in refusing the demands made upon the national purse. Toa 
certain extent, what happened in the case of the Eclipse Ex- 
pedition of 1870 has been now repeated. Our readers will 
recollect that on that occasion the mere personal application of 
the Astronomer Royal was at once very properly refused, w hile 
a proper representation by the leading Societies was at once as 
_ promptly acceded to. 
WE beg to draw our readers’ attention to a new medical jour- 
nal which commenced its career yesterday, the Medical Record, 
and which, judging from the prospectus and the contents of the 
first number, is likely to be of the very highest service to the 
important department with which it is connected, and to the 
sciences on which that department depends. The JZedical Record 
is a weekly review of the progress of medicine, surgery, obste- 
trics, and the allied sciences, but does not seek to trench on the 
_ ground already occupied by other medical journals, The object 
of this weekly periodical will be to supply medical readers with 
a condensed, readable, and reliable analysis of the immense mass 
of information relating to the medical sciences now scattered 
over the surface of British and Foreign periodical medical lite- 
rature, The number, the bulk, the cost, and the diffusion of the 
‘transactions and periodicals at home and abroad, in which this 
information is contained, are now so great as to place it beyond 
the reach of the most industrious. The annual transactions of 
_ the great societies of Europe and America alone occupy some 
scores of volumes, therefore the idea is a happy one of gathering 
the cream of these transactions and presenting it in an accessible 
and manageable form, before the transactions are out of date, to 
- those who otherwise might never get a glimpse of them. More- 
over, as the prospectus says with truth, the age of year-books 
has passed away, and to make the labours of scientific inquirers 
in the medical as well as in other departments intelligible and of 
practical use, they must be studied and appropriated when first 
announced. To enable this to be done for medicine is the object of 
the Medical Record, and we have every reason to believe it will be 
eminently successful in attaining its end. The new journal will 
be edited by Mr. Ernest Hart. The abstracts will be signed in 
all cases. The staff includes upwards of forty ofthe best known 
scientific members of the profession, most of them hospital 
teachers in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin. 
Sir WILLIAM JENNER has been elected President of the 
Pathological Society, London. 
Tue Lectureship on Botany of the St. Thomas’s Hospital 
Medical School is vacant through the resignation of the Rev. 
J. W. Hicks. Applications should be sent to the Medical Secre- 
tary on or before January 10. 
A NEW society has been organised in Sacramento, California, 
under the name of ‘‘The Agassiz Institute.” It has been 
formed on the model of the Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts, 
and owes its birth in great part to the recent visit of Prof. 
Agassiz in California. 
A NEW work on the Cetaceans and other Marine Animals of 
California, is announced by Captain Scammon. It will be 
published by subscription through the Naturalist’s Agency, 
Salem,*Massachusetts, U.S.A. 
THE planet (128) which we noted flast week as having been 
discovered by M. A. Barrelly on the night of December 4—5, is 
the same as that discovered by Prof. Watson, Ann Arbor 
Observatory, on the night of Nov. 25, noted in NATURE of 
December 19 last. 
THE association proposed for the promotion ot explorations 
in Africa by the Berlin Geographical Society has constituted 
itself under the title of the African Society, its principal mem- 
bers being Drs. Schweinfurth, Rohlfs, Bastian, Peschel, Bruhns, 
and Petermann. 
THE Challenger left Lisbon yesterday. 
THE United States Coast Survey party, in charge of W. H. 
Dall, arrived in San Francisco on the zoth of September, on 
the Humdéoldt, after an absence of thirteen months. This time 
had been chiefly spent in the region between Kadiah and Oona- 
laska, among the Aleutian Islands) Among the more im- 
portant results of the work are the determination of ten islands 
and rocks, fourteen harbours and anchorages (and many minor 
details) not on any chart ; the determination of a great oceanic 
current, a reflected branch of the great North Pacific easterly 
stream, which sweeps to the south and west, south of the penin- 
sula of Alaska and the islands, having a breadth of about 350 
miles ; and the discovery of new fishing banks off the southern 
end of Kadiah. Geological and zoological researches were 
carried on by the members of the party during that portion of 
their time when hydrographic work was impracticable; and 
though these investigations were entirely subsidiary to the 
regular work, they were crowned with unexpected success, es- 
pecially in the departments of botany and geology, and the 
various groups of marine vertebrates. These collections, although 
still but superficially examined, indicate a curious resemblance in 
some particulars between the fauna of the region visited and that 
of the Straits of Magellan, a number of forms found being com- 
mon to both, and not yet discovered in the intervening regions. 
THE American papers talk with just pride of the great en- 
gineering feat which is now nearly completed at the expense of 
the Massachusetts Treasury, and which will shorten the railway 
distance between Boston and Troy and Albany, by 40 miles. 
A tunnel 4°66 miles through the Hoosac mountains has been in 
progress since 1855, but was not seriously entered on till 1863. 
The cutting was made from both ends, and so nice were the 
calculations of the engineers, that when on December 12th last, 
the two boring parties met, the two cuttings were found to vary 
not more than a foot either in grade or in line. 
Sir BARTLE FRERE and his suite left Aden on board the 
Enchantress for Zanzibar last Saturday, 
In reference to the Cambridge Natural Science Tripos a 
correspondent informs us that the new scheme of examination 
has been carried out for the first time in this Tripos. It is 
as follows :—The examination occupies eight days, six in one 
week and two in the next, the first three of which are de- 
voted to six papers, intended to test a general elementary know- 
ledge of all the subjects. Two days are then occupied by 
practical examinations in chemistry, anatomy, and physiology ; 
and in the last three, six papers are set, each containing several 
questions relating to the higher branches of each subject ; and a 
candidate may not be placed in the first class unless he show a 
competent knowledge of botany, chemistry, geology, mineralogy, 
or physics, or of any two of the following,—Anatomy, Physio- 
logy, or Zoology ; the intention being that a student should con- 
fine his high reading to one, or at most two subjects. 
THE third series of meetings of the Cambridge Naturai Science 
Club, established in March 1872, by some of the junior members 
of the University, was held during the last October Term; a 
paper was read at each meeting by the member in whose rooms 
the Club met, and the attendance of members and of visitors 
was usually good, though as the examination for the Natural 
Sciences Tripos approached, it fell off slightly. The following 
is a list of the papers, which were illustrated as far as possible 
with drawings, specimens, or experiments :—The Theory of Pan- 
genesis, by Mr. F. M. Balfour (Trinity) ; Geological Faults, by 
Mr. R. D. Roberts, B.Sc. (Clare) ; Some Bone-caves in Here- 
fordshire, by Mr. J. J. H. Teall (St. John’s) ; The Rock-fragment 
of the Cambridge Upper Greensand, by Mr. A. J. Jukes-Browne 
(St. John’s); The recent Deep-sea Dredging Expeditioas, by 
Mr, P. H. Carpenter (Trinity); The derived Fossils of the 
