I2 - 

A seEriEs of scientific lectures, in connection with the School 
of Science and Art, has been for some time in contemplation at 
Taunton. It has recently commenced witha course of botanical 
lectures, by the Rev. W. Tuckwell, headmaster of the College 
School, which attract a large and diligent audience, consisting 
both of artisans and amateurs. 
Ar the annual dinner of the Institution of Civil Engineers 
held on April 22, Prof. Huxley, in responding to the toast of 
the learned societies in this country, gave the company some very 
sound advice as to the duty of the body of civil engineers in 
enforcing upon the public mind the truth that there can be no, 
technical education of any value or soundness which is not based 
on a thorough preliminary training in abstract or theoretical 
practical science. 
Mr. JoHN Gress, of the Essex and Chelmsford Museum, 
publishes, at the price of a shilling, ‘‘A First Catechism of 
Botany,” which has received the sanction of the Committee of 
Selection for the International Exhibition. Although the cate- 
chismal form always seems to us a needlessly cumbrous and 
circumlocutory one, for those who think otherwise a large amount 
of useful elementary information will be found in this little publi- 
cation. 
WE learn from Triibner’s American and Oriental Literary 
Record that the American Ethnological Society was permanently 
reorganised under the name of “The Anthropological Institute 
of New York,” on the 9th of March, and the following officers 
were elected :—E. Geo. Squier, president ; J. C. Nott and Geo. 
Gibbs, vice-presidents; J. G. Shea, J. K. Merrill, E. H. Davis, 
C. C. Jones, jun., and W. H. Thomson, executive committee ; 
A. J. Cotteral, treasurer ; Charles Raw, foreign corresponding 
secretary ; H. T. Drowne, domestic corresponding secretary ; 
H. R. Stiles, recording secretary ; and Geo. H. Moore, custo- 
dian. The objects of the institute are declared to be:—1. The 
study of man in all his varieties, and under all his aspects and 
relations. 2. Its special object the study of the history, condi- 
tions, and relations of the aboriginal inhabitants of America, and 
the phenomena resulting from the contact of the various races 
and families of men on this continent, before and since the dis- 
coyery. 3. The physical characteristics, religious conceptions, 
and systems of men ; their mythology and traditions ; their social, 
civil, and political organisations and institutions ; their language, 
literature, arts, and monuments ; their mode of life and their cus- 
toms are specifically within the objects of the Institute. 4. The 
collection of manuseripts, books, and relics illustrating these 
several subjects ; the stimulation and encouragement of inquiry 
and research, particularly in unexplored American fields ; and 
by means of such publications as may be deemed proper, to 
utilise the results of its investigations and efforts for the benefit 
of science and of mankind. 5. It recognises the widest range 
of discussion, and a complete tolerance of individual opinions on 
all subjects within the scope of the Institute’s objects. The In- 
stitute proposes to publish a series of Memoirs, and a Journal. 
THE attention of astronomers throughout the world is directed 
toward the approaching transit of Venus, to occur on the 18th of 
December, 1874, and it is hoped, we learn from Harfer’s Weekly, 
that the United States Congress, with the same liberality that 
induced it to make an appropriation for the observation of the 
solar eclipse of December last, and for the polar exploration 
under Captain Hall, will also, at the proper time, advance the 
funds necessary for the research in this case. Professor Hall, of 
the Washington Observatory, in a late communication to the 
Fournal of Science, expresses the hope that a concert of action 
will be settled upon by American astronomers, in order that they 
may not be behind their European con/réres in the attempt to 
‘secure satisfactory results, A committee has been appointed by 
NATURE 

ik 
[Way 4, 1871 
the National Academy of Sciences to take into consideration a 
general plan of operations, and it is expected that a report will 
be made on the subject at the approaching meeting in Wash- 
ington city. 
THE annual report of Professor Cooke, State Geologist of New 
Jersey, for 1870, has just been published ; and although less in 
bulk than some of its predecessors, it contains some important 
information in regard to fertilisers used in the State, the marshes 
and tracts of land subject to protracted freshets, the soils, the 
iron and zinc ores, and other miscellaneous topics. The subject 
of drainage has attracted Professor Cooke’s especial attention, on 
account of the vast tracts of land in the eastern portion of the 
State now either regularly overflowed at certain periods of the 
tide, or liable to freshets or inundations. In order more properly 
to qualify himself for this inquiry, Professor Cooke paid an 
extended visit to the drained lands of Holland and England, the 
results of which he presents in his report. 
M. LonGEt, the celebrated physiologist, member of the French 
Instituteand of the French Academy of Medicine, died at 
the age of sixty-eight, at Bordeaux, a few days since. M. Longet 
is the author of works on the nervous system, which explain 
many of his own discoveries. His death was sudden, and was 
referred by his friends to the horror with which he was stricken 
when hearing the sad news from Paris. 
IN the forthcoming number of the American Fournal of Science 
will be found an article, by Professor Marsh, upon some new 
serpents of the Tertiary deposits of Wyoming. It will be remem- 
bered that ina previous notice of Professcr Marsh’s discoveries in 
the Rocky Mountains, we called attention to the difference 
observed by him between the contents of the Tertiary beds in the 
vicinity of Fort Bridger and those of the Mauvaises Terres of the 
Upper Missouri, the former being especially characterised, as 
compared with the latter, by the presence of reptiles in great 
variety. Among these are many terrestrial species, including 
several kinds of land lizards; and among the forms generally 
serpents appear to be quite predominant. Of the latter, Professor 
Marsh has already determined the existence of five new species, 
belonging to three new genera ; and others will probably be yet 
brought to light. 
AT the present day, when the columns of our newspapers teem 
with advertisements of various preparations for promoting the 
growth or changing the colour of the hair, the following account 
of the results of the use of a preparation of boxwood for that 
purpose may be of interest. Boxwood, according to the old 
herbalists, was used from a remote period to render the hair 
auburn ; and we are told by Phillips that a young woman in Lower 
Silesia, whose hair had fallen off after a severe attack of dysen- 
tery, was advised to wash her head with a decoction of boxwood, 
in order to induce it to grow again. This she did; and “hair of 
a chestnut colour grew on her head, as she was told it would do - 
but, having used no precaution to secure her face and neck from 
the lotion, they became covered with red hair to such a degree’ 
that she seemed but little different from an ape or a monkey !” 
Mr. JAMEs Boyp, of Panama, published some time ago in’ 
the Panama Star and Herald, under the head of ‘‘ The Migra- 
tion of Butterflies across the Isthmus,” an account of the 
phenomenon of the migration in one direction of the Urania 
Leilus. This being republished in England has led to some’ 
correspondence with Mr. Boyd, particularly from a naturalist 
resident at Liverpool. This gentleman states that in January 
1845, he observed the same habit of the Urania in the Island of 
Caripi, one of those near Para, in the Brazils. From an early’ 
hour in the morning until nearly dark these insects passed along 
the shore in amazing numbers, but most numerously in the ever- 
ing. It was very seldom that one was seen in the opposite 
