« 
April 5, 1883] NAT 
“*T may amplify this by stating for your information that the 
tariff of the Montreal hotels ranges from $2 soc. to $4 per day 
inclusive, and that private accommodation can be obtained at 
much lower prices than in England. 
‘© (TII.) ‘A scheme of expeditions which would occupy from 
two to three weeks subsequent to the meeting, and the cost of 
each of them.’ 
“Dr. Sterry Hunt says :—‘ As to the proposed excursions, we 
are prepared to say that the Grand Trunk, the Canada Pacific, 
and the Intercolonial Railways will furnish free transportation 
over their lines throughout the dominion of Canada from Nova 
Scotia to the North-West. The Canada Pacific will also arrange 
an excursion to the Rocky Mountains, and the Grand Trunk 
one to the Great Lakes (note: this will include Niagara) and 
Chicago ; while the South-Eastern Railway will do the same for 
the White Mountains and Portland and Boston. For an excur- 
sion of this kind, occupying three or four weeks, tourists should 
be provided with, say, 20/. in money for hotels, carriages, and 
other incidental expenses, though it is possible that a less sum 
than this would be needed.’ 
**T am inclosing a copy of a circular that has been prepared 
by the Montreal committee. It contains interesting informa- 
tion, and it will be seen that the arrangements are in the hands 
of representative and eminent men. 
“*T believe from the information that reaches me that the 
Association will receive the addition of a considerable number 
of associates in Canada, and that the visit will give an impetus 
to scientific research in the Dominion such as it has not expe- 
rienced before. It is confidently anticipated also that the 
American Association will hold its meeting in 1884 at a conve- 
nient time and place, affording an opportunity for scientific 
intercourse that I imagine does not often occur. 
«1 will gladly supply any further information you may require 
if it isin my power to do so, and shall readily cooperate in any 
measures having for their object the success of the meeting of 
the British Association for the Advancement of Science at 
Montreal in 1884. 
“*T am, dear Sir, your obedient servant, 
oC Ae ieGALT, 
“ High Commissioner for Canada, and Vice-Chairman 
of the Montreal Citizens’ Committee 
“Prof. T. G. Bonney, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.8., &c., 
‘22, Albemarle Street, W.” 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE 
OxrorD.—The Savilian Professorship of Geometry in the Uni- 
versity is vacant, and an election to the office will be held before 
the endof Trinity Term (July 7, 1883). A Fellowskip in New 
College is now annexed to the Professorship. The duty of the 
Profe-sor is to lecture and give instruction in pure and analytical 
geometry. The combined emoluments of the office from both 
sources will be, fur the present, 700/. a year, but may possibly 
hereafter be increased to an amount not exceeding 900/. a year. 
The qualifications required in candidates for the Savilian Pro- 
fessorships by the existing Statutes of the University are as 
follows :—‘‘ Hos Professores sive lectores, prout voluit fundator, 
statuimus et decernimus fore perpetuis temporibus eligendos ex 
hominibus bonze fame et conversationis honeste, ex quacunque 
natione orbis Christiani, et cujuscunque ordinis sive profes~ionis, / 
qui in mathematicis instructissimi sint, et annos ad minimum’ 
sex et viginti nati; et, si Angli fuerint, sint ad minimum Artium 
Magistri.” Candidates are requested to send to the Registrar of 
the University their applications, and any documents which they 
may wish to submit to the Electors, on or before Thursday, 
May 31. 
VicroriA UNIVERSITY.—At a meeting of the University 
Court on March 30, Vice-Chancellor Greenwood laid on the 
table the supplementary charter, dated March 20, 1883, enabling 
the University to confer degrees and distinctions in medicine and 
surgery. After some discussion it was resolved that the Council 
be empowered and instructed to appoint external examiners in 
medicine and surgery for a limited period, and to appoint certain 
lecturers of the University to act as University examiners ; also 
to prepare, after a report from the General Board of Studies, a 
statute or statutes and regulations relating to degrees in medicine 
and surgery for the consideration of the Court, and also to report 
of the subsequent appointment of external examiners in medicine 
a®.R.S.E. Communicated by the President. 
