206 NATURE ' [ Dec. 29, 1881 
NOTES 
ONCcE more we are glad to chronicle the opinion of a prominent 
politician on the value of science in education. The unanimity 
of our public men on this point is gratifying, and is a hopeful 
change from the ignorance of a few yearsago. Sir Stafford 
Northcote, on Tuesday, in distributing the prizes to the students 
of Exeter School of Science and Art, maintained that the 
teaching of science cannot be begun at too early an age, as it is 
now recognised that a knowledge of science is indispensable in 
all handicrafts.’ Whilst acknowledging the great value of central 
agencies in London, yet he thought it desirable that still greater 
encouragement should be given to the establishment of museums 
and to the promotion of scientific research in the provinces, Of 
course, Sir Stafford “stated, the great end attained by science 
classes was not so much the knowledge of a particular study as 
the development of the powers of the human mind, and training 
men to apply the utmost reasoning powers to the everyday work 
of life. It was the development of this mental vigour that 
would maintain the supremacy of the English race, 
From the Report of Kew Gardens for 1880 we learn that the 
number of visitors during last year was 723,681, being an in- 
crease of 154,547 over the previous (very inclement) year, and 
nearly the same as in 1878. Only a comparatively small pro- 
portion of visitors take advantage of the early opening on bank- 
holidays. The scientific lessons given to the young gardeners 
have been well attended and successful. The Réports from 
Indian and Colonial Botanical Gardens are specially favourable 
this year. ‘A great increase of activity, arising from a variety 
of causes, has characterised almost all these institutions with 
which we are in regular correspondence, entailing a very great 
extension of the official work transacted at Kew, indepen- 
dent of the purely administrative work of the establishment 
itself.” The numerous experiments described in the Report on 
various economical plants, both in our Colonial Gardens and at 
Kew itself, prove the great importance of the work carried on at 
“the establishment to the whole empire. The addition of the 
“Economico- botanical collection from the Indian Museum was a 
~ notable event of the year, adding so greatly to the resources of 
i establishment, and entailing much additional work, Other 
fit additions were the collections of the late Prof. 
imper of Strassburg, and General Munro, C.B. It is to be 
; regretted that Government declined to grant a small retaining 
an entomologist, whose services are indispensable to such 
jnstitution as Kew. Mr. R. McLachlan, F.R.S., bas hither- 
to acted as consulting entomologist without fee. 
THE Marchese Corsi-Salviati has presented to the Royal 
Gardens life-size distemper drawings of the gigantic Aroid dis- 
covered by Beccari in West Sumatra, and described by him 
under the name of Amorphophallus Titanum. The dimensions 
of this plant are probably the most gigantic assumed by any 
herbaceous plant in one season’s growth, The underground 
tuber is 5 feet in circumference. This produces, except when 
flowering, a single leaf whose stem is 10 feet high; above, this 
divides into three branches, each as thick as a man’s thigh, and 
the ultimate segments of the much-divided leaf cover an area of 
45 feet in circumference. The inflorescence is on a correspond- 
ing scale. The drawings are for the present hung for exhibition 
in the Wood Museum (No. 3). 
THE submarine cable between Dover and Calais was carried 
out during the month of December, 1851, just thirty years ago, 
and it was on the 31st that the first message was sent from 
France to England and the traffic opened to the public, The 
first message was handed to Louis Napoleon, then Prince- 
President of the French Republic. _ It was simply a congratu- 
latory salutation. The second was sent by an English banker 
to his correspondent in Paris, and related to the price of Consols. 
The Paris firm sent in return the Céte de la Bourse. This ex- 
change of messages, including conveyance to the several offices, 
did not take more than an hour, Before regular messages were 
sent experimental sparks were tried. The first which came over 
from the French shores fired an English gun which saluted the 
Duke of Wellington when leaving Dover by an express train. It 
was the last time he visited the place in his capacity of Lord 
Warden of the Cinque Ports, 
Mucu has recently been written on the labours of medical 
women in India, and we find that such work is not without its 
reward also in China, According to the Celestial Empire, in the 
summer of 1879 the wife of Li Hung Chang, the great Viceroy 
of Chihli, was dangerously ill at Tientsin, and foreign medical 
assistance was called in. Chinese etiquette forbade the two 
doctors engaged obtaining sufficient knowledge of the case for 
treatment, and Miss Howard, an American lady with a medical 
diploma, was at once called in, Under her care Lady Li soon 
recovered. The result of this successful treatment of the illus- ~ 
trious Chinese lady was the establishment of a large hospital, 
under a foreign physician, the funds for which were provided by 
voluntary contribution from the native literati and gentry. The 
institution has just been opened by the Viceroy himself. When 
the news of Miss Howard’s success reached America a wealthy 
gentleman of Baltimore subscribed funds to build a hospital 
for Chinese women at Tientsin, and the two buildings—one~ 
erected by Chinese, the other by American philanthropy—now 
stand side by side in that town, Li Hung Chang and his lady have 
both presented commemorative tablets to the hospital. One of 
them runs thus: ‘‘ The skilful statesman and the skilful physician 
are alike in this : that they give their thought to cure what is ill. 
In the act .of administering government and of dispensing cures, 
what hinders China and other lands from being one family ?” 
M. LisTON having made a series of very interesting observa- 
tions on the temperature of water and on the conditions of 
freezing and thawing of a salted lake, Kupalnoye Ozero, in the 
province of Orenberg, Dr. Woeikoff contributes to the .drchives 
des Sciences Phystques et Naturelles a note, with some remarks 
of his own on these observations which appeared in the eighth 
volume of the Wemoirs of the Russian Geographical Society. 
This Lake Kupalnoye has a surface of 473 square metres and a 
depth of 1°42 metres, and its water contains 16 per cent. of salt, 
its bottom being covered with mud very rich in sulphide of 
hydrogen. The temperatures of the air having been, during the 
month of January, 1879, from — 6°3 to — 28°:2 Celsius, with 
one interruption, when the thermometer reached for one day 
o°'2; the temperature of the water at the surface was from 
— 3°°4 to — 13°°0, and at the bottom, from — 3°°8 to — 12°°8. 
On December 27, with a temperature of air as lowas — 21°, the 
lake was covered with a viscous ice, which soon began, however, 
to thaw when the temperature of the air rose to — 6°, and the tem- 
perature of water was as low as — 7°°8. On January 3 all ice 
had disappeared, but the temperature of the water was still 7°*2 
below the freezing point. On January 11, the temperature of 
the air being — 22°, and that of water being — 9°°8 at the sur- 
face and — 5°°6 at the bottom, the lake began again to be 
covered with viscous ice, and soon froze, the ice having a thick- 
ness of 38 millimetres, which thickness reached 153 mm, ten 
days later. But the remainder of the water was still unfrozen, 
notwithstanding that its temperature regularly decreased to — 10° 
on January £7, and even — 12°°8 on January 30. It was never 
observed before, M. Woeikoff says, in laboratories that salt 
water was cooled below — 4°, without being frozen, and here we 
have salt water which remains unfrozen at 13° below zero. 
However, former experiments, especially those of M. Zéppritz, 
proved that there is no diffusion of salt before congelation ; it 
seems that in Lake Kupalnoye there is such a diffusion of salt 
towards the lower strata of water, even before the freezing be- 
