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The Institute has under its consideration the establishment of 
a School for Applied Art in connection with the Finsbury Col- 
lege. Acting on the general principle that every Technical 
School of this kind ought to provide, in addition to the general 
course of instruction, as applicable to different industries, special 
courses applicable to the staple industry of the district, the 
Council of the Institute are contemplating the establishment of 
classes in the Finsbury College adapted to the educational re- 
quirements of those engaged in Cabinet-making. With this 
object it will be necessary to attach a School of Design to the 
College. 
The influx of pupils to the studios in Kennington have induced 
the Council to vote a sum of money for the extension of the 
building in which the Art School of this district is conducted. 
These new buildings are nearly completed, and will afford 
accommodation for Classes in Modelling, Design, and Wood 
Engraving, 
The building of the central institution, which is to be in the 
. first place a school for the training of technical teachers, has 
been commenced. The first stone was set in July last by 
H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, who is now the President of the 
Institute. The plans of this building show accommodation for 
the teaching of the different branches of Physics in their appli- 
cation to various industries, of Chemistry as applied to trade 
purposes, and of Mathematics and Mechanics in their applica- 
tion to Engineering. A good engineering school, containing 
workshops, well supplied with machinery and collections of 
mechanical instruments and models, such as exist in numerous 
Continental cities, seems likely to be obtained for London on 
the completion of this building. 
This Institute has done much towards the encouragement of 
technical instruction in provincial towns, where it is most 
needed, by its system of annual examinations. In the examin- 
ation held in May last, 1563 candidates presented themselves, in 
twenty-eight subjects, from 115 centres, and of these 895 passed. 
A close connection is being established between the several tech- 
nical schools which are being now opened in Lancashire and 
Yorkshire, and the City and Guilds of London Institute. The 
demands made upon the Institute by Chambers of Commerce in 
different parts of England satisfactorily indicate the usefulness of 
this part of the Institute’s work. 
‘The programme of Technological Examinations for 1881-82, 
just issued, shows thirty-two subjects in which examinations may 
be held, some of which are divided into four or five branches, so 
that they may be better adapted to individual industries. Whilst 
attention has in this way been given to the details of different 
trades, the attempt has been made to secure from candidates 
passing the Institu’e’s examinations a general knowledge of the 
principles of their subject and of the relation of closely connected 
industries with one another. 
In order to secure in future efficient teachers, the Council of 
the Institute have determined after March next not to register as 
teachers any persons except those who have passed the Institute’s 
Honours Examination, or such as already possess special or 
distinct qualifications, 
The interest which the subject of technical education is be- 
ginning to arouse has led to the appointment by the Crown of a 
Commission to inquire into the education of the industrial classes 
in England and in other countries ; and the City and Guilds of 
London Institute is represented on this Commission by Prof, 
Roscoe, who, as President of the Chemical Society, occupies a 
seat on the Executive Cémmittee, and also by Mr. Philip Magnus, 
its director and secretary. The Commissioners are at present 
engaged in making a tour of inspection in France, a section of 
them having already visited some of the principal technical 
schools and factories in the north of Italy. 
In Meteorological Science the present year has been marked 
by the publication of an important work (‘‘ Die Temperatur 
Verhaltnisse des russischen Reichs,” St. Petersburg, 1880), by 
Prof. Wild of St. Petersburg, on the Temperature of the Russian 
Empire, embodying, in charts and tables, a great amount of in- 
formation, hitherto either inaccessible or existing only in scattered 
memoirs, relating to the meteorvlogy of the vast tracts of Northern 
Asia. As an interesting particular result it may be mentioned that 
Prof. Wild has tran-ferred the ‘‘ Siberian pole of cold in winter” 
from the neighbourhood of Jakutsk to a point somewhat further 
north, lying on the Arctic Circle in (about) E. longitude 125°. 