URE 547 
and surgery, in accordance with the recommendation of the 
University Council. The Council were instructed to ascertain 
whether the University charter would allow of the same facilities 
that had been given to Owens College students being extended 
to the students of other colleges when those colleges sought 
admission to the University. The Council were of opinion that 
such facilities should certainly be given. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 
LoNDON 
Linnean Society, March 15.—Frank Crisp, treasurer and 
vice-president, in the chair.—Dr. T. S. Cobbold read a paper 
on Simondsia paradoxa, and on its probable affinity with 
Spherularia bomb. Thirty years ago Prof. Simonds discovered 
aremarkable parasite within cysts in the stomach of a wild boar 
which died in the Zoological Gardens, London. Prof, Simonds 
regarded the worm as a species of Strongylus, but Dr. Cobbold 
in 1864 suggested its affinities might probably be nearer the 
genus Sfiroftera, then naming it S%mondsia. The original 
drawings unfortunately were lost, and only quite lately, along 
with the specimens, they have turned up and have enabled Dr. - 
Cobbold to investigate them more closely. He arrives at the 
conclusion that Simondsia is a genus of endoparasitic nematodes 
in which the female is encysted and furnished with an external 
and much enlarged uterus, whose walls expand into branches 
terminating in ceca. The male is 4 inch and the female ;5, inch 
long. Moreover, it is now found that what was at first regarded 
as the head turns out to be the tail, so that supposed Strongyloid 
character is incorrect. Taking into account what is known of 
Spherularia bombi as interpreted by Schneider, and whose views 
are universally accepted, it appears that Sizondsta, though 
unique, yet approaches towards Sfheralaria in respect of the 
enormously developed female reproductive organ, which in both 
lies outside the body proper. Until Sir J. Lubbock’s memoir on 
Spherularia appeared, the so-called male had never been indi- 
cated ; but, judged by Schneider’s interpretation of that genus, 
the male is still unknown, Dr, Cobbold points out that the so- 
called rosette in S¢yzondsia is morphologically a prolapsed uterus 
furnished with two egg-containing branches; he regards the 
external branched processes as homologous with the spheerules 
of Spherularia, whilst the ultimate czecal capsules have nothing 
comparable to them in nature.—A paper was read on the moths 
of the family Urapteridz in the British Museum, by Arthur G. 
Butler. The author, basing distinctions on wing neuration and 
other characters, redistributes the family, and indicates the fol- 
lowing new genera :—Tyistrophis, Gonorthus, Stirinpteris, 
Nepheloleuca, Thinopteryx, Xeropteryx, and A£schropteryx.— 
The eighteenth contribution to the mollusca of the Chadlenger 
Expedition, by the Rey. R. Boog-Watson was read, in which 
the author treats of the family Tornatellidze, therein describing 
six new species of the genus Aceon. 
Geological Society, March 7.—J. W. Hulke, F.R.S., 
president, in the chair.—Messrs. Thomas Gustav Hawley, 
Richard Lydekker, and J. O’Donoghue were elected Fellows, 
and M. F. L. Cornet, of Mons, a Foreign Correspondent of the 
Society. —The following communications were read :—On Gray 
~and Milne’s seismographic apparatus, by Thomas Gray, B.Sc., 
This apparatus 
avas stated to have for its object the registration of the time of 
occurrence, the duration, and the nature, magnitude, and period 
of the motions of the earth during an earthquake. The instru- 
ment was made by Mr, James White, Glasgow, and is to be 
used by Prof. John Milne in his investigations in Japan. In 
this apparatus two mutually rectangular components of the hori- 
zontal motion of the earth are recorded on a sheet of smoked 
paper wound round a drum, kept continuously in motion by 
clockwork, by means of two conical pendulum-seismographs. 
The vertical motion is recorded on the same sheet of paper by 
means of a compensated-spring seismograpb. In details these 
instruments differ considerably from those described in the 
Philosophical Magazine for September, 1881, but the principle 
is the same. The time of cccurrence of an earthquake is deter- 
mined by causing the circuit of two electromagnets to be closed 
by the shaking. One of these magnets relieves a mechanism, 
forming part of a time-keeper, which causes the dial of the 
timepiece to come suddenly forward on the hands and then 
moye back to its original position. The hands are provided 
