
260 
NATURE 

Prof. Key points out that the doctrine is now practically 
admitted that for all chairs in a college of any pretensions a 
fixed salary is essential, and that the principle has been recognised 
in Owens College, Manchester, the Queen’s College in Ireland, 
the Government School of Mines, and the new Indian College 
for Engineering. 
Av an extraordinary General Meeting of the members of Uni- 
versity College held on Saturday last, the Right Hon. Lord Belper, 
LL.D., F.R.S., was unanimously elected President of the Col- 
lege in the place of the late Mr. George Grote. At a session of 
the council, on the same day, the following appointments were 
made :—Mr. W. K. Ciifford, Fellow of Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge, to be Professor of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics ; 
Prof. H. C, Bastian, M.D., F.R.S., to be Physician to Univer- 
sity College Hospital; Mr. Berkeley Hill, M.B., Mr. Chris- 
topker Heath, and Mr. Marcus Beck, M.S, M.B., to be 
teachers of Practical Surgery. The Sharpey Scholarship, re- 
cently established for the promotion of the study of Biological 
Science in the college, was conferred upon Mr. E. A. Schafer. 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, London, has recently been enriched 
by several valuable donations and legacies. Mr. Grote left 
6,000/. for the endowment of a chair of Mental Philosophy, and 
Mr. James Yates legacies to be similarly applied for the teaching 
of Geology and Archzology. The treasurer of the College has 
given an endowment of 200/. for five years for the chair of 
Applied Mathematics, and the late Prof. Graves left a legacy to 
the College, without a rival of its kind, in the shape of a Mathe- 
matical Library, consisting of more than 10,000 volumes, besides 
some 500 pamphlets. 
THE Senate of University College has appointed as its Pro- 
fessor of Hindustani, Kazi Shahabudeen Ibrahim. This gentle- 
man is an accomplished scholar, and held a high position in | 
, gh | 
our service in India, He was afterwards Dewar of the Rajah 
of Kutch, and is now resident for him in London. He also acts 
as hon. secretary of the East India Association. Kazi Sha- 
habudeen being a thorough master of our own language, has a 
great advantage, and we may indeed observe that the progress 
of English studies in India ought greatly to promote those of the 
Indian languages in England. We can now get men having 
literary proficiency in their own languages, and that acquaintance 
which few but a native can attain, while they have the full 
power of communicating their knowledge to students in our 
colleges. 
IN an article which will be found elsewhere, we allude to the 
approaching Total Eclipse of the Sun. On this subject we may 
refer to a very interesting letter which Mr. Hind has recently 
addressed to the Zimes on the next Total Solar Eclipse which 
wil be visible in England. Our readers will gather that we 
shall have some time to wait. Mr. Hind tells us that in the year 
1954, June 30, the zone of totality just touches the British Isles, 
and adds ‘‘to discover an eclipse that will be total in England, 
I have found it necessary to continue the calculations to nearly 
the close of the same century. Such an eclipse (according to 
my investigation) will not occur until the 11th of August, 1999, 
when the circumstances will be nearly as follows :—The central 
and total eclipse will enter upon the earth’s surface in the southern 
part of the Gulf of Mexico ; thence traversing the Atlantic, it 
meets the English coast at Padstow, in Cornwall, and crossing 
the south of Devon enters the Channel at Torquay (which will 
be the most favourable place for observation in this country), and 
passing over the Eddystune, reaches France about fifteen miles 
east of Dieppe. It will be central and total, with the sun on 
the meridian some twenty-five miles south-west of Pesth, and 
traversing Asia Minor, Persia(at Ispahan), &c., will finally leave 
the earth’s surface in the Bay of Bengal. At Torquay the first 
contact of limbs, or commencement of the eclipse, occurs at 



| 
| 
| 
| 
8.23 A.M. local mean time, and the last contact at 11.20 A.M. 
Totality begins at 1oh. om. 43s,, with the sun at an altitude of — 
48°, and continues 2m. 4s. At Plymouth the duration of total — 
eclipse is tm. 58s., at Weymouth Im. 55s. The southern part 
of the Isle of Wight falls within the northern limit of totality 
according to my calculation.” Further, onthe subject of the last 
Total Solar Eclipse visible in London, which occurred on the 3rd 
of May, 1715, and was successfully observed in the metropolis and 
at many other English stations, Mr. Hind states, it is ‘‘neces- 
sary to look further back than the year 1140 for the total solar — 
eclipse in London next preceding that of 1715. I greatly doubt 
if, excepting the eclipse of August 11, 1999, described above, 
there can be any total solar eclipse visible in England for two 
hundred and fifty years from the present time.” 
THE grounds of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, are now 
being rapidly occupied with the temporary observatories and 
instruments which are to be used for the observations of the 
Transit of Venusin 1874. We could wish that equal energy 
were shown in arrangements for other observations which are 
quite as important as those in question. 
THE following are the names of the successful candidates in 
the competition for the Whitworth Scholarships, 1871, in the 
Science and Art Department :—Edmund F. Mondy, Rother- 
hithe ; Samuel Anglin, Manchester ; George Smith, Birming- 
ham ; John Yeo, Portsmouth ; Henry H. Greenhill, Portsea ; 
John Armitage, Oldham; William Lee, London; Samuel A. 
Kirkby, Cambridge; Benjamin A. Raworth, Manchester ; 
George C. V. Holmes, Sydenham. 
Tue French weekly scientific journal, Zes A/ondes, entered, 
with its last number, on its 25th volume. 
Tuar excellent body, the Smithsonian Institution, Wash- 
ington, has recently issued its report for the year 1869, in 
addition to which we have, under the same cover, Bertrand’s 
paper on the Life and Works of Kepler, Arago’s Eulogy on 
Thomas Young, Memoirs of Auguste Bravais and von Mar- 
tlus, a paper on the Chemistry of the Earth by Sterry Hunt, 
another on the Electrical Currents of the Earth by Matteucci, 
another on the Phenomena of Flight by Marey, and so on,—we 
really have not space to nameali the titles, —and we have already 
said enough to indicate the extreme value of the volume. Among 
recent memoirs and papers published by the same Institution, we 
may mention a paper onthe magnetic survey of Pennsylvania by 
Dr. Bache, on the Gleddon mummy case by Dr. Pickering, and 
on the phenomena and laws of aurora borealis by Loomis. 
WE are glad to see that in the list of Civil Service Pensions 
just issued, the claims of Science have been recognised by the 
grant of 100/. to Mr. Charles Tilston Beke, in consideration of 
his geographical researches, and especially of the value of his 
explorations in Abyssinia; and 150/. to Mrs. Emily Coles, 
widow of Captain Cowper Phipps Coles, in consideration of 
her husband’s services as inventor of the turret ship system. 
THE Revue Scientifique publishes an account of the chemical 
investigations and works of the late Prof. Payen, the most im- 
portant of which are as follows:—In 1824 he made his first 
investigations on the value of manures; in 1830 he presented to 
the Society of Agriculture a paper on the means of utilising all 
the parts of dead animals in the country ; in 1836 he read a 
memoir on the elementary composition of starch in different 
plants ; in 1837 he established the composition of dextrine from 
its definite combinations with oxide of lead and baryta; and in 
the same year he read a paper on the distribution of nitrogenous 
matters in the organs of vegetables ; in 1838 he presented a very 
important memoir on the composilicn of woody tissue, and point- 
ing out the distinction between cellulose and starch ; in 1841 he 
