476 
NATURE 
[ Oct. 12, 1871 

NOTES 
WE greatly regret to have to announce that the state of the 
venerable Prof. Sedgwick’s health is such that he will be unable 
to deliver his usual course of lectures during the ensuing 
academical year. His place will be filled pro tem. by Mr. John 
Morris, Professor of Geology at University College, London. 
Though we cannot but regret the cause which has taken Prof. 
Morris to Cambridge, his nomination by Prof. Sedgwick to 
serveas his deputy is a cause of congratulation to the University. 
In Sir John F. Burgoyne, F.R.S., who died on Saturday last, 
in the goth year of his age, the English army has lost the most 
eminent man of science among her officers. In both civil and 
military capacities, as chairman of the Board of Public Works 
in Ireland from 1830 to 1845, and at the Siege of Sebastopol, 
he evinced engineering talents of no ordinary kind. Sir John 
Burgoyne’s only son perished in the Caf/ain, being in command 
of that ill-fated vessel. 
Dr. HENRY S. WILSON has been appointed Demonstrator of 
Anatomy at the University of Cambridge. Dr. Wilson formerly 
held a simi'ar office in the University of Edinburgh. 
Tue Professor of Chemistry at Cambridge, Mr. Liveing, will 
give instruction in practical chemistry on Tuesdays, Thursdays, 
and Saturdays at1 P.M. The instruction will be given at the 
University Laboratory. The Laboratory will be open for stu- 
dents daily from ten A.M. until six P.M. The Demonstrator (Mr, 
Hicks, B.A.) will attend to give in-truction on mornings and 
afternoons alternately. The Professor of Chemistry will deliver 
a course «f lectures in Spectrum Analysis and some other special 
b-anches of chem stry on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays at 
noon, commencing on October 26, in the Chemical Lecture-room, 
next Downing Street. No fee will be required of those wh» do 
not wish for a certificate. 
THE Oxford School of Science and Art, in connection with the 
Science and Art Department of the Council on Education, South 
Kensington, has been granted the use of the New University 
Museum at Oxford, where lectures will be given this month on 
Mathematics (Elementary), Magnetism and Electricity, Animal 
Physiology, and Inorganic Chemistry. We regard this act of the 
University as one of very good omen. 
THE combined examination held by Magdalen and Merton 
Colleges for scholarships in mathematics and natural science 
terminated on Saturday, when the following elections were de- 
clared :—Magdalen College : Demyship in Mathematics—Mr, R. 
R. Corkling, Manchester Grammar School. Demyships in 
Natural Science—Mr. E. Steel, Manchester Grammar School ; Mr. 
G. R. Christie, Magdalen Coilege School. Proxime accesserunt 
for natural science demyship—Mr. Hamsworth, Mr. Hopwood, 
Manchester Grammar School. Merton College : Mathematical 
postmastership—Mr. F. G. Stokes, Cowbridge. Natural Science 
postmastership—Mr. Lane, Cheltenham Grammar School. There 
were fourteen candidates for the mathematical and sixteen candi- 
dates for the natural science foundations. 
AT the Oldham School of Science and Art, three Queen’s medals 
have been awarded by the Department to the artisan students of 
this school, the silver medal for mathematics to John Armitage ; 
a bronze medal for machine construction and drawing to John 
Robertson ; a bronze medal for applied mechanics to Thomas 
Marsden. Mr. Armitage has also gained a Whitworth Scholar- 
ship this year. 
WE have received the examination papers for the Scholarship 
and Exhibition ia Natural Science recently award by St. Mary’s 
Hospital Medical School. The questions appear to have been 
very carefully framed to show the attainments of the candidates in 
chemistry, physics, zoology, and botany, and we congratulate 



this young school on setting so admirable an example to its older 
sisters in encouraging a real knowledge of science among its 
students. 
EARL GRANVILLE has shown his interest in scientific instrue- 
tion by offering prizes in chemistry, mechanics, and mathematics 
to the examinees at the Margate centre of the Oxford Local 
Examinations. 
To Sir John Lubbock, who has recently been twitted on his 
predilections for prehistoric man, we commend a letter which 
has recently appeared in the Zimes to the effect that a large sec- 
tion of the old Temple of Avebury has just been parcelled off 
into building allotments, and that the remainder is likely to be 
similarly dealt with before long. It may be that from a utilitarian 
point of view this can no longer matter, inasmuch as this cele- 
brated remnant of the ‘‘ Stone Age” has been so thoroughly 
wrecked that scarce anything now remains of it. According to 
Dr. Stukely, the Temple was nearly perfect in the time of 
Charles II., who visited it, and had plans and drawings made, 
copies of which are reproduced in Dr. Stukely’s works. There 
were then standing between 200 and 300 stones, and it was, in 
his opinion, as superior to Stonehenge as a cathedral would be 
toa parish church. All that now remains of this wonderful 
monument, and of the two avenues, each of nearly a mile in 
leng:h, by which it was approached, is about two-thirds of the 
great circular earthen mound by which it was enclosed and about 
twenty of the stones. The rest have been utilised by the in- 
habitants of the village to build their cottages, erect their parish 
church, make bridges, stone fences, and mend the road. It is 
said that a beershop was built out of a single stone. This is 
encouraging ! 
THE death is announced of Mr. Thomas Pilgrim, engineer, 
who died on the 6thinst., at the age of seventy-one years, at his 
son’s residence at Plumstead. For the last thirty-five years Mr. 
Pilgrim was intimately associated with Mr. Francis Pettit Smith, 
and with the introduction of the screw-propeller. He acted as 
chief engineer of the Archimedes, the first ship ever sent to sea 
propelled by the screw. 
THE annual Exhibition of Fungi was held at the Royal Hor- 
ticultural Gardens, on Wednesday the 4th inst., and was decidedly 
better than any of its predecessors. Nearly all the British edible 
and poisonous fungi were shown in a living state, including 
several rare species. The visitors showed the greatest possible 
interest in the plants exhibited, and the Fungus exhibition was 
one of the best attended of the year. The prizes for the best 
collections of edible and poisonous species, offered by Mr. W. 
W. Saunders, were in the first place awarded to Mr. English and 
Mr. W. G. Smith ; but, through some informality on the part of 
these exhibitors, the first prize was ultimately conferred on Messrs, 
Hoyle and Austin, of Reading. 
MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE has taken an honourable lead 
among our public schools in the cultivation of science, and we 
therefore turned over with more than ordinary interest the leaves 
of the Report of its Natural History Society for the haif-year 
ending Midsummer 1871, just received. We do not look to 
these reports for papers of original research that materially ad- 
vance our scientific knowledge ; rather, for such as will in the 
first place show an accurate and careful observation of the phe- 
nomena of nature on the part of the writer ; and, secondly, that 
will promote the study of natural history among his hearers. We 
are disposed, therefore, to agree with the secretaries that the 
production at the meetings of these societies of papers which 
show a very limited amount of knowledge, if only such know- 
ledge as is shown be the result of honest work, is better than 
having no papers at all, and to endorse their remark in the pre- 
face, that ‘‘failure is the indispensable ingredient of success ; 

