ii6 



NA TURE 



'^Dcc. lo, 1874 



At the meeting of the Dundee Town Council last Thursday, a 

 letter from the directors of the Albert Institute of that town was 

 read by Provost Cox, in v/hich it was"statcd that a scheme for the 

 erection of a college had been prepared, and the co-operation of 

 the Council in the furtherance of the work was requested. It 

 was proposed to establish a college in Dundee in connection with 

 the St. Andrews University, and that at first the college should 

 be opened with six chairs — namely, English Literature andLogic, 

 Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, Engineering, Natural History or 

 Greek and Latin, and Mathematics. To defray the expense of 

 the erection ot the college and to pay the salaries, 150,000/. 

 would be required at the outside. If the college should succeed, 

 it was proposed to add the following additional chairs — 

 viz., IWental and Moral Philosophy, Political Economy, An- 

 cient or Modern History, Latin and Greek or Natural His- 

 tory, Geography and Astronomy, and Physical Geography and 

 Navigation. To endow tliese additional chairs a further sum of 

 75,000/. would be required. It was proposed that the manage- 

 ment of the college should be carried on by the courts which at 

 present manage the colleges at St. Andrews, the only addition 

 to the University Courts of St. Andrews being that the following 

 gentlemen should be members of that Court : — The Lord- 

 Lieutenant of Forfarshire, the Convener of the Coimty, the 

 Sheriff and Sheriff-Substitute of Forfarshire, and the Provost of 

 Dundee. The Council expressed themselves gratified at the 

 movement, and while stating that they would be willing to give 

 it their hearty co-operation, they resolved to call a special meet- 

 ing for the consideration of the whole subject, to be held on 

 Tuesday last. We would remind the organisers of the proposed 

 new college of tlie great value of sound science-teaching to so 

 important a manufacturing and commercial town as Dundee. 

 There is nothing to hinder the wealthy merchants and manufac- 

 turers of Dundee starting a college at least equal to the New- 

 castle College of Science, and tliey should not rest until they 

 possess an institution as efficient as Owens College, Manchester. 

 This latter institution ought to be taken as a model, where all 

 the so-called " facul ies " are complete ; a " College of Science," 

 pui'e and simple, seems to us a blander. 



The formal inauguration of the recently completed portions of 

 the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art is, we believe, to 

 take place on Jan. 14 next, by a grand conversazione to be 

 given by the Lord Provost in the Museum building. 



A FURTHSR instalment (the sixtli part) of the new Govern- 

 ment Map of Switzerland has recently appeared, containing the 

 sheets Meiringen, Liax, Trons, Ilanz, Greina, Vrin, iVndeer, 

 Zweisimmen, Blumlisalp, Peccia, Blasca, and Maggia. Alto- 

 gether 72 sheets are now published out of the 546 wiiich will be 

 necessary for the completion of the map. Those which have 

 been issued are mainly of the central and north-west portions of 

 the country, and regarding them we can only repeat the opinion 

 that we have already expressed respecting the earlier sheets, 

 namely, that they are equal and in some features superior to any 

 maps of the kind that have yet appeared. Great es the cost of 

 this map will be to the nation, we have no doubt that its expense 

 will be repaid many time=, in the facilities which it will afford in 

 the construction of r^als and railroads, and for many other 

 purposes. 



We take the following from the ^<V!(/e7«_)' :— Now that the 

 questionof the endowment of research is being made so much a 

 subject of discussion, it may interest our readers to learn the 

 following particulars, which we take from the Swedish Aflon- 

 Model. About a month since that newspaper drew attention 

 to an appeal for funds made by the botanist Dr. Berggren, 

 who is at present exploring the cryptogamic botany of the 

 mountains of New Zealand. It appears "that Dr. Berggren 

 has already made some very valuable explorations, first in 

 Spitzbergen in 186S, then in Greenland in 1S70, and now has 



been sent out to New Zealand with a stipend drawn from a sum 

 of money left by a Ilerr Lettersted for scientific purposes. Dr. 

