190 
NATURE 
[JUNE 22, 1899 
THE quinquennial meeting and international congress con- 
vened by the International Council of Women will be held in 
London on June 26-July 5. <A number of subjects in the 
progress of which women take active part will be discussed in 
the various sections of the congress. In the educational section 
the life and training of the child, primary education, universities, 
modern educational experiments, technical education, women as 
educators, co-education, training of teachers, and examinations, 
will be brought forward. In the professional section, among 
the subjects of papers and discussions are: professions open to 
women, and the work of women in physical and_ biological 
sciences. Other subjects to be discussed are farming in its 
various branches as an occupation for women, and the training 
of women in agriculture, horticulture, and other trades and 
professions. 
In an address delivered at the Leys School, Cambridge, on 
Friday last, Mr. A. J. Balfour referred to the educational values 
of science and literature. In the course of his remarks he said : 
“*T cannot really conceive that any man, however enamoured of 
scientific method, should for a moment undervalue that insight 
into human nature and the interests which have always stirred 
human nature, and the manner in which those interests have 
been transformed by men of genius from time to time in the 
imaginative crucible of literature—I cannot imagine that such a 
training should be undervalued even by the most rigid advocate 
of scientific method. On the other hand, is it credible that in 
these days there should any man be found who should under- 
value that curiosity about the world in which we live which 
science cannot indeed satisfy, but towards the satisfaction of 
which, after all, science is the only minister?” The claims of 
science are here given fair recognition, and men of science do 
not usually ask for more than this. Their complaint is that 
science is too often regarded as the Cinderella among school and 
university subjects ; and it is only of late years that any note- 
worthy improvements have taken place in her position. 
AN interesting account of the ‘‘ Mosque of the Olive Tree” 
(Jama-Ez-Zituna) at Tunis, one of the three great centres of 
Mahomedan learning in North Africa, the others being El 
Azhar in Cairo and the Great Mosque at Fez, in Morocco, is 
given in a recent report by Sir Harry Johnston. Over 400 
students are usually taught at this University, while there are 
about 100 professors. The lectures begin at sunrise and continue 
until sunset, fifteen different lectures usually going on at the same 
time. Each professor sits cross-legged, with his back against one 
of the many columns of the mosque, his students grouped about 
him. Until recently, there was but little method in the in- 
struction ; each professor rambled on in his discourse, ranging 
over any topic on which he cared to impart information, and the 
students listened or not as they chose. To encourage a more 
practical education, the State offered the students exemption 
from military service and from certain taxes if they passed an 
elementary outside examination; but only four of sixty-six 
recently succeeded in doing this. In future, it is intended to 
impress on the management of the mosque that each professor 
should keep to one subject ; that the student should be obliged 
to take notes, and pass periodical examinations. External 
lectures on scientific subjects and on matters of present-day 
interest have also been established, and about 100 students from 
the mosque now attend these. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
LONDON. 
Royal Society, April 27.—‘ On the Presence of Oxygen in 
the Atmospheres of certain Fixed Stars.” By David Gill, C.B., 
F.R.S., &c., Her Majesty’s Astronomer at the Cape of Good 
Hope. 
The observations described confirm the conclusions arrived at 
by Mr. F. McClean and Sir Norman Lockyer as to the exist- 
ence of oxygen lines in the spectrum of 8B Crucis, From 
measures of photographs of the spectrum of this star, it is 
concluded that the whole of the known helium lines within the 
measured range of spectrum are unquestionably present, as also 
are all known oxygen lines stronger than intensity 4. 
‘“ There remains not the slightest doubt that all the stronger 
oxygen lines are present in the spectrum of 8 Crucis, at least 
between A 4250 and 4575, and this fact requires no further 
aboratory experiments for its establishment. It is almost 
NO. 1547, VOL. 60] 
equally certain that there is no trace of true nitrogen lines in this 
spectrum. . Besides hydrogen, helium and oxygen, the 
spectrum of 8 Crucis shows the probable presence of carbon 
(4267'2) and magnesium (4481'17). . . The spectra of 
B Crucis, 8 and e« Canis Majoris, and probably 8 Centauri are 
all practically identical.” 
