March 22, 1883] 
NATURE 
495 
fairly conclude, therefore, that pinnate venation is best 
adapted to very long leaves, both because of the support 
it gives to the cellular mass and because of the easy 
manner in which it distributes sap to every part alike. 
It seems also probable that pinnate ribs are especially 
adapted to forest trees. Most of these indeed have their 
leaves rather long in outline—like the ash, the oak, the 
chestnut, the walnut, the mountain ash, the laurels, the 
hornbeam, and the willow—while others in which the 
primary ribs are palmate—like the horse-chestnut and 
Fics. 28, 29, 30-—Gradation from palmate to pinnate venation. 
the plane—have their secondary ribs pinnate and their 
lobes or leaflets very long, so that the total effect is in 
the end pretty much the same. But even when the leaf 
is rather shortened in general outline, as in the elm, the 
beech, the alder, and the poplar, the venation is still 
pinnate. Doubtless this form of ground-plan protects 
the leaves of these exposed trees best against the wind; 
and where the leaflets are much subdivided, as in the 
acacias, the subdivision may be regarded as a protection 
against severe storms. 
Fics. 31, 32, 33-—Gradation from palmate lobes to pinnate leaflets. 
The shapes of leaves in each particular species of 
plant thus depend in ultimate analysis upon two factors : 
first, the ancestrally-inherited peculiarities of type and 
venation ; and second, the actual conditions to which the 
species is now habitually exposed. Accordingly, under 
the same conditions, a monocotyledon and a dicotyledon 
will tend to assume approximately similar general ex- 
ternal forms ; but their underlying ancestral peculiarities 
may generally be perceived through the mere analogical 
resemblance produced by an identical environment. By 
the interaction of the two factors we must endeavour to 
explain every particular form of leaf. To do this through- 
out the whole vegetable kingdom would be of course an 
endless task, but to do it in a few selected groups is both 
a practicable and a useful botanical study. The ground- 
plan will always depend upon the ancestral type; the 
outline, degree of segmentation, and minuteness of 
cutting, will always depend upon the average supply of 
carbonic acid and sunlight. GRANT ALLEN 
(Lo be continued.) 
NOTES 
Sir JOHN Lupgock did right to ask the Prime Minister on 
Monday, whether, in remodelling the department of the Lord 
President of the Council, he would consider the desirability of 
separating the actual Minister of Education in the House of 
Commons from that office, and of transferring to him the power 
of appointing the inspectors and other officers on whom the 
satisfactory working of the education of the country so greatly 
depends. As might have been expected, Mr. Gladstone held 
out no hope of any change being mad> for a long time; that, 
however, is no reason why the efforts of the friends of science 
and education in this direction should cease. 
THE Grocers’ Company have issued a scheme for the encou- 
ragement of original research in sanitary science. It consists of 
two forms of endowment: the one, meant as maintenance for 
work in progress, in fields of research to be chosen by the 
worker himself ; the other, meant as reward for actual discovery 
in fields of research to be specified from time to time by the 
Company. With the former intention the Company establishes 
three Research Scholarships, each of 2507. a year; with the 
latter intention they appoint a Discovery Prize of 1000/., to be 
given once in every four years. The Research Scholarships are 
intended as stipends for persons engaged in making exact re- 
searches into the causes of important diseases, and into the 
means by which the respective causes may be prevented or 
obviated. The Court of the Company propose to appoint to 
two of the scholarships in May, and to a third in May, 1884. 
The Discovery Prize is intended to reward original investigations, 
which shall have resulted in important additions to exact know- 
ledge, in particular sections of sanitary subject-matter. The 
Court will, once in four years, propose some subject for investi- 
gation ; and the first subject will be announced in May. 
THE Annual Report of the City and Guilds of London Insti- 
tute, taken in conjunction with the Annual Meeting held last 
week, shows that technical education has taken firm root and is 
making rapid progress in this country. Though hardly yet so 
universal as on the Continent, there is every reason to believe 
that it soon will be, and Lord Selborne, who presided at the 
Annual Meeting, was justified in congratulating the Institute on 
its success. As the Z%es, in a sensible article on the Annual 
Meeting, says: ‘‘ Lord Selborne did not dwell at length upon 
the general aspects of technical education. He assumed, and 
he had good reason to assume, that the need for a systematic 
development of it is proved beyond question, and is almost uni- 
versally accepted. No observer now doubts that if the English 
artisan is to hold his ground in the struggle for existence, he 
must be kept up to the mark by proper teaching; and no one 
who has at heart the moral well-being of the working classes 
doubts the enormous importance of giving them an insight into 
principles and processes which will raise their work as much as 
possible out of the mere mechanical groove.” 
THE following are the arrangements for the lectures after Easter 
at the Royal Institution :—Prof. J. G. McKendrick, ten lectures 
on physiological discovery ; Dr. Waldstein, four lectures on the 
