32 
NATURE 
[May 12, 1870 
NOTES 
PROFESSOR STOKES will be a member of the Royal Commis- 
sion to inquire into the present State of Science in this country. 
Up to the present time then, so far as we are informed, the Com- 
mission stands as follows :—President, the Duke of Devonshire. 
Members: Professors Huxley, Stokes, and W. A. Miller; Dr. 
Sharpey, Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P. ; Messrs. Lyon Play- 
fair, M.P., and B. Samuelson, M.P. 
THE following is the list of candidates recommended by the 
Council for election into the Royal Society: —W. Froude, C.E.; 
E. Headlam Greenhow, M.D. ; J. Jago, M.D.; Nevil Story 
Maskelyne, M.A.; M. Tylden-Masters, M.D. ; A. Newton, 
M.A.; A. Noble, Esq. ; Capt. Sherard Osborn, R.N.; Rey. 
S. Parkinson, B.D. ; Capt. R. Mann Parsons, R.E.; W. H. 
Ransom, M.D.; R. H. Scott, Esq. ; G. F. Verdon, C.B. ; 
A. Voelcker, Ph.D. ; S. Wilks, M.D. 
AT the meeting of the Royal Geographical Society on Monday 
Sir Roderick Murchison announced that the Earl of Clarendon 
had decided, on the part of Her Majesty’s Government, to provide 
means for relieving Dr. Livingstone by land from Zanzibar, news 
from the doctor having been cut off some time since by the out- 
break of cholera on the caravan route. Sir Roderick also announced 
that the annual general meeting would take place on the 23d inst., 
and that the Royal gold medals would be awarded to Mr. G. W. 
Hayward for his journey to Yarkand and Kashgar, and to Lieu- 
tenant Garnier, of the French navy, for his merits in bringing 
the great French expedition from Cambodia to Yangtsin after 
the death of its chief. 
SCIENCE is lively at the Royal Society. Last week we had 
Principal Dawson’s very interesting Bakerian lecture ; this week 
we are to have the Croonian lecture by Dr. Augustus Waller, 
F.R.S., ‘On the Results of the Method (introduced by the 
lecturer) of investigating the Nervous System, more especially as 
applied to the elucidation of the functions of the Pneumogastric 
and Sympathetic Nerves in Man.” The subject is one of which 
physiologists will recognise the importance. 
THERE is a considerable number of papers on hand at the 
Royal Society, and there remain but two more evening meetings, 
May 19, and June 16. The question has been asked whether 
Dr. Bastian’s paper on Spontaneous Generation is to be brought 
forward at one of those meetings. And the same question might 
be asked in the case of other papers, and it is not the only 
question by any means. Were not the present arrangements of 
the Royal Society (including the break from May 19 to June 16) 
made to meet a condition of things which has long passed away ? 
And since the flow of papers into the Society has largely increased, 
why should not the outflow be a little accelerated, and why 
should not the Bakerian and other lectures be given on extra 
nights, so that common justice may be done to the authors of 
other papers? One would have thought that the Royal Society 
would have gladly hailed the many signs of increased scientific 
activity, and made arrangements accordingly. 
MEDICAL Science has sustained a heavy loss in the death of Sir 
James Young Simpson, Bart., Professor of Midwifery at the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh, and discoverer of the anzesthetic properties 
of chloroform. He died on Friday last of disease of the heart, 
in the 59th year of his age, 
M. VILLEMAIN, the Perpetual Secretary of the French 
Academy, died on Sunday morning last, at the age of 80. 
THE practical importance to the State of the progress of 
scientific discovery was happily illustrated in the debate in the 
House of Commons on Friday eyening last, on the question of 
opening the Public Galleries during certain hours of the evening. 
The Chancellor of the Exchequer threw out a suggestion that 
some mode of lighting might, before long, be discovered as effi- 
| 
cacious as gas, and not liable to the objection of endangering the 
safety of the building, ‘* Science,” said he, ‘‘ was advancing 
very rapidly, and difficulties which seemed insuperable in these 
matters to-day, might, if we waited patiently for a few years, be 
met and overcome.” It is needless to point out to so acute a 
reasoner as Mr. Lowe, that in thus proposing to utilise the pos- 
sible future discoveries of Science, he furnishes the strongest 
possible argument for that assistance to Science by the State 
which we so persistently urge. 
In the same debate Mr. Lowe gave some hope that he 
might, in the course of the present session, state definitely the 
views of the Government with regard to the removal of the 
Natural History collections in the British Museum, a removal 
which he characterised as a “crying necessity.” A considerable 
space of ground has been purchased by the Government behind 
the National Gallery, which will be used for some such public 
purpose. 
THE Council of the Scientific Association of France at its last 
meeting appointed a mixed committee, representing the different 
branches of science, to perform the functions of the old com- 
missions of astronomy, physics, and meteorology, entrusting to it 
at the same time the executive power, in the sense of regulating 
the public sittings, receiving requests for grants, &c. The com- 
mittee, to which, at its own request, the Council has the power 
of adding the names of savazts not belonging to its body, is 
composed as follows :—Astronomy, MM. Puisseux and Tissot ; 
mechanics, MM. Eichens and Haton de la Goupilliére ; physics 
and chemistry, MM. Lissajous, Troost, and Cazin ; meteorology, 
MM. Belgrand and Renou; geography, MM. Mouchez and 
Ploix ; geology and paleontology, MM. Elie de Beaumont and 
Delafosse ; botany, M. Lestiboudoix; zoology and zootechny, 
MM. Milne-Edwards and André Sanson; agronomy, MM. 
Payen and Barral. The /oca/e of the association is at present at 
M. Le Verrier’s, 1, Rue des Saints-Péres, Paris. 
THE discussion which followed Principal Dawson’s lecture 
of which we give an abstract in another column),) was sus- 
tained by Sir C, Lyell, Sir R. Murchison, and Dr. Hooker. 
Sir R. Murchison objected to the adoption of the term ‘‘Erian” 
for the series of pre-carboniferous rocks of North America, 
corresponding to our Devonian or Old Red Sandstone, as 
an unnecessary innovation; while Dr. Hooker thought that 
caution was necessary before concluding that the apparently 
exogenous fragment of wood found in a bed occupying the centre 
of the “Erian” series must necessarily belong to a dicotyle- 
donous tree. He considered it quite possible that the structure 
ot the wood of some of the higher Cryptogams of this early 
period might closely resemble that of dicotyledonous Phzenogams. 
WE print the following note from St. John’s College, Cam- ~ 
bridge :—‘‘The following have been placed in the first class of 
the college examination in Natural Science: Blunt, Garrod, and 
Read. The names are arranged in alphabetical order, and the 
examiners are the same as for the open ‘exhibition adjudged on 
Friday last. The second-class contains four names, and the 
third three.” 
THE fiftieth anniversary of the Leeds Philosophical and 
Literary Society was commemorated during last week, in the 
usual English manner, bya dinner, 
THE following Special Meetings of the Ethnological Society 
will be held during the month of June :—Wednesday, June Ist, 
at the Royal United Service Institution, Whitehall-yard ; 
“Report on the Prehistoric Antiquities of Dartmoor,” by Mr. 
C. Spence Bate, F.R.S, Tuesday, June 7th, at the Museum 
of Practical Geology, Jermyn-street ; ‘*On the Geographical 
Distribution of the chief Modifications of Mankind,” by Prof. 
Huxley, President. Tuesday, June 21st, at the Royal United 
Service Institution, Whitehall-yard ; “On the Aymara Indians _ 
