130 
plant, ‘and few plants of any kind; no gentians, primroses, 
anemones, ranunculi, or other types ‘of an Alpine flora. The 
rocks were chiefly a very hard porphyry, red, black, and grey, 
with granite here and there, and beds of limestone, all hard and 
obnoxious to plants. Moreover, these steep upper cliffs of the 
Atlas are alternately roasted by a blazing sun, or parched by a 
Sahara sirocco, or swept by moist north-west Atlantic gales, 
which bring heavy snowstorms such as we experienced, probably 
throughout the year. The flora up to 7,000 feet, on the contrary, 
is exceedingly rich, varied, and beautiful ;” and Dr. Hooker 
thinks that their collections will prove of very great interest and 
considerable extent. Many English plants find their southern 
limits here, and there is an abundance of roses, bramble, elder, 
honeysuckle, ivy, ash, poplar, &c. 
A FRENCH physician, Dr. Brierre de Boismont, has discovered 
a new disease, a form of contagious mental alienation, from 
which, he states, the members of the Commune suffered during 
the late insurrection in Paris, and which he terms the mordis 
democraticus. 
WE have received during the past week Zes Mondes for 
March 23, and the Moniteur Scientifique for May 1 and 15, to- 
gether with the Comptes Rendus to May 29, we trust an earnest 
of the re-opening of the scientific intercourse with Paris which 
has for long been so lamentably interrupted. 
WE learn that the celebrated collection of Egyptian antiquities 
made by the late artist antiquary, Robert Hay, of Linplum, 
recently exhibited at the Crystal Palace, has been purchased bya 
well-known banker in Boston, U.S.A., and it is now being 
shipped for that city. We regret that so valuable a collection 
should be allowed to leave this country, and congratulate America 
on the acquisition of so important and in many instances unique 
an addition to its antiquities, 
On Saturday, June 10, the boys belonging to the Geology 
Class at Christ’s Hospital went to some pits at Woolwich and 
Charlton, under the care of Professor Tennant. Unfortunately 
the rain detained them for an hour, but, notwithstanding the 
inconveniences caused by the wet, some interesting specimens 
were discovered, and a somewhat better idea of what geology 
really is was obtained from the practical work that they did. 
In a note in a recent number of the American Naturalist, 
Prof. Dawson repeats his assertion that his Prototaxites Logani 
of the Erian formation of Canada is a true exogenous tree, with 
bark, rings of growth, medullary rays, and well-developed, 
though peculiar woody tissue; and not, as Mr. Carruthers has 
maintained, a gigantic alga. 
Mr. F. G, SANBORN has been appointed instructor in Prac- 
tical Entomology in the Bussey Agricultural Institution of 
Harvard University. 
CONGRESS recently appropriated 40,000 dols, for the annual 
expenses of the U.S. Geologist, Dr. F. V. Hayden, who is 
surveying the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado. 
Pror, HENRY, of the Smithsonian Institution, has received 
the decoration of “ Commander of the Order of St. Olaf,” from 
Charles, King of Sweden and Norway. A joint resolution has 
been offered in Congress to enable the Professor to accept the 
honour. 
Dr. WILLS DE Hass is about to start on an extended visit 
of exploration in the Valley of the Mississippi, with a view of 
cctermining the character of certain ancient works in the vicinity 
of St. Louis. 
Av a meeting of the New York Lyceum, held on May 15, the 
president, Prof. Newberry, of Columbia College, gave a summary 
of what was being done in the line of geological exploration 
throughout America—a task he was well qualified to perform, 
from his intimate acquaintance with the subject, and from his 
NATURE 

[Fume 15, 1871 



own connection with one of the most important of these enter- 
prises. He congratulated the Lyceum upon the prospect that 
what he called the Chinese puzzle of New England geology isin 
a fair way to be worked out during the present season by means 
of the concurrent labours of several eminent geologists. Among 
these he mentioned Sir William Logan, late director of the 
Geological Survey of Canada ; Prof. C. H. Hitchcock, the State 
Geologist of Vermont ; and Profs. Shaler and Hyatt, of Eastern 
Massachusetts. Prof. Dana also proposes to carry a geological 
section from the valley of the Connecticut to that of the Hudson. 
The following additional items were mentioned in the communi- 
cation of Prof. Newberry : the geological survey of Canada will 
be continued under the direction of Mr. A. R. C. Selwyn, who 
succeeded Sir William Logan in its chief direction. 
WE learn from Harfer’s Weekly that Prof. Winchell has 
resigned the directorship of the geological survey of Michigan ; 
but the work will be carried on by the board of trustees, Major 
Brooks devoting himself to the iron region. Prof. Pumpelly 
declines to continue the survey of the copper district, and asks 
that the small appropriation may be turned over to Major Brooks. 
The current surveys of Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri are to be 
continued during the year, and a new survey has been authorised 
in Arkansas, No positive appointment of director for this work 
has yet been made, although the place has been offered to Prof, 
Orton, of the Ohio geological corps, and declined by him. Bills 
providing for surveys of Pennsylvania and West Virginia were 
introduced into the Legislatures of those States during the past 
winter, but failed to become laws. 
A LABORATORY for the use of students in practical inorganic 
chemistry having been opened last September at the Oldham 
School of Science and Art, twenty-two av¢isaz students pre- 
sented themselves for examination by the Department on the 4th 
of May, and fourteen of them have passed. 


ON THE NECESSITY FOR A PERMANENT 
COMMISSION ON STATE SCIENTIFIC 
QUESTIONS* 
"THE duty of the Government with respect to Science is one of 
the questions of theday. No question of equal importance 
has perhaps been more carelessly considered and more heedlessl 
postponed than this. And now that a hearing has been obtained 
for it, neither the governing class nor the masses are qualified to 
discuss it intelligently. The governing class, because it is for the 
most part composed of men in whose education, as even the 
highest education was conducted thirty to fifty years ago, science 
-occupied an insignificant place ; and the masses, because they 
may be taken to be virtually destitute of scientific knowledge. 
Those who wield, and those who confer, the powers of govern- 
ment being alike incapable of dealing with this question, it de- 
volves on another section of the community to urge its claims 
to attention. 
The section qualified to do this is composed of scientific men, 
properly so called, of professional men, such as engineers, and 
certain manufacturers who are engaged in applying science prac- 
tically, and of a limited number of officers in the naval and 
military services. This section is without much political in- 
fluence, but its intellectual power is enormous, and this power 
has never been so strongly exerted, or so decidedly acknowledged, 
as at the present time. 
A tangible acknowledgment of the claims of science consists 
in the recent appointment of a Royal Commission ‘‘on Scientific 
Instruction and the Advancement of Science,” which is now 
sitting. The problem which this Commission is expected to 
solve is one of very great complexity, delicacy, and difficulty. 
It has to survey the whole world of scientific thought, and to 
construct a chart on which the districts that it is the duty of the 
State to occupy shall be clearly delineated, with boundary lines 
so drawn as not to trench upon tracts which may be best left to 
individual or corporate management. It. has then to devise a 
form of government of which nota trace at present exists, fitted 
* Abstract of a paper read at the Royal United Service Institution, by 
Lieut.-Colonel Strange, F.R.S. 
