Dec. 3, 1885] 



NA TURE 



119 



The other Royal Medal is awarded to Prof. E. Ray Lankester, 

 F. R. S. , for his labours, now extending over more than twenty 

 years, in the field of animal morphology (especially invertebrate 

 anatomy and embryology) and of i>aln;ontolog>'. 



Prof. Lankester has been active in many directions, and has 

 everywhere left his mark, not only as an energetic teacher and 

 accurate worker and a philosophical thinker ; but as one who, in 

 times when the example is more than ever valuable, has always 

 been careful to remember that speculation should be the servant 

 and not the master of the biologist. 



The Davy Medal is awarded to Prof. Stas of Brussels. 



Prof. Stas's great research, for which it is proposed that the 

 Davy Medal be awarded to him, is that on atomic weights. 

 There are probably no researches in chemistry, the results of 

 which appeal so little to the imagination, and which ai-e so little 

 applauded, as those on atomic weights, yet for difficulty and 

 importance they are hardly surpassed by any. The determina- 

 tion of these fundamental constants of chemistry has engaged the 

 attention of many of the leading chemists, and before the time 

 of M. Stas's experiments, an immense amount of careful labour 

 ihad been bestowed on finding methods for the more accurate 

 and complete purification of the compounds employed for the 



devoted to the re-determination of a certain number of the most 

 important atomic weights, and the marvellous skill with which 

 he has overcome the various difficulties which successively pre- 

 sented themselves, render his memoir on the subject one of the 

 most remarkable and valuable of chemical monographs. 



I regret to say that the state of M. Stas's health has not 

 permitted him to be with us to-day, but the repi'esentative of his 

 Sovereign, the King of the Belgians, in this country, has kindly 

 consented to receive the medal for him. 



M. le Baron Solvyns, I request your Excellency to be so good 

 as to receive the medal awarded to M. Stas ; and to assure him 

 of the pleasure which it gives the Royal Society to show their 

 sense of his high merits, by asking his acceptance of this 

 memorial of his illustrious predecessor, Humphry Davy. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE 



Cambridge. — In the Examination for Chemistry and Physics 

 for 1st M.B. last June, an unusually large proportion of candi- 

 dates were rejected. At the request of the Special Board for 

 Medicine, the Examiners, Messrs. Pattison Muir, A. Scott, 

 A. Schuster, and W. N. Shaw, have stated their opinion that 

 the candidates showed very little mental training ; they had 

 almost no power of expressing clearly what they knew, whether 

 facts, or conclusions from facts. Prof. Michael Foster has 

 written a letter to Prof. Paget on this subject, partly derived 

 from his recent experience in examining in Physiology in the 

 2nd M.B., and deploring the condition in which men enter the 

 University, not only ignorant of Chemistry and Physics, but un- 

 prepared by any adequate discipline to receive the truths of 

 experimental science. He believes no proper reform can come 

 until the University makes such a change in the Previous or 

 Preliminary Examination as shall permit a lad at school to study 

 Chemistry and Physics, and give him time to do so by relieving 

 him of some other subjects. The last clause is most important, 

 and we are glad Prof. Foster emphasised it. The University 

 requirements in the Preliminary Examinations determine the 

 whole cun-ent of school work, and to move them in the direction 

 of requiring, or at any rate permitting, Chemistry and Physics to 

 be adequately taught at schools, should be a foremost object of 

 scientific educationists. 



Mr. R. G. Moulton, one of the most experienced lecturers on 

 the University extension scheme, writes to advocate the establish- 

 ing of a general organisation on a permanent basis. He points 

 out that the best lecturere are lost when most valuable, owing to 

 the lack of an assured position ; also that the local committees 

 need to be brought into connection with each other. A body 

 also is needed which could seek and receive endowments. 

 During the last ten years 50,000/. has been spent in the scheme, 

 and 60,000 students have attended full courses of lectures. 