At this centre of maximum cold, round which the isotherms lie 
in fairly regular ovals, the mean temperature in January sinks as 
low as —54° F., the mean temperature at Jakutsk being 11° 
NATURE 
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[Dec. 8, 1881 
s 
higher. In close relation to the phenomena exhibited by these 
charts, Prof. Wild, in St; Petersburg, has been led to study the 
connection between areas of permanent high or low mean pres- 
sure on the one hand, and areas of permanent high or low mean 
temperature on the other ; and he has found this connection to 
be of the same kind as that known to exist in the case of the 
shifting areas of high or low pressure, and high or low tempera- 
ture, which determine the changes of weather. M. Léon 
Teisserenc de Bort, in Paris, has also investigated the same 
subject. tie 
The Meteorological Office has completed during the year two 
works of some interest, which are now ready for immediate 
publication. The first consists of tables of the Rainfall of the 
British Isles, prepared at the request of the Council of the Office 
by Mr. G. J. Symons, F.R.S. ‘These tables include the monthly 
results recorded at 367 stations in the United Kingdom, being 
all those for which it was possible to obtain series of observations 
maintained continuously during the last fifteen years. The second 
is a volume of charts (with an introdugtion and explanations) 
illustrating the meteorology of an ocean district specially im- 
rortant to seamen—that adjacent to the Cape of Good Hope. 
Some points of novelty are presented by the charts. For 
example, a new form of ‘‘wind-rose,” invented by Mr. F. Galton, 
F.R.S., has been employed, which offers some theoretical advan- 
tages over those previously in use, being intended to represent, 
with geometrical precision, the probability (deduced from the 
observations) that, in a particular place and at a particular 
season, a wind blowing betwee: any two given points of the 
compass will be experienced. Again, for the first time in marine 
mete rology, the wind observations have been ‘‘ weighted” with 
the view of neutralising the tendency to over-estimate the fre- 
quency of adverse winds, which has been found to affect meteoro- 
logical charts injuriously. The work brings into clear relief the 
most interesting physical feature of the district—one indeed 
already well known—the intermingling of hot and cold water, 
brought by the Agulhas and the South Polar currents respec- 
tively, and supplies strong evidence for the belief that this inter- 
mingling has a large share in producing the atmospheric dis- 
turbances so common in the region in which it occurs. 
In wy Address to the Society in 1879, I stated that an Inter- 
national Conference of a semi-official character had been held, 
with the view of establishing for one complete year a circle of 
meteorological observations round the Arctic regions of the 
globe. Notwithstanding the lamented death of Lieut. Wey- 
precht, the gallant young discoverer of Franz-Josef Land, by 
whom the preposal had been originated, it would seem that the 
efforts of the Conference are likely to be crowned with success. 
The following stations have already been undertaken by different 
Governments :—Point Barrow and Lady Franklin’s Bay in 
Smith’s Sound, by the United States; West Greenland, by 
Denmark ; Jan Mayen, by Austria; Mossel Bay and Spitz- 
bergen, by Sweden ; Bossekop, by Norway; Nova Zembla, by 
Holland ; the Mouths of the Lena, by Russia. The Conference 
has also been led to hope that the Canadian Government may 
reinstitute observations at Fort Simpson, and that the Govern- 
ment of France may organise a simultaneous meteorological 
expedition to Terra del Fuego. It is arranged that the observa- 
tions should begin as soon as possible after August I, 1881, and 
should continue to September 1, 1883. 
In astronomy Mr, Gill has completed his discussion of the ex- 
tensive series of heliometer measures of the parallax of Mars, 
which he made at Ascension in 1877, and has'deduced the value 
8"78 for the solar parallax, corresponding to,a mean distance of 
93,080,000 miles from the earth to the sun. A value of the 
solar parallax has also been derived by Mr. D. P. Todd, from 
the American photographs of the transit of Venus, 1874. The 
result for the parallax is 8”*883, corresponding to a mean 
distance of 92,028,000 miles. 
A valuable contribution towards the determination of the 
moon’s physical libration has been made by Dr. Hartwig. From 
a series of forty-two measures made with the Strassburg helio- 
meter he derives values for the physical libration and for the 
inclination of the moon’s axis, substantially confirming the 
results found by Wichmann, and recently by Prof. Pritchard. 
An addition to the small list of stars which have been found 
ip have a measurable parallax has been made by Dr. Ball. He 
nds that the star Groombridge 1618, which is remarkable for 
its large proper motion, has a parallax of about one-third of a 
second, so that it is to be considered one of the sun’s nearest 
neighbours. Dr, Ball has also re-determined the parallax of the 
