398 
NOTES 
We have reason to believe that the scheme for the proposed 
Indian Government School of Engineering is being warmly 
combated by the scientific branches of the army, whose counter 
proposal is that the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich 
should be made into an equivalent of the Ecole Polytechnique, 
and that young men intended for the engineering service of 
the Indian Government should be educated there, or 
better still, officers of the Royal Engineeers should be lent to 
the Indian Government. On this very important topic we 
would ask whether the result of the first report of the Royal 
Commission on Military Education, which is still sitting, has 
not been to reduce both in quantity and quality, the scientific 
teaching at Woolwich, which was already so absurdly small, 
that, mathematics apart, more science might be learned at 
many commercial academies. 
Ir will be a long time before England forgets the loss of the 
Captain, though probably when a serious naval engagement 
Coes come, the going down of the largest ships, with the loss 
of all men on board, will be almost a matter of course. But 
as we have so often heard lately, @ /a guerre comme ad la guerre, 
perhaps a more subdued thrill will then run through us. There 
seems little doubt that the Caf/ain was tcp-heavy. The fearful 
rapidity with which, first a roll of Io deg., then of 22 deg., 
then of 25 deg., and then a terrible catastrophe were recorded, 
leave no doubt on this point, and the turrets, the six twenty- 
five-ton guns, heavy armour, and masts high above the centre of 
gravity, must bear the blame. Fortunately, however, Captain 
Moncrieff’s last achievement, which we described a few weeks 
ago, comes to our assistance by abolishing the turrets, and puts 
the weight of the enormous guns precisely where it is wanted. 
THE balloon is becoming a war engine with a vengeance., M. 
Nadar has been appointed a member of the Committee under 
the presidency of M. Berthelot, for the scientific defence of Paris, 
and several captive balloons are to be employed ; while we learn 
from Strasburg that captive balloons are to be used for dropping 
nitro-glycerine bombs on the powder magazines of the town ; 
the operations are to be conducted by an Englishman named 
Walter, and Herr Mahler, of Berlin. 
THE annual excursion of the London and Middlesex Archzo- 
logical Society took place on Tuesday last. Notwithstanding 
the inclemency of the weather there was a numerous attendance. 
Tue Warwickshire Agricultural Society’s annual gathering was 
held on Tuesday last at Leamington. The Earl of Warwick pre- 
sided at the annual dinner, which was attended by the represen- 
tatives of both divisions of the county. As usual at these agri- 
cultural meetings, we fail to discover anything in the proceedings 
calculated to convey any impression to the agricultural mind of 
the necessary intimate connection between agriculture and 
science. 
ALEADING atticle in the British Medical Journal for Sept. 10 
is very severe on the insufficiency of the education at present 
given to our medical students, and the consequent iffferiority, 
comparatively speaking, of the medical profession in this coun- 
try. ‘‘The miserable inferiority in scientific research ; the dearth 
of original work, the want of exactness, the poverty of physio- 
logicsl investigation, the ignorant impatience of practical detail 
which we all have to deplore so much in the mass of professional 
work at this day, are due to the inadequate preliminary cultivation 
of our students ; to their defective training in scientific method ; 
the small base on which the pyrainid of medical lore is made to 
stand. The solemn deprecation of excessive devotion to micro- 
scopical research ; the empty sneer at chemical physic ; the idle 
and mischievous disregard of instryments of precision—the 
NATURE 
[ Sept. 15, 1870 
sphygmograph, the thermometer, the laryngoscope, the ophthal- 
moscope—are all the expressions of a Philistine ignorance. . « 
The inferiority of English to German medicine is due to this 
inferiority of preliminary training.” Judging from the letters 
we have received, medical men here are very indignant at the 
strictures on English medical training contained in the two 
articles by Professor Stricker, recently printed in our columns. 
This is what one of their own journals says on the subject. 
ITere is food for thought for the members of our Science Com~- 
mission during the recess. 
THE editor of the Gardeners Magazine offers a prize of 
twenty guineas for the best essay on irrigation as applied hoth to 
the farm and the garden. There is probably no question of 
greater material importance to England at the present time. A 
system of storage and_ irrigation by which the superfluous rain 
that falls in autumn and winter, frequently carrying devastation 
in its course, could be intercepted, stored, and applied to the 
fertilisation of the soil between May and August, would ensure 
to the farmer, and consequently to the country, a gain that would 
be simply incalculable in such summers as the one we have just 
experienced, 
THE Museum of Natural History in Madison University, 
New York, has had its valuable collection lately classified and 
arranged. Among its most valuable possessions are reckoned 
the collection of tropical and other rare birds collected by Prof. 
Bickmore ; a group of gay beautiful plumaged birds brought 
from the Spice Islands, are especially noticeable. There is also 
a good collection of North American birds. 
Mr. J. J. BENNETT, the Curator of the Botanical Department 
of the British Museum, has just issued his annual report for 1869. 
The principal business done in the department during the year 
has been :—The rearrangement of a portion of the presses of the 
general herbarium; the rearrangement of certain orders of 
Apetale and Endogens, and of the lichens, both British and 
foreign, with numerous additions to each ; the selection of a very 
large number of specimens from the herbarium of the late Mr. 
N. B. Ward, and from the collection of Abyssinian plants send 
by Dr. Schimper through the Foreign Office; the naming, 
arranging, and laying into the general herbarium of Berlandier’s 
Mexican collection, of Linden’s collection from New Granada, 
Tate’s from Nicaragua, Coulter’s {rom California, Sartwell’s 
Carices of North America, Wright’s collections from the Neilgherry 
Hills and from India generally, Jameson’s from the Andes of 
Quito, Orchidee from different countries, ferns from the islands 
of the South Pacific, and of a large number of miscellaneous 
specimens of various families and from different countries ; the 
examination and arrangement of the recent and fossil Conifere 
and Cycadee, and of Mr. Brown’s collection of fossil woods ; 
the arrangement and incorporation in the general herbarium of 
a large number of European plants ; the rearrangement of various 
portions of the British herbarium, and of the collection of fruits 
and seeds; and the rearrangement of various parts of the collec- 
tion contained in the Exhibition Rooms, and especially of the 
cases containing Covifere and Cactee, with large additions. The 
most important additions to the collection during the year have 
been :—Upwards of 1,000 European plants from the collection 
of Dr. Rostan and the late Mr. N. B. Ward; goo plants of 
Ingermannland ; 300 from Sicily ; 200 European fungi; 200 
Italian cryptogams ; 3,000 plants of Abyssinia, collected by Dr. 
Schimper; more than 3,000 plants of South Africa, from Mr. 
Ward’s collection ; upwards of 500 from Madeira, collected by 
Lemann and others ; nearly 1,000 from the mountains of Altai ; 
1,000 from India, collected by Dr. Wright; 400 from Malacca, 
collected by Griffith ; 100 from the Feejee Islands, collected by 
Harvey ; 1,000 from North America; 400 fungi of South 
ina; 3c0 plants from Nicaragua, collected by Tate; 700 
