Jay 5, 1870 | 
MATORE 
aS 
1871 in the various branches of science:—Logic and Moral 
Uosophy: Rey. Mark Pattison, B.D., and Prof. G. Croom 
Obertson, M.A. Political Economy: Prof. W. Stanley Jevons, 
A., and Prof. T. E. Cliffe Leslie, LL.B. Mathematics and 
atural Philosophy: Prof. H. J. S. Smith, M.A., F.R.S., and 
we Sylvester, M.A., F.R.S. Experimental Philosophy: Prof. 
W. G. Adams, M.A., and Prof. G. Carey Foster, B.A., F.R.S. 
emistry : Dr. Matthiessen, F.R.S., and Prof. Odling, M.B., 
ER.S. Botany and Vegetable Physiology: Joseph Dalton 
‘Hooker, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., and Thomas Thomson, M.D., 
F.RS. Geology and Palxontology: Prof. Duncan, M.B., 
F.R.S., and Prof. Morris, F.G.S. Practice of Medicine : John 
Syer Bristowe, M.D., and Prof. J. Russell Reynolds, M.D., 
F.R.S. Surgery: Prof. John Birkett, F.R.C.S., and F. Le 
Gros Clark, F.R.C.S. Anatomy : Prof. William Turner, M.B., 
F.RS.E., and Prof. John Wood, F.R.C.S. Physiology, Com- 
parative Anatomy. and Zoology : Michael Foster, M.D., B.A-, 
and Henry Power, M.B. Obstetric Medicine: Robert Barnes, 
M.D., and Prof. W. H. Graily Hewitt, M.D. Materia Medica 
and Pharmaceutical Chemistry: Thomas R. Fraser, M.D., 
B.R.S.E., and Prof. Alfred Baring Garrod, M.D., F.R.S. 
Forensic Medicine: E. Headlam Greenhow, M.D., and Thomas 
Stevenson, M.D. 
PROFEssOR AGASSIZ is still seriously ill. 
WE are rejoiced to hear that M. Janssen is to be provided with 
instruments wherewith to continue his observations on the sun 
by means of the new method. This was announced at the last 
meeting of the Paris Academy by M. Faye, who remarked : 
**F1 quelques mois il livrera 4 la Science cent fois plus de 
données précieuses que les astronomes n’ auraient pu en recueillir, 
ayant lui, par observation ordinaire des eclipses totales d’une 
vingtaine de siecles.” 
THE number of entries for the Examination for Women at 
the London University, which takes place during the current week, 
is 17, against 9 last year. Of these, 12 will be examined in 
London, and 5 at Cheltenham. 
Dr. A. VOELCKER and Mr. H, M, Jenkins, Secretary to the 
Royal Agricultural Society, reprint, from the Journal of the 
Society, a Report on the Agriculture of Belgium, containing 
much valuable information on its soil and climate, geological 
features, modes of agriculture, and rural economy. 
“ THE Body and its Health, a Book for Primary Schools,” by 
E, D. Mapother, M.D., is a little elementary book on human 
hysiology, prepared with greater care and attention to accuracy 
io is usually the case with primary scientific hand-books. It 
contains in a small space, and published at a low price, a mass 
of such information as ought to form a portion of the curriculum 
of all schools, both for boys and girls, and is illustrated by good 
woodcuts 
THE “‘Repertorium fiir Meteorologie,” issued by the Imperial 
Academy of St. Petersburg, in the form of a 4to. volume, edited 
by Dr. H. Wild, Director of the Physical Central Observatory, 
contains a mss of tables respecting the meteorological pheno- 
mena of Russa, and a variety of other information. 
WE have on our table the reports of several provincial scien- 
tific societies, aid other papers of a like nature :—The Proceed- 
ings of the Beryickshire Naturalists’ Club, for 1869; Trans- 
actions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society for 
1869-70; the 37th Annual Report of the Royal Cornwall Poly- 
technic Society for'1869 ; and the Geology, Botany, and Zoology 
of the Neighbourhood of Alnwick, by George Tate, F.G.S, 
They all show the zeal with which the pursuit of natural history 
is followed in the provinces ; these local societies have been the 
nursery of many 4 genuine naturalist who has rendered. important 
service to the study of Nature. 
