252 
NATURE 
| Fuly 24, 1873 
Mr. GrorGE SMITH returned on Saturday last from his suc- 
cessful labours in Assyria, 
THE number of institutions in America devoted to education 
of all kinds and of all grades, endowed and supported both by 
the State and by the generosity of private individuals, theoreti- 
caily and practically open to all-comers, is almost sufficient to 
fill a Briton with envy and chagrin, when he contrasts it with 
the comparative meagreness of the educational means of his own 
country, hampered with so many traditional restrictions. One of 
the most admirable, best organised, and most successful of these 
American institutions is the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale 
College, the Eighth Annual Report of which for 1872-73 
we have just received. The School forms the Scientific Faculty 
of Yale College, on the same footing as the other faculties of 
Arts, Medicine, Law, and Divinity, and, to judgefrom the Report, 
must be one of the most successful and efficient scientific 
schools in the world. It owes its name to Mr. Joseph E. Shef- 
field, who, in 1860, presented it with a magnificent building 
and a liberal endowment, and has since frequently munificently 
increased his original gifts, his last one being an additional 
building of five stories, with ample accommodation, which was 
very much needed to meet the rapid increase in the number of 
students, which, during the last session, was 201. The educa- 
tion supplied is in all branches of Science, students being at 
liberty to choose a course of instruction to fit them for pure 
scientific research, or for some practical application of scientific 
principles, as engineering, agriculture, &c. The school is 
most liberally supplied with scientific apparatus in all de- 
partments, seems to have plenty of funds at its command, 
furnished both by the State and by private individuals, and, 
to judge from the prospectus, provides students with a 
thoroughly well-organised and complete course of scientific 
instruction in each of its numerous departments. ‘‘The 
benefit,” the report says, “which the Scientific School 
has conferred upon the State in turning out young men who, on 
leaving the institution, are enabled to assume the position of 
leaders in their several callings, and of educators of the people 
to a higher grade of culture, increasing the productive brain 
capacity as well as the material wealth of the country, cannot 
be estimated in dollars and cents. From all parts of the 
country come back most favourable reports of the graduates 
who have been sent out, and their influence, already great, is 
constantly on the increase. The people of this state cannot do 
too much for an institution which has already done and is 
continuing to do so much for them, by developing the material 
resources of Connecticut, and by extending its reputation 
throughout the entire country.” 
IN this month’s number of the American Fournal of Science 
and Art Mr, Sellack gives a short but interesting account of his 
photographic work among the southern star-clusters at the Ar- 
gentine National Observatory, Cordoba, where, for this purpose, 
he has been for some time at the expense of some gentlemen from 
Boston, U.S.A. On his arrival at Cordoba Mr. Sellack found 
the lens of the photographic refractor he was to use, broken, 
but by dint of perseverance and ingenuity he managed to put 
the pieces together in such a manner as to enable him to obtain 
a well-defined, nearly circular, photographic image of stars of 
the first and second magnitude ; and with exposures of eight 
minutes, even stars of the ninth magnitude, of white colour, 
give a photographic impression. We have -received a lunar 
photograph obtained by Mr. Sellack, and although it will 
not bear comparison with the well-known photographs 
obtained by other astronomers who have devoted attention to the 
subject, nevertheless the impression submitted to us reflects great 
credit on Mr, Sellack, considering the difficulties he had to con- 
tend with in getting it taken. The picture has suffered 
somewhat by too long an exposure in the telescope and over 
development. 
WE have received from Mr. Gerard Krefft, Curator of the 
Sydney Museum, what he calls ‘‘a splendid bit of mimicry,” in 
the shape of a photograph of the chrysalis of Pafilio sarpedon. 
The chrysalis seems to be attached to a leaf, and has itself con- 
trived to assume the shape of a leaf, or rather of a part of the 
leaf to which it is attached. Its colour, Mr. Krefft says, is pale 
green, or sea-green. 
THE last number of the Journal of the Linnean Society is 
entirely occupied by Mr. Bentham’s important paper on the 
structure, classification, and history of development of the Com- 
positz, the largest and most natural order in the vegetable 
kingdom. In accordance with the system proposed in the 
‘Genera Plantarum,” he divides the order into 13 sub-orders, 
viz. : 1, Vernoniacez ; 2, Eupatoriaceze ; 3, Asteroidex ; 4, Inu- 
loidese ; 5, Helianthoidez ; 6, Helenioidez ; 7, Anthemidez ; 
8, Senecionidez ; 9, Calendulacez ; 10, Arctotidese ; 11, Cyna- 
roidez ; 12, Mutisiaceze ; 13, Cichoriaceze ; the most important 
diagnostic characters depending on the structure of the pistil (in 
the hermaphrodite flowers), fruit, andrcecium, corolla, and calyx 
(pappus). A very exhaustive account is given of the geographi- 
cal distribution of the sub-orders and principal families ; and the 
first appearance of the order is traced with probability to Africa, 
Western America, and probably Australia; the difference 
between the forms now observed in the northern and southern 
hemispheres having become developed only after the tropical belt 
introduced an impassable barrier between them. It is one of the 
most important contributions to structural and systematic botany 
which has issued from this country for many years. 
Dr. RoBERT SCHLESINGER publishes (from the house of — 
Orell, Fiissli & Co., Zurich) a small work on the microscopica 
examination of Textile Fabrics in the raw and coloured state, 
with a note on the mode of detecting ‘*shoddy-wool.” It con- 
tains a complete account of the fabrics made from the various 
vegetable fibres in more or Jess common use, also from hair and 
silk, with their distinguishing characteristics, as exhibited under 
the microscope, when raw, spun or woven, and dyed, illus- 
trated with 27 woodcuts, and introduced by a preface by Dr, 
Emil Kopp. 
THE current number of the Zoo/ogist commences with a paper 
by Mr. F. H. Balkwill, having the pretentious title ‘* A Diik- 
culty for Darwinists,” in which, like many others who do not 
fully understand the subject, he lays too much stress on the 
possibility of slight variations in an iz/imite number of direc- 
tions. No doubt it is theoretically possible for an in- 
finite number of variations to occur in living bodies, if they 
are within the influence of an infinite number of different 
forces, just as the result of a very large number of forces 
acting on a particle, may cause it to take one of almost an 
infinite number of directions. But the forces acting on the 
living body are comparatively limited, and when as in the cases 
of the Thylacine and the Dog, or of the Wombat and the 
Rodent, which are the author’s stumblingblocks, the forces 
which have been called to act on the Marsupial and Placental 
types of organism have ben practically identical, they having 
had to undergo the struggle for existence under similar circum- 
stances, it is not to be wondered at, but only to be expected, 
that similar organisms should be the result, especially as the 
two types to start with are not separated by any great interval, — 
It is just as probable, external circumstances being similar, that. 
the isolated Marsupial ancestor should give rise to carnivorous, 
rodent, and herbivorous forms, as that they should be developed 
from a Placental type. 
