34 
NATURE 
[May 8, 1873 
NOTES 
THE following are the names of the fifteen candidates who 
have been selected by the Council of the Royal Society, for 
election this year into that body :—William Aitken, M.D., Sir 
Alexander Armstrong, M.D., K.C.B., Robert Stawell Ball, 
LL.D., John Beddoe, M.D., Frederick Joseph Bramwell, C.E., 
Staff-Captain Edward Kilwick Calver, R.N., Robert Lewis 
John Ellery, F.R.A.S., Lieut.-Col. J. Augustus Grant, C.B., 
C.S.L, Clements Robert Markham, C.B., George Edward 
Paget, M.D., George West Royston-Pigott, M.D., Osbert 
Salvin, M.A., The Hon. John William Strutt, M.A., Henry 
Woodward, F.G.S., James Young, F.C.S. 
THE University of Cambridge has accepted the offer made by 
Dr. Anton Dohrn of the Zoological Station at Naples, through 
Dr. Michael Foster and Prof. Newton, of a working table in 
the laboratory of the station ; and last week, on the recommenda- 
tion of the Board of Natural Sciences, a grace passed the senate 
without opposition to the effect that from the Worts Travelling 
Bachelors’ Fund the sum of 100/, per annum be granted for three 
years, for the purpose of securing to such members of the Univer- 
sity, as the Board shall from time to time nominate, facilities of 
studying in the station. 
WITH reference to a short article entitled “ Survival of the 
Fittest,” in NaTuRE, vol. vii. p. 404, Prof. L. Agassiz writes us 
that the observations therein attributed to him are taken from 
an unauthorised newspaper report, from which we infer that he 
disclaims them. 
WITH reference to our report of the American Philosophical 
Society for August 16, 1872 (NATURE, vol. vii. p. 335), Prof. 
Cope writes that we have been misinformed as to the date at 
which his communication on the discovery of Proboscidia in the 
Wyoming Eocene was communicated to the Society. The 
paper was not announced to the Society till its meeting on Sep- 
tember 20, and was not published till February 6, 1873. 
MR. PENGELLY writes us that the specimens referred to by 
Mr. Everett (NATURE, April 17) did reach him through Mr. 
Everett’s mother, and were duly acknowledged. The labels 
were rotten with wet, and the specimens consisted of shells and 
bones, the latter including human teeth and portions of a skull, 
incisors of some rodent, and a large hog-like molar. 
PENIKESE ISLAND, the gift of which for the study of natural 
history to Prof. Agassiz by Mr. Anderson we have already more 
than once spoken of, was handed over by the donor on Monday, 
April 21, in a very simple way, accompanied by some speech- 
making. Prof. Agassiz and his generous admirer then met for 
the fr-t time, and for the first time Agassiz set foot on the 
future sphere of his Jabours. The short deed of conveyance 
was read and handed over, and Prof, Axassiz briefly returned 
thanks, announcing that he intended to christen the institution 
to be founded on the island, *‘Tne Anderson School of 
Natural History.” Preparations for the school, which will 
open this summer, will be immediately commenced. Plans 
have already been drawn for a two-story wooden building 
Ico ft. long and 25 ft. wide. . The lower floor is intended 
for laboratories and working-rooms, of which there will be eight, 
with a large hall. The second story will contain twenty-six 
sleeping-rooms, two bath-rooms, and a large room for the Super- 
intendent of the Institution. Several friends of Mr. Anderson 
in New York have become interested in the school, and will 
probably give liberally towards its endowment. The island of 
Penikese, Penekese, or Penequese, and often called Pune by the 
pilots, is one of a group of the Elizabethan Isles, lying between 
Buzzard’s Bay and Vineyard Sound, and stretching southward 
irom Cape Cod to a point nearly opposite the coast of Rhode 
Island. Penikese is just inside and on starboard hand of the 
——— 
entrance to Buzzard’s Bay. It is twelve miles from New Bedford. 
The island is three-fourths of a mile long and half a mile wide, and 
contains ninety-seven acres of land, some of which is of good 
quality. A young tree was pointed out that had grown in oné 
season higher than anybody in the party could reach. The surface 
is hilly, the highest point being about a hundred feet above the 
water. Mr. Anderson reserves a peninstla of some fifteen acres 
onthe east end of the island, and here he proposes to build a 
house next year. Prof. Agassiz states that Penikese is a much 
better location for the school than the one originally contem- 
plated at Nantucket. The school is to be devoted mainly to 
the study of fish and marine objects in the summer season, and 
a much larger variety is found in Penikese. The Sound and 
waters in the vicinity of Nantucket have almost invariably a 
sandy bottom, while the diversity in marine topography in Buz- 
zard’s Bay invites and fosters a corresponding bags’ of animal 
and vegetable life. 
Art the meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute receatly held 
in London, Mr. Lowthian Bell was elected president, and 
delivered a very interesting address. He pointed out the great 
success which had attended the organisatien of the society, 
which although only in the fifth year of its existence, now nums 
bered on its rolls 522 members. He expressed his opinion 
that the Institute ‘had far from reached its limits. Referring 
then to the instances which still exist here and there, of a 
disregard for scientific inquiry, the result, perhaps, of con- 
siderable success effected independently of philosophical T2- 
search, in which cases practical experience, as it is called, is the 
only rule admitted, Mr. Bell remarked, that on the other hand, 
abstract science, correct as it may be in every step employed in its 
elaboration, when introduced into the workshop may be found 
unable to stand the rude but inevitable test of commercial prae= 
ticability ; hence the necessity of a convenient method of effecting 
a sound union between these two great principles, and to obtain 
this was the object of the organisation of the Iron and Steel 
Institute, where are brought face to face men, some distinguished 
for their practical knowledge, and others equally eminent for 
their attachments to scientific observation. He then proceeded 
to consider the present aspect of foreign competition, and thought 
the progress in other countries in iroa manufacture had arisen 
from an adaptation of our own appliances, and not from any 
important discoveries abroad. In speaking of the recent scarcity 
of coal, although it was his impression that an important addition 
can and will be made to their present output, he yet contem- 
plated the possibility of a time being now approaching when 
“any extension of manufacturing operation in this country 
would have to be regulated, not by the requirements of 
society for their produce, but by the means our coal mines 
might possess of furnishing the fuel required. Mr. Bell, after 
referring to several improvements in the plant and processes for 
manufactwiing iron, looking forward to the future, expressed his 
opivion that, waless new discoveries of coal be made in Europe, 
the great rival we Have to fear in the iron manufacture is the 
United States, which possesses unlimited quantities of ores of the 
finest quality, and such enormous deposits of coal, that our 
own wealth in that mineral is but comparative poverty. At 
the proceedings on April 30, a paper by Dr. C. William Sie- 
mens, ‘‘On the Manufacture of Iron and Steel by Direct Pro- 
cess,” was read, 
tive gas furnace. 
A SPECIAL meeting of the Council and Natural History Com- 
mittee of the Asiatic Society was held at Calcutta a few weeks 
since, for the purpose of considering Mr. Schwendler’s scheme 
for the establishment of a Zoological Garden in Calcutta. After 
considerable discussion it was resolved that the Council of the 
Society should once more record their opinion as to the great 
advantage to Natural History Science, as well as to the public 
Dr, Siemens described his rotative regenera-_ 
