Nov. 5, 1885] 



NA TURE 



as he suggests, tliough perhaps less convenient term, os furcula- 

 torium. R. W. Shukeldt 



Fort Wingate, New Mexico, October S 



Metric or English Measures? 



Would any of your readers have the great kindness to give 

 me their opinion on the following question ? 



In writing a school-book in which such branches of physics as 

 dynamics and heat are to be treated in a very elementary but 

 exact way, would it be best to use the metric system or the 

 English system of weights and measures ? 



Personally, I am strongly inclined to take the former course ; 

 it seems to me that as soon as a boy's scientific education begins 

 he should make acquaintance with the units of measurement 

 now generally adopted by scientific men throughout the world. 



E. R. P. 



CHARLES ROBIN 



ON the 6th of last month died in Josseron (Depart- 

 ment I'Ain) Charles Robin, sixty-four years old. He 

 was one of the few men in Europe who may be justly con- 

 sidered the founders of modern histology. Although some 

 of his views, as, for instance, on the formation of cells out 

 of a blastema, are now only of historical interest, there 

 remain a considerable number of valuable facts which he 

 has contributed to histology, anatomy, and zoology. A 

 chair of General Anatomy was created for him in 1862 in 

 the Paris Faculty of Medicine, and here he always col- 

 lected round him a number of ardent students who, under 

 his direction and imbued with his ideas, did excellent 

 work in histology. He was, in fact, until a few years 

 back (until Ranvier) the only exponent of and original 

 worker in histology in France. There is hardly a chapter 

 in this science to which he has not largely contributed. 

 His chief works are "The Natural History of Vegetable 

 Parasites in Man and Animals " ; " On the Tissues and 

 Secretions " ; and his many articles in the " Dictionnaire 

 Encyclopddique des Sciences Medicales." 



THE LIVERPOOL INTERNATIONAL 

 EXHIBITION 

 'T^HE credit of the inception of the idea of the practica- 

 ■*■ bility of carrying on an International Exhibition at 

 Liverpool appears to be due to Alderman David Rad- 

 cliffe, the present Mayor of the City, who laid it before 

 Lord Derby, who at once became the first guarantor of a 

 fund which now exceeds 60,000/. The support this move- 

 ment has now secured in England and on the Continent 

 renders its success assured. 



It is a matter of surprise that no International Exhibi- 

 tion has ever yet taken place in the North of England, 

 when the fact is remembered, commented on by Lord 

 Derby at the last annual banquet given to him by the 

 Mayor of Liverpool, that the inhabitants of that City 

 and the district lying within a radius of fifty miles 

 of it are as numerous as those of the City of London, 

 and the greater London, which lies within a radius 

 of fifty miles of St. Paul's. The value of e.xliibi- 

 tions it is difficult to over-estimate. X'isitors however un- 

 intelligent must of necessity learn something of the 

 processes and methods carried out by their countrymen 

 in the arts and manufactures, while the exhibitors in- 

 crease their technical grasp, and get their thoughts 

 removed from stereotyped grooves by the inspection of 

 products from countries where workmen obtain so much 

 larger a share of technical education, based on practical 

 science, than is accorded by the education department of 

 this country. 



Placed as is Britain, as it were between Europe 

 and America, an Exhibition of Navigation and Travel 



would at all times appear to be singularly appropriate : 

 but this has still greater significance at Liverpool, itself 

 the second, if not the first, seaport of the world. This 

 is rendered still more important from the evident care 

 evinced by the projectors that the Exhibition should be 

 on a scientific basis, and that it should be the means of 

 spreading accurate scientific and technical knowledge in 

 the construction and manipulation of all the appliances 

 of locomotion, travel, and transport by sea and land, by 

 rivers, by air, or through cultivated lands, or across the 

 desert. In addition to this it is proposed, should, as is 

 hoped, a surplus be realised at the end of the Exhibition, 

 that it be devoted to the foundation of a school of tech- 

 nical education, to be called after the late Prince Leopold, 

 whose last public appearance in Liverpool was marked 

 by special advocacy of the claims of technical education. 



Commerce and manufactures are also to be represented, 

 including all substances used in the arts derived from 

 animals, from vegetables, and from metallic and non- 

 metallic minerals. 



The Corporation of Liverpool has granted a site of 35 

 acres near the Edge Hill Station of the London and 

 North-Western Railway ; fountains, bands, and electric 

 illuminated trees are to reproduce the features of South 

 Kensington, and the scheme is not only supported by the 

 cities of the north, but by Paris, Vienna, and Berlin, 

 while Belgium, Sweden, and other countries, and the Isle 

 of Man, are applying for courts. The Exhibition will be 

 opened in May next year, and continue open for six 

 months. C. E. De Rance 



DR. GOULD'S WORK IN THE ARGENTINE 

 REPUBLIC 

 ■\\^E have from time to time during the last fifteen 

 * » years recorded the progress made by Dr. Gould in 

 his stupendous work on the southern stars. lie has now 

 returned to the United States, and we are glad to be able 

 to give an account of the reception he met with on his 

 return. Rarely has such a reception been better deserved, 

 and carried out as it was it did credit to science all the 

 world over, as well as to the country and the man most 

 closely interested. 



A letter signed by upwards of eighty of the most pro- 

 minent men in Boston awaited Dr. Gould's arrival, asking 

 him to fix a date " when it will be agreeable for you to 

 meet us at a dinner, that we may welcome )ou home." 



Pursuant to arrangement a reception and dinner took 

 place at the Hotel Vendome, Boston, on the evening of 

 ;\lay 6, 18S5. The Hon. Leverett Saltonstall presided, 

 and, after the banquet, arose to introduce the guest of the 

 evening. The president referred to Dr. Gould's early 

 career and his hard work : — " We have thus met," he said, 

 " that we may extend to Dr. Gould our most cordial 

 welcome, to show him our high respect for his character 

 and attainments, to express to him our deep sympathy 

 for all the severe trials he has been called upon to 

 encounter, and to prove to him in every possible way 

 how proud we are of his high fame, world-wide, as one of 

 the greatest astronomers of this or any former age. . . . 



" When the opportunity presented itself for doing a far 

 greater work than that, in my opinion, accomplished by 

 any astronomer now living, and equalled in extent and 

 importance by but few in any previous age, a work so 

 vast in its design that its mere suggestion might well 

 have staggered a much younger man, he already having 

 passed what is considered the prime of life, courageously 

 took the great step and exiled himself from home, con- 

 scious that it was a work which he could scarcely hope to 

 live to complete. He buried himself in a country so far 

 away and so little known that it might well have seemed 

 another world, and with no hope of reward such as the 

 world generalk' values for all the cause he loves with 