The following Colleges offer Natural Science Scholarships or 

 Exhibitions for open competition during the present and next 

 month; the respective dates of examination being affixed : — 

 Gonville and Caius, December 8 ; King's College, December 



10 ; Jesus College, January 4 ; Christ's, Emmanuel, and Sidney- 

 Sussex Colleges in common, January 5 ; St. John's College, 

 December 10 ; Trinity College, December 10. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 

 Rivista Scientificci-Ivdiis'.riale, October 15. — On lateral atmo- 

 spheric refraction, by Dr. G. Andries. — Transport and distribu- 

 tion of electricity by means of induced transformers : system of 

 Zipernowsky, Deri, and Blathy, by Emilio Piazzolo. — On elec- 

 tric contrivances for illuminating fluids in scientific laboratories 

 (four illustrations), by the editor. — On the microscopic organisms 

 present in drinking-water : their life in waters charged with 

 carbonic acid, by Dr. T. Leone. 



The yournal of the Royal Microscopical Society, vol. v. ser. ii 

 part 5, October, contains : — On new British micro- fungi, by 

 G. Massee (plate 13). — On erosion of the surface of glass when 

 exposed to the joint action of carbonate of lime and colloids, by 

 Dr. W. M. Ord. — On a septic microbe from a high altitude, by 

 G. F. Dowdeswell. — On the use of the avicularian mandible in 

 the determination of the chilostomatous Polyzoa, by Arthur W. 

 Waters (plate 14). — The usual summary of current researches. 



The American Naturalist for October contains : — Mythic 

 dry-paintings of the Novayos (illustrated), by W. Matthews. — 

 The relations of mind and matter, by C. Morris. — A biography 

 of the halibut, by G. B. Goode. — Traces of prehistoric man of 

 the Watash, by John T. Campbell. — Editor's Table, Recent 

 Literature, and General Notes. 



The Victoria Royal Society Transactions, vol. xxi. issued June 

 30, among other papers contains the following : — Evidences of a 

 Glacial epoch in Victoria during post-Miocene times, by G. S. 

 Griffiths. — The Phanerogama of the Mitta-Mitta Source Basin, 

 IL, by James- Stirling. —Shingle on the ea^t coasts of New 

 Zealand, by W. W. Culcheth, M.Inst.C.E.— New or little- 

 known Polyzoa, Part VIL (Plates i to 3), Part VIIL (Plates 

 I to 5, by P. H. MacGillivray, M.A. — On the reproduction of 

 the Ornithorhynchus, by P. H. MacGillivray, M.A.— On the 

 Diabase rocks of the Buchan district ; supplementary notes by 

 A. W. Howett. — The meteorology of the Australian Alps, by 

 James Stirling. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 

 London 

 Linnean Society, November 19. — ^Prof. Moseley, F.R.S., 

 in the chair. — Mr. A. D. Michael exhibited and described the 

 remarkable nymphal stage of Tegeocranus cepheifortnis, a species 

 of the Oribatidre, which he lately discovered for the first time in 

 England. He has furthermore succeeded in tracing the whole 

 life-history of this animal. The creature in its nymphal stage is 

 exceedingly strange and beautiful. It carries on its back as 

 concentric shields the dorsal portions of all its cast-skins, and 

 these are bordered by projections each bearing a rose-leaf-like 

 cuticular process of transparent membrane with chitinousnervures. 

 The drawing of the nymph was first sent to Mr. Michael, two 

 years ago, by Herr Pappe, of Bremen. — Mr. C. Stewart demon- 

 strated, under the microscope, the stridulating apparatus of a 

 species of Sfhcerotherium, differing in some respects from that 

 described by Mr. Bourne {infra). — Dr. J. Murie exhibited and 

 made remarks on the caudal end of the spine of a haddock with 

 an arched deformity, recalling what is recorded of the so-called 

 hump-backed cod [Morrhiia macrocephala). — Mr. G. J. Fookes 

 called attention to some twin-apples, of teratological interest. 

 These were grown at Shepherd's Bush, upon a tree eighty years 

 old, which last year was nearly barren, but this year produced 

 abundantly, many of the fruits being good examples of syncarpy. 

 — Prof. P. M. Duncan read a paper on the perignathic girdle 

 of the Echinoidea. The author maintained that as the structures 

 which give attachment to the muscles that protrude and retract 

 the jaws of the Echinoidea (which are parts of the test sur- 

 rounding the peristome within) are not homologous in all the 

 families of the group, therefore it is unadvisable to retain the old 

 name of "auricles." He suggests to substitute the term 

 "perignathic girdle." The girdle consists of processes usually 

 united above (though occasionally disconnected), and of " ridges " 

 which connect the processes on the side remote from the 

 ambulacra. The ridges are modifications of the inter-radial 