 Berggren writes that he has had signal success, especially in dis- 

 covering species closely analogous to the Arctic forms with which 

 he is familiar, but that his means are at an end. An effort 

 made to induce the Government of Canterbury Province to vote 

 him a sum of money w.as on the point of succeeding, when an 

 economical frenzy tojk the Lower Legislative House, and the 

 bill was thrown out. Aflonhladet laid these facts before its 

 readers. Almost immediately, the proprietors of another news- 

 paper, Gotehor^'s Post, generously forwarded a large sum towards 

 the prosecution of the work, and private funds came in so 

 rapidly that Dr. Berggren will be able to recommence his 

 valuable explorations directly the next mail reaches New 

 Zealand. This zealous response to the demands of science in so 

 poor a country as Sweden does honour to the intelligence of its 

 people. 



A TELEGRAM dated Alexandria, Dec. 8, states that two recon- 

 noitring expeditions, each consisting of eight European and 

 twelve native officers and sixty-three soldiers, have been orga- 

 nised by the Egyptian Government, and have started for the 

 Soudan, with the object of surveying the country between the 

 Nile and the provinces of Darfour and Kordofan. Thence the 

 expeditions will proceed to the Equator, west of the Albert 

 Nyanza. They will repair the wells wherever necessary, and 

 prepare maps, and will also report upon the population, climate, 

 and commerce of the country through which they pass. 



A MEETING of the local committee in connection with the 

 recent meeting of the British Association, was held in Belfast on 

 Saturday. The expense incurred has been about 1,800/., leaving 

 a surplus of more than 500/, which the Executive Committee 

 recommend should be divided among v.arious local institutions. 



We would draw attention to a very valuable paper " On the 

 Expediency of Protection for Patents," by Mr. F. J. Bramwell, 

 C.E., F.R.S., published in the Society of Arts Journal for 

 Dec. 4. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include two Glaucous Gulls (Lams glaiicus) from 

 Spitzbergen, presented by .Mr. R. E. Beaumont ; a Common 

 Raccoon [Procyon lotor) from N. America, presented by Mr. T. 

 Trimnell ; a Bonnet Monkey (Macaciis radiatus] from India, 

 presented by Mrs. Phillips ; a Solitary Tinamon ( Tiiiamus soli- 

 tariiis) from Brazil, received in exchange ; three Black-footed 

 Penguins (Sphenisciis demersus) from .S. Africa, purchased ; a 

 Capybara (Hydrochirnts capyhara) born in the Gardens. 



THE " CHALLEXGER" EXPEDITION* 



II. 



'X'HE following Table, taken from the chart, gives a good 



general idea of the distribution of the two formations with 

 respect to depth. It cannot of course be taken as exact ; the 

 indications were jolted down from the impression of colour given 

 at the time, and there is no hard and tast line between Globi- 

 gerina ooze and grey ooze on the one hand, and between red 

 clay and grey ooze on the other. This Table gives an average 

 depth of 1,800 fathoms for our soundings in the Globigerina ooze. 

 This is datum of no value, for we only rarely sounded in shallow 

 water, and we know that this formation covers large areas at 

 depths between 300 and 400 fathoms ; but the mean maximum 

 depth at which it occurs is important, and that may be taken 

 from the Table as about 2,250 fathoms. The mean depth at 

 which we find the transition grey ooze is 2,400 fathoms, and the 

 mean depth of the red clay soundings is about 2, 700 fathoms. 

 The general concurrence of so many oliservations would go far 

 to prove, w hat seems now to stand indeed in the position of an 

 ascertained fact, that wherever the depth increases from about 

 2,200 to 2,600 fathoms, the modern chalk formation of the 

 Atlantic and of other oceans pass into a clay. 

 * Continued from p 97. 



