TURE 
¥ We learn fee Biirper’s Weekly that the Hon. ee Knox, of 
V Illinois, U.S., now in Berlin, has presented Hamilton 
U. S., with 10,000 dollars for the improvement and 
- endowment of its hall of natural history. — 
_ Tue following is from the British Medical Journal :—“ Two 
_ Russian ladies, Misses Olga Stoff and Sophie Hasse, have em- 
_ ployed themselves during the autumn recess in investigating the 
circulation in the spleen, by means of injection and microscopic 
_ examination. Their researches, which were made on the spleens 
of frogs, pigeons, rabbits, mice, rats, and various other animals, 
as well as of the human subject, were carried on in Dr. Frey’s 
laboratory, They have published an account of their examina- 
tion and its results in the Cen/ra/blatt for Nov. 9.” 
A MEMORIAL portrait of the late Rear-Admiral Sir James 
Ross, the great explorer, subscribed for by several naval officers 
and men of science, has recently been placed in the Painted Hall 
_ of the Royal Hospital, Greenwich. What Sir James Ross did 
_ for North Polar exploration is well known. 
. THE 119th session of the Society of Arts commenced yesterday 
__ evening, when the opening address was given by Major-General 
_ F. Eardley-Wilmot, F.R.S., Chairman of the Council. 
THE first course of the Cantor Lectures for the ensuing season 
will be on ‘‘The Practical Application of Optics to the Arts, 
Manufactures, and to Medicine,” by C. Meymott Tidy, M.B., 
Joint Lecturer in Chemistry and Professor of Medical Jurispru- 
dence at the London Hospital, and will consist of five lectures, to 
be delivered on the evenings of Nov, 25, Dec. 2, 9, 16, and 23. 
A second course will be given during the session by the Rev. 
Arthur Rigg, M.A., ‘‘On the Energies of Gravity, Electricity, 
Vitality, Light, and Heat, especially with reference to their 
measurement and utilisation.” 
THE winter course of lectures at the Museum of Science and 
Art,'Edinburgh, commenced on the evening of Noy. 18, with 
the first of a series on “ Chemistry,” by Prof. Crum Brown, An 
interesting programme has been arranged, including, among 
other items, six lectures by Prof. Geikie on the “ Superficial 
Formations of Scotland,” and as many on “Sound” by Prof. 
Tait. 
ACCORDING to the latest bulletin from Regent’s Park, young 
Hippo, whose birth we chronicled a fortnight ago, and who is 
now sixteen days old, is thriving famously, beiag plump and 
well-developed, standing firmly on his legs, trotting briskly about 
after his stupendous mama, and imitating all her actions, It is 
to be hoped that the admirable precautions taken by those in 
charge will be successful in preserving the life of the little stranger 
till it can take care of itself. 
THE following is from the Atheneum :—‘' The Maharajah of 
Cashmere is desirous of having several scientific works translated 
_ from the English into the Sanscrit language ; and as he under- 
stands that there are many able scholars in England and Germany, 
he has placed the matter in the hands of Col, Nassau Lees, who 
is to select competent persons for the work. His Highness has 
had some works already translated in Calcutta, He has requested 
- that, as the first instalment of the European series of translations, 
Prof. Liebig’s work on Chemistry, or some other standard work 
on the same subject, should be one of the works translated. An 
undertaking of this sort ought to prove most useful.” 
It is understood that Dr. Schweinfurth, the eminent German 
geographer, is about to return to Central Africa with a view of 
continuing his explorations, especially in the line of botany. 
His brother, a merchant at Riga, has contributed a large sum of 
money, the interest of which is to be used by Dr, Schweinfurth 
in his present undertaking ; the principal afterwards to be given 
to the Polytechnic School at Riga to found a prize to defray the 
travelling expenses of such explorers in the future as have been 
students of that establishment. 
WE hear that a most important desideratum in Biblical Archae- 
ology has been supplied by the diligence of Mr. George Smith, of 
the British Museum, who has discovered among the Assyrian 
Records an account of a deluge similar to that recorded in 
Genesis. Mr. Smith will read a paper on the subject next month 
befere the Society of Biblical Archzeology. 
WE learn from Harfer’s Weekly that with commendable 
enterprise Messrs. Maynard & Dean, of Massachusetts, annoumce 
their intention of publishing a periodical entitled American Orni- 
thology, to be devoted to the scientific and popular history of 
birds. It is to appear bi-monthly, at the rate of five dollars a 
year, and will consist in part of popular articles on birds, and in | 
part of more elaborate and technical memoirs. Each part will 
consist of about forty pages, and will contain a coloured plate of 
some new or little-known American species. In view of the 
difficulty of sustaining special journals, this enterprise is one 
of no little daring, but will, we trust, be justified by the 
result, At present there are but two periodicals exclusively 
devoted to birds; one of them, the London /é7s, published 
quarterly ; the other, the Fournal fiir Ornithologie of Cabanis, 
published bi-monthly in Leipsic. 
Mr. WorTHINGTON SMITH records in the Gardener's Chronicle 
some very curious cases of ‘‘mimicry” in fungi. He men- 
tions several instances in which a rare fungus so closely imitates 
another common one belonging to a diffetent sub-genus or even 
genus in all superficial characters as to be with difficulty dis- 
tinguished from it, and is always found in company with it. It 
is difficult to conceive that this “mimicry” is of any value to 
the ‘‘ mimicing” fungus except, as Mr. Smith suggests, that it 
has certainly hitherto prevented the detection and consequent 
destruction of rare fungi by collectors ! 
WE learn from the Academy that Prof. Tschermak has pub- 
lished a new catalogue of the meteorites in the Vienna collection. 
At the date of issue (October 1, 1872) the mineralogical museum 
contained specimens representing 182 falls of meteoric stones, 
and 103 falls of meteoric iron. Letters appended to the name of 
each aérolite in the list indicate its position in a classification 
which has been based chiefly on the constituent minerals, certain 
distinctive physical characters of these minerals also being used 
in arranging them in subdivisions. 
THE Haggerstone Entomological Society, which was esta- 
blished in 1868, and is composed of working men, commenced, 
on Thursday evening last, its Annual Exhibition at No. 10, 
Brownlow Street, about a hundred yards from the Haggerstone 
Station on the North London line, and it is well worth a visit. 
The members are all practical entomologists, meeting one even- 
ing a week for the study of the science, with the aid of a good 
cabinet of Lepidoptera, and other facilities for advancement ; and 
this fifth exhibition shows that they have not worked in vain. 
Among the specimens, which are at once rare and varied, are some 
fine ones of the Vazessa antiofa. This is one of the rarest but- 
terflies found in this country, but during the last season it was (as. 
we announced some time ago) far more abundant than it had 
been for many years before, and the Haggerstone collectors seem 
to have bestirred themselves accordingly. 
WE have just received the winter programme of the Chester 
Society of Natural Science (President, the Rev. Canon Kingsley), 
and a hopeful one it is, showing that the members are no 
mere diletlanti, but are anxious for work likely to produce results 
of high value in all the three sections into which it is divided— 
Botany, Zoology, and Geology. Their district is the four squares 
on the old Ordnance map of which Chester is the centre, and 
much has already been done by the members to elucidate the 
