ar = 
J 
4 
Fune 30, 1870 | 169 
NATURE 
ances ; but there are tenable with the Demyships certain College 
Exhibitions, which raise their annual value, on an average, to 
about 83/7, They are tenable for five years. Testimonials of good 
conduct will be required, and a certificate of birth and baptism, 
which must be presented to the President on Monday, the third 
day of October, between the hours of three and six, or eight 
and nine P.M. The examination will commence on the follow- 
ing day. Particulars relating to the examinations in the various 
subjects may be obtained by applying to the senior tutor. No 
entrance fees or caution money are required by the college. 
The University fees payable on matriculation amount to 2/. Ios. 
Ir is refreshing to learn that that reverend and tory institution, 
St. John’s College, Oxford, has just elected to a fellowship a 
devoted physical investigator, in the person of Mr. Bosanquet. 
This election is important, not only as a recognition of natural 
knowledge, but also of the principle of research as against that 
of mere education. 
CONSEQUENT on the death of the Rev. Dr. Luby, one of the 
Senior Fellows of Trinity College, Dublin, the Rey. Mr. 
Jellett, B.D., President of the Royal Irish Academy, has been 
co-opted a Senior Fellow. It is understood that the Professorship 
of Natural Philosophy held by Mr. Jellett will be given to the 
Rev. R. Townsend, A.M., author of the ‘‘ Modern Geometry of 
the Point, Line, and Circle.” 
THE Minister of Public Instruction in Italy has promised a 
grant of 1,600 /ire towards the expenses of instituting a labo- 
ratory of cryptogamic botany in Pavia; and it is hoped that a 
contribution will also be received from the Minister of Agri- 
culture. 
THE death of Sir James Simpson has been followed by another 
heavy loss to medical science in that of Professor Syme, who 
died on Sunday last, at the age of seventy. Mr. Syme was fora 
short time Professor of Surgery in University College, London ; 
for a much longer period he occupied the chair of Clinical 
Surgery in the University of Edinburgh, which he resigned only 
quite recently to his son-in-law, Mr. Joseph Lister. He was a 
voluminous writer on surgical subjects, many of his works being 
held in very high reputation. 
THE ied suggests that the drought of the summers of 1868 
and 1870 is connected with the rapid increase of drainage in this 
country, the average summer rainfall having been greatly reduced 
from 1860 to 1870. Ourcontemporary also expresses an opinion, 
in which we cordially concur, that a needless alarm has been 
raised as to the prospects of the corn harvest, as shown in the rise 
of Ios, to 12s, a quarter in wheat at Mark Lane. The harvest 
of 1868 is the finest on record ; and we hope to see the prediction 
of our contemporary fulfilled, that ‘‘the cereal crops in this 
country will, on the whole, turn out favourably.” 
Now that so many, both Londoners and their country 
friends, are flocking to the national botanic garden at Kew, we 
may call attention to Prof. Oliver’s ‘* Guide to the Royal Botanic 
Gardens and Pleasure Grounds, Kew,” which has now reached 
its twenty-fifth edition. Itis a mudtum in parvo of value and 
interest far beyond the purpose for which it is designed ; indeed 
we do not know where else, in so small a compass-and at so 
low a price, to meet with so much and varied information re- 
specting the vegetable products of different countries, their 
economic purposes, and their geographical distribution, illustrated 
with exceedingly well-drawn woodcuts. 
In a paper in the Bulletins de la Société? Vatdoise, No. 62, 
Dr, C. Nicati gives a réswmé of various researches respecting the 
peculiar red snow which occasionally falls in the Grisons. Some 
of this snow fell, mingled with common snow and rain, during 
a violent storm from the south-west on the morning of January 
15th, 1867, in various places, The chemical analysis of themelted 
snow demonstrated the presence of minute quantities of sulphate 
of lime or gypsum, sulphate of magnesia, organic matters, chlo- 
rine, and iron ; and microscopic examination detected vegetable 
fibre, pollen, spores, with here and there diatoms and small 
crystals. The colour varies from brick red toa pale yellow. 
This snow is quite distinct from the red snow of the upper Alpine 
regions, which owes its colour to the presence of the minute 
plant, Protecoccus nivalis. After discussing various theories 
respecting its origin, Dr. Killias expressed his opinion that it is 
the dust of the desert of Sahara, transported by a sirocco, which 
gives the colour to the snow of the Grisons. Dr. Nicati gives 
many interesting particulars, with analyses, of the Algerian 
sirocco dust, and of the mud-rain in Naples and Sicily; and 
Professor C. Cramer states that he has discovered, both in the 
sand of the Sahara and in the red snow of the Grisons, particles 
of vegetable organisms (especially polythalamia) and minute 
fragments of animal origin, such as wool, hair, &c. He consi- 
ders the presence of gypsum in the red snow an incontestable 
proof of its containing matter conveyed from the desert of 
Sahara 
PROFESSOR GERARDIN has recently communicated to the 
Council of the ‘‘ Société Wencouragement pour Vindustrie 
nationale” the results of his efforts to purify the waters of the 
Croult, a small river which, rising at Louvres, passes through 
Gonesse, Arnouville, and flows through St. Denis, ultimately 
falling into the Seine. The stream was poisoned by the drainage 
from the starch manufactories. The principle on which M. 
Gerardin proceeded was that water in which weeds and shell-fish 
cannot live was infected and poisoned. The potatoes from which 
the starch was made contain 75 per cent. of juice, which itself 
contains 7 per cent ofalbumen. The water issuing from the factory 
is clear, reddish, and inodorous ; in motion, it forms coherent 
masses of coagulatedalbumen. The river deposited in its course 
masses of whitish, pitch-like substance, without consistence. 
The surface was covered with white froth; the mud black and 
stinking, while the water had a strong odour of sulphuretted hydro- 
gen. M. Gerardin recognised the white masses deposited by the 
waters as the “baregine” characteristic of the sulphurous waters 
of the Pyrenees. When the works. stop, this ‘‘baregine” 
putrefies, and infusoria are developed in abundance. M. 
Gerardin thought the best method of remedying the unwholesome 
state of the water would be to destroy the albumen by the 
simultaneous action of the air, clay, and the organic fermenting 
agents always contained in cultivated ground, and he determined 
to make the waters pass over a soil well drained. The factory of 
M. Boisseau, at Gonesse, consumed in a day 400 hectolitres 
(sacks) of potatees, weighing 28,000 kilog. (274 tons), and con- 
taining 21,000 kilog. of juice, carried off by 130,000 litres of 
water (say 28,500 gallons); these waters are spread over a 
field whose area is 500 yards square, in which are placed drains 
at 6 feet distance from each other, and 2 feet deep. The 
arrangement has perfectly succeeded. Weeds grow in the Croult 
from Louvres to St. Denis: Limnaus and Planorbis find their 
abode in these weeds, the “baregine” has disappeared, the 
sulphuretted hydrogen odour is entirely gone, and the water is 
sweet and limpid. 
A coop tabular arrangement of the Natural Orders of plants 
is very much wanted by botanical teachers, where the alient 
diagnostic characters of allied orders are presented to the eye at 
a glance. That this desideratum is entirely supplied by Dr. 
Griffith’s ‘‘ System of botanical analysis applied to the diagnosis 
of British natural orders,” we cannot altogether affirm, as each 
teacher will probably find it vary in some respect or other from 
his own ideas of the best mode of classification. We can, how- 
ever, safely recommend it as a useful help to beginners in getting 
over the difficulties of systematic botany. 
