Jan. 7, 1886] 



NA TURE 



233 



Samples from the latter mines were tried by the P. and 

 O. Company with good results. The Japan coals are 

 certainly Tertiary and most probably Miocene. Though 

 brittle, they make such good steam coals that they are 

 preferred to every other except Cardiff coal. Borneo is a 

 mass of coal, and, as I believe, of very different ages. 

 Those of Labuan were said to be Tertiary ; those of 

 Brunei look much older. But I question the Tertiary age 

 of the Labuan beds 



The general character of the geology of the regions I 

 have mentioned is (i) Granite rocks with older volcanic 

 dykes ; (2) Palaeozoic schists and slates ; (3) Limestones 

 in detached outliers, probably of Carboniferous age ; 

 (4) Coal of various ages. There has been little upheaval, 

 and th it has revealed marine, Miocene, and Pliocene 

 Ijeds, with some few carbonaceous deposits. 



J. E. Tenison -Woods 



Osaka, Japan, September 24, 1S85 



JOHN HUNTER'S HOUSE 

 ■pARL'S COURT HOUSE, once the residence of the 

 -'--' illustrious John Hunter, has been made very pro- 

 perly the subject of a letter in the Times of Tuesday last, 

 by Ur. Farquharson, ^LP. The house, with which I have 

 been familiar for the past twenty-two years, is well worth 

 all the attention of the curious v.'hich Dr. Farquharson 

 claims for it. It differs, no doubt, somewhat from what it 

 was in Hunter's time, but not so much, 1 think, as my friend 

 supposes ; for a drawing I have had made of it, when 

 compared with another drawing taken not long after 

 Hunter's death, and now in the possession of the Royal 

 College of .Surgeons, shows no very important change. 

 The Lions' Den, of which I have also had a faithful copy 

 taken, is still in good preservation, and Mrs. Hunter's 

 boudoir retains all its original character, as she, the 

 accomplished authoress of the well-known song, — 



" My mother bids me bind my hair," — 

 had it herself decorated. The copper in which the Irish 

 " giant was boiled down is in good order, and stands in an 

 outhouse in the same place in which it stood when the giant, 

 in piecemeal, found his way into it. In 1S50 the late dis- 

 tinguished scholar. Dr. Robert Willis, of Barnes, too'c me 

 to Kensington to see a man who remembered John Hunter. 

 He was the son of Hunter's gardener, and was ten years 

 of age at the time of Hunter's death in 1793. This man 

 related some curious anecdotes of the great anatomist. 

 One of these had reference to his presence of mind. One 

 day as Hunter was entering his garden by the field at 

 the back, still a field, one of the lions had got loose from 

 % its den. From the house the people called out to Hunter 

 '' to get out of the way into a place of safety. Instead of 

 this he took his handkerchief from his pocket, and 

 marching boldly up to the lion, flipped it back into the 

 den, and securely shut it in. 



That Hunter conducted dissections in this place is 

 clear from the remains that have been dug up in the 

 garden. I examined a number of bones that were thus 

 unearthed by the late occupier during some improve- 

 ments which were going on about fifteen years ago. The 

 bones showed some sections and re-sections of so curious 

 and skilful a kind, that I asked and obtained permission 

 to retain a few of them. 



LTpon the death of John Hunter, Earl's Court, held for 

 a time by Mrs. Hunter, and by more than one future 

 occupier, was turned into an asylum for ladies under 

 restraint for lunacy, was held for many years as that by 

 the Misses Bonney, and got the general name of" Miss 

 Bonney's House" or Asylum. In 1864 it passed, still as 

 an asylum, into the possession of my late friend Dr. 

 Gardner Hill, who played so great a part as the practical 

 pioneer of the system of the treatment of the insane 

 without restraint. Dr. Hill continued to reside in the 



house till his death, by apoplexy, a few years ago, and his 

 family have held it since his death up to the close of the 

 past year, when they left it on the expiration of their 

 lease. The fate of the house will almost certainly be its 

 absorption, with its grounds, into a square or a series of 

 streets, so that nothing will remain of it beyond the views 

 which I and others who are given to antiquarian research 

 may have taken of it, and at my instance Mr. Gardner 

 has added several views to his magnificent collection of 

 London. The memory of the place is thus secured for 

 the future at least. But I agree with my learned brother 

 Farquharson that the copper ought to go to the Hun- 

 terian Museum, to join the giant who is already so con- 

 spicuous and famous there. 



BENj.'iiMiN Ward Richardson 



NOTES 

 An American Pasteur Institute has been incoiporated in New 

 York, its declared objects being the study and treatment of 

 rabies and diseases susceptible of inoculation. 



The Rev. Thomas John Main, formerly Fellow of St. John's 

 College, Cambridge, and a chaplain in the Royal Navy, died 

 on the 28th ult. Mr. Main took his Bachelor's degree at St. 

 John's College in 1S3S, as Senior Wrangler and first Smith's 

 Prizeman, and proceeded M.A. in due course. He was for a 

 period of thirty-four years Professor of Mathematics at the Royal 

 Naval College at Portsmouth. Mr. Main was the author of 

 various works on the marine steam-engine. 



The death is announced from St. Petersburg of Prof 

 Zakharow, of the University there, an eminent Orientalist. 

 Nearly thirty years ago he went to China as a Russian mis- 

 sionary, and after General Ignatieff's Treaty of Pekin in i860, 

 he was employed, on account of his knowledge of Chinese and 

 Manchu, in the \\-ork of delimiting the frontier created by that 

 treaty. He then prepared a large map of this region, of which 

 only one copy has been made, which is at present in the Russian 

 Topographical Department. He also compiled a Manchu- Russian 

 dictionary, published in 1875, and a Chinese-Manchu-Russian 

 dictionary was almost completed at the time of his death. On 

 his return to Europe he was appointed Professor of Manchu in 

 the University of St. Petersburg, and in addition to his diction- 

 aries compiled also a grammar of that language, which is now 

 dying out in China, as the Manchus are a mere handful in the 

 midst of the Chinese Empire, and are gradually losing their 

 special tongue. Manchu is, however, still used at Chinese 

 Court ceremonials, and in officially addressing the Emperor of 

 China in person. M. Zakharow's great works have therefore a 

 special value. 



The Association for the Improvement of Geometrical Teach- 

 ing will hold its annual general meeting on Friday, January 15, 

 at 11.30 a.m., at University College, Gower Street. At the 

 afternoon meeting (2 p.m.) the President (R. B. Hay ward, 

 F.R.S.) will give an address on the Correlation of the Different 

 Branches of Elementary Mathematics. A discussion will follow 

 the reading of the address. Persons interested in the objects of 

 the Association or in the suhject of the address are cordially 

 invited to attend. 



The Prince of Wales having e.icpressed his desire that speci- 

 mens of Australian fish might be exhibited in the Aquarium 

 which will be opened in connection with the forthcoming Indian 

 and Coloni.al Exhibition, the Trustees of the Melbourne Exhibi- 

 tion Building have given the matter their consideration, with a 

 view of determining if specimens of therarer varieties could be 

 sent from the Melbourne Aquarium. It has, however, been 

 found that very great cost would be incurred in sending anything 

 like an adequate supply of fish, and the project has therefore 