_ Amonc the objicts of interest exhibited at the soirée of the 
Linnean Society on the 27th ult., was a collection of plants 
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made by Mr. W. W. Saunders, arranged in pairs; the plants 
forming each pair belonged to entirely different natural orders, 
but were so remarkably alike in the general form, and even in the 
marking of the foliage, as to be barely distinguishable even to a 
practised eye. One of the most strikingly “ mimetic” pairs were 
a Conifer and a Selaginella, belonging to the two sub-kingdoms 
of flowering and flowerless plants. 
ACCORDING to Mr. Kurtz, the Curator of the Herbarium of 
the Calcutta Botanical Gardens, the Andaman Islands are gra- 
dually sinking, the rate of subsidence being about one foot in a 
century. This inference is founded on the fact that trunks of 
trees still rooted in the ground may be seen in the water of the 
straits which separate the islands, belonging to species which 
never grow in mangrove swamps, but which are only found 
further inland. It is even possible to “trace in several places 
the stumps of the sunken trees in the sea, up to the state when 
the trees are just dying by the influence of the sea-water, and 
the subsequent change of the soil by the formation of the man- 
grove swamp.” At the rate of subsidence indicated by Mr. 
Kurtz, a thousand years must elapse before the extensive convict 
establishment maintained on these islands will be in immediate 
danger of submersion. 
In a forthcoming number of his ‘‘ Geographische Mittheilung- 
en,” by means of a map and a memoir, the geographer Peter- 
mann gives his rendering of the information contained in Dr. 
Livingstone’s recent letters, taken in connection with the former 
travels of the Portuguese in Central South Africa. The new 
real geography of this map agrees remarkably well, in its general 
features, with a chart which lately appeared in this journal, 
There is, however, one main point of difference. A river named 
Luvivi was crossed by Pombeiro Baptista in his route to the 
Cazembe’s town from that of the Muata Yanyo, and is distinctly 
stated by him to run into the Luapula, the river which is now 
known to unite Lakes Bangeweolo and Moero. Livingstone 
says that a large river named Zw/ia drains the western side of 
the great valley, and takes up the waters of Ulenge in the west 
of Tanganyika. On the foundation of the resemblance of these 
names—surely a very weak one in a region where duplicate 
river names are frequent—Dr. Petermann discards the Pom- 
beiros statement, and uniting the Luviri with the Lufira, carries 
a great river through the midst of the country separating the 
valleys ruled over by the Muata Yanvo and the Cazembe, which 
all travellers here agree is a mountainous desert, and which 
the road joining these territories bends far southward to avoid. 
Again.: The country of Usango is said by Livingstone to be on 
the east of the plateau which rises south of Tanganyika ; on this 
map it is indicated to westward of that lake ; and Lake Liemba, 
instead of being shown on the northern slope of that upland, 
is represented as lying in a valley directly continuing that of 
Tanganyika, The uncertainty as to the identity of the Chowambe 
Lake with the Albert Nyanza, and consequently of the union of 
Tanganyika with the Nile system, is considered too great to admit 
of any solution of the Nile problem as yet, and any attempt at 
this is characterised as plucking unripe fruit. This part also 
contains a very interesting account of a voyage by a Norwegian 
fisher named Captain E. H. Johannesen, who, in the summer of 
1869, sailed completely round the island of Novaia Zemlia and 
through the Kara Sea, This gulf, believed till now to be con- 
stantly choked up by impenetrable ice-park, has been called the 
““ice-cellar” of the North Pole. In place of this, Johannesen 
found a mild atmosphere off the north-east of Novaia Zemlia, 
and throughout the whole Kara Gulf in July and August no 
ice was visible, but a heavy roll of the open sea came up from 
the south-east. 
Mr. B. WILLIAMSON, one of the Fellows of Trinity College, 
Dublin, is preparing a “Treatise on Mechanics,” which will 
shortly be issued by the University Press. 
