the lodgings are higher than 

 will be eventually charged, "as there Ls abundance of good 

 accojimodation at reasonable rates." They have also issued a 

 time-table of the arrivals and departures of trains at York station 

 from the principal to.vns in the kingdom, with special tables for 

 the local lines. A map of the city has besides been prep.-ired, 

 showing the situation of the principal buildings, the meeting- 

 places of the various sections, and the principal hotels, of which 

 there are fourteen. 



The Times Geneva correspondent gives some farther particu- 

 lars concerning Prof. Raoul Pictet's model steamer now in 

 course of construction, with which he expects to reach a speed 

 of forty miles an hour, and which will make a trial trip on the 

 lake in November next. Her dimensions are — 16 metres long 

 and 3"5o metres wide. When lying at anchor she will draw 33 

 centimetre; fore and 44 centimetres aft ; at full speed I centi- 

 metre forward and 16 centimetres aft. The engine will be 

 placed amidships, from which point to the stem the screw-shaft 

 and the keel form an inclined plane ; the bows are long, taper- 

 ing, and wedge-shaped. Prof. Pictet reckons that his invention 

 will lead to a great saving of fuel, inasmuch as a steamer built 

 on his plan, after being started with say 100 horse-power, may 

 be kept up full speed with an expenditure of force equal to thirty 

 horses. The form of the hull, on which the maintenance of the 

 ship's equilibrium will depend, cannot be explained without a 

 diagram. Prof. Pictet is quite confident in the success of his 

 invention, and his previous scientific achievements have been so 

 remarkable that many people who cannot follow his reasonii^ 

 have no hesitation in accepting his conclusions. 



The inhabitants of Havre are collecting money for raising a 

 statue to Sauvage, who is considered in France as having applied 

 the screw to the propelling of steamers. 



A TELEGRAPHIC experiment of a singular description was 

 tried last week at the Trocadero. It consists merely in the 

 reading of large silvered zinc letters, a square metre in size, 

 fixed on a blackened board, by refracting telescopes. This 

 method has succeeded very well from the Trocadero to the 

 Pantheon, a distance of about three miles. The inventor, an 