Linnean Society, June 1.—Dr. A. Giinther, F.R.S., 
President, in the chair.—Mr. W. B. Hemsley, F.R.S., ex- 
hibited a selection of high-level plants from the collections 
formerly made by Sir Joseph Hooker, Dr. Thomson, General 
Sir R. Strachey, and more recently by Captain Welby, Mr. and 
Mrs. Littledale, and Mr. Arnold Pike in Northern India, 
Tibet, and Mongolia, many of them from altitudes of 18,000 
to 19,200 feet, A selection was also shown from the collections 
made in the Andes by Sir Martin Conway, Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. 
Gosse, and Mr. Whymper, at various altitudes up to 18,500 
feet. The principal points referred to were the small size of 
many of the plants, the protective woolly covering of others, 
and the general preponderance of the natural order Comzfosztae. 
—On behalf of Mr. Rupert Vallentin, Mr. J. E. Harting ex- 
hibited lantern slides of the so-called ‘‘ Sea-Elephant ” (AZacro- 
rhinus elephantinus), prepared from photographs taken in 
February last by Mr. Vallentin in the Falkland Islands. After 
briefly tracing the distribution of this huge seal on various Ant- 
arctic and subtropical islands, Mr, Vallentin’s notes ona specimen 
killed in Stanley Harbour were read. This specimen measured 
18 feet 11 inches from the end ofthe trunk toastraightline between 
the two hinder extremities ; the trunk, produced by the inflation 
of a loose tubular sac of skin above the nostrils, is present only 
in the male, and measures, when fully extended, twelve inches 
from the gape. No fresh facts were made known concerning 
the nature of the food of this animal, described by some writers 
as herbivorous like the manatee, by others as feeding on 
mollusca and crustacea like the walrus. In this case the 
stomach was empty, with the exception of a large number of 
Nematode worms, specimens of which were exhibited.—Mr. 
Harting also exhibited and made remarks on some living speci- 
mens of the Bank vole (AZicrotus glareolus), recently obtained 
by Mr. Robert Drane on Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire. —Mr. 
A. W. Bennett exhibited and described a remarkable Alga from 
Scotland (Zyngbya sp. ?) possessing a soluble pigment producing 
a beautiful fluorescent solution.—The President exhibited photo- 
graphs of four out of eight gigantic tortoises originally brought 
from Aldabra Island, and now living in the grounds of Govern- 
ment House, Seychelles, and communicated a report on the 
subject of the present distribution of the species, addressed to 
the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, M.P., by the Adminis- 
trator of the Seychelles.—Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P., 
F.R.S., read a paper on some Australasian collembola, figures 
of which were exhibited. —On behalf of Mr. F. N. Williams, 
the Secretary read a paper on some Caryophyllaceae from Sze- 
chuen, with a note on the recent botanical exploration of that 
province.—A paper was read by Mr. W. T. Calman on the 
Crustacean genus Bathynella (Vejd.), which was shown to be an 
ally of the important form Azaspides (Thom. ) originally described 
in the Society’s 7yansactions, vol. vi. p. 285. 
Zoological Society, June 6.—Dr. Henry Woodward, 
F.R.S., Vice-President, in the chair.—Mr. Sclater exhibited 
photographs of the female specimen of Grévy’s zebra now 
living in the gardens of the Société d’Acclimatation, Paris ; and 
read a letter from Captain J. L. Harrington, H.B.M. Envoy 
to Abyssinia, in which he expressed a hope to be able to bring 
living examples of this animal home with him when he returned 
to this country.—Mr. A. Blaynay Percival exhibited and made 
remarks upon some specimens of birds and insects which he had 
recently brought from the southern districts of British Central 
Africa. —Mr. G. A. Boulenger, F.R.S., exhibited some living 
specimens of a Siluroid fish, the ‘* Harmut” (C/arzas lazera, 
C. and V.), from Damietta, Egypt, collected by Mr. W. L. S. 
Loat, which were believed to be the first examples of this 
curious fish imported alive to this country.—Dr. S. F. Harmer, 
F.R.S., gave an account of specimens of the remains of a deer 
in the collection of the University Museum of Zoology at 
Cambridge, obtained from the Forest-Bed series at Pakefield, 
near Lowestoft, and belonging to the form usually known as 
Cervus verticornis, Dawk. The cranial portion of the skull 
was well preserved, and the antlers hada spread of six feet, 
measured in a straight line. The question of nomenclature was 
considered, with the result that C. verticornzs of the Forest- 
a 
