June i, 1882] 



NA TURE 



i- J- 7 



able at once to the foundation of ,the professorship, and it is 

 expected that an election to the post will therefore take place 

 shortly. All praise is due to the college for having thus promptly 

 acted in the best interests of science in the University, and given 

 this professorship precedence amongst several other schemes 

 which might have been carried out by it first instead. The 

 Profesor is required by the Statutes to give instruction in Human 

 and Comparative Physiology, with histology. 



Cambridge. — The annual report of the Museums and Lecture 

 Rooms Syndicate at Cambridge has contained in past years no 

 more valuable record of work than that lately issued. Taking 

 first the department of experimental physics, we learn that 

 sixty-two students were attending the practical classes in the 

 Lent term, doing work which lew ol the candidates for the 

 mathematical or natural sciences triposes ever did at Cambridge 

 before the establishment of the Cavendish Laboratory. The 

 pupils in mechanism in Prof. Stuart's workshop have numbered 

 thirty-six during the past winter. In chemistry the increase in 

 the students has considerably exceeded the accommodation 

 available in the University laboratory, notwithstanding the 

 existence of several college laboratories. Professors Liveing 

 and Dewar plead strongly for further provision as regards both 

 buildings and appliances, such as may bear comparison with 

 those of Zurich and Bonn ; they believe that to delay building 

 until other departments can be adequately dealt with will be 

 most detrimental to the present flourishing prospects of che- 

 mistry. A new register of the specimens in the mineralogical 

 museum is completed ; but the want of additional apparatus is 

 seriously felt. Prof. Hughes records the use of the Arts School 

 as a lecture-room, and the arrangement for additional class and 

 work-rooms in the Woodwardian museum. The accessibility of 

 the collections, and the determinations being kept up to date, 

 attract many geologists who wish to pursue special investigations. 

 Among the additions to the collections are 700 species of Plio- 

 cene shells from Tuscany, casts of vertebrates from Lausanne 

 Miocene, 270 species of Miocene shells from the Vienna basin ; 

 Upper greensand corals from Devonshire, many Cretaceous 

 specimens from the neighbourhood of Cambridge, 450 speci- 

 mens from Neocomian of Saint Croix, S« itzerland, and casts of 

 Htsperornis regalis, Marsh, from Kansas ; several hundred 

 specimens from Portland Sands, Swindon, Wilts, collected by 

 Mr. H. Keeping, the curator of the museum ; numerous speci- 

 mens of rocks and building-stones. 



Turning, now, to the biological departments, the Woodward 

 and Hepburn collections of shells have been carefully examined 

 and catalogued by the curator, Mr. A. H. Cooke. The report 

 gives notes upon the principal families of mollusca, as repre- 

 sented in the museum, with indications of gaps in the series ; it 

 ,-hould be widely circulated in the interest of the museum itself, 

 as many old University students must have it in their power to 

 supply deficiencies at a slight cost of trouble to themselves. Mr. 

 Salvin reports that his catalogue of the Strickland collection of 

 birds is complete, making an octavo volume of 653 pages. The 

 species in the collection number 3125. Mrs. Strickland has pre- 

 sented a further portion of the valuable library of her late 

 husband to the museum. In Amphibia and Reptilia the collec- 

 tion is still relatively poor. A beautiful skeleton of Menopoma 

 has been prepared by W. Robinson, one of the assistants in the 

 museum, and a considerable number of skeletons and skins of 

 representative genera in these groups has been added. Among 

 the mammalian acquisitions should be mentioned the skeleton of 

 a male giraffe purchased from the Zoological Society ; a skeleton 

 of a mare, presented by Mr. R. Pryor, of Trinity College ; 

 skeletons of a ringed seal, a bladder-nosed seal, and a Polar 

 bear, all carefully killed and preserved, so that the bones were 

 neither injured nor missing, as is too often the case. A complete 

 skeleton of an Indian elephant has been given by Sir John Phear, 

 and a less perfect skeleton of an individual of the same species, 

 sent from Calcutta through the kind exertions of Sir Joseph 

 Fayrer. English additions of interest continue to be made, such 

 as a male badger, an adult male otter from Norwich, and a 

 female wild cat from Sutherlandshire. 



The average number of students working at physiology practi- 

 cally is now over 100. Mr. Balfour's classes in practical 

 morphology have very nearly attained the same numbers. More 

 demonstrators are seriously needed. Mr. Vines has been 

 assigned a small room for practical botany, but the advanced 

 students can only do their work by the course |being repeated 

 - wo or three times, since only ten students can work at once. 



Elementary students are at present unprovided with any space 

 for practical study. 



Prof. Paget, in reporting on the department of medicine, 

 strongly urges the speedy appointment of a Professor of Patho- 

 logy, and the provision of a Pathological Laboratory. The 

 Museum of Human Anatomy has been enriched by sixteen 

 models of the brain and other models, prepared by the late Mr. 

 Joseph Towne, modeller to Guy's Hospital, presented through 

 Mr. T. Bryant. 



One further note should be made, calling attention to the 

 magnificent presents made to the Philosophical Library, on its 

 transfer to the new room, and being made available for all 

 students in the museums, by Mr. J. YV. Clark, Prof. Humphry, 

 Mr. F. M. Balfour, Prof. Babington, Prof. Newton, and others. 

 Mr. Clark's gift is of priceless value to the science school, 

 including as it does several hundreds of volumes of the most 

 valued and superb editions of zoological and anatomical works. 



The Hopkins Prize for the best original memoir, inven- 

 tion, or discovery in connection with mathematics physical 

 or mathematics experimental science that may have been pub- 

 lished during the three years immediately preceding, has been 

 awarded to Lord Rayleigh, M.A., F.R.S., of Trinity College, 

 Professor of Experimental Physics in the University, for his 

 various important papers connected with the theory of vibrations, 

 and particularly for his paper on " The Theory of Resonance." 



Prof. Humphry announces practical classes in histology by 

 the Demonstrator, Mr. Hill, and in osteology by Mr. Wheny, 

 during July and August. 



The Cavendish Laboratory will be open to students obtaining 

 permission from the Professor during July and August, and the 

 Professor or one of the Demonstrators will attend daily. 



It has been decided to confer the Honorary Degree of LL.D. 

 on Prof. J. P. Cooke, the eminent Professor of Chemistry in 

 Harvard College, U.S. 



The opening of the Botanic Garden during three hours on 

 Sundays to members of the Senate and friends accompanying 

 them has been confirmed by 88 to 76 votes. 



Mr. H. S. Hele Shaw has been appointed Professor of 

 Engineering at University College, Bristol, vice Dr. J. T. Main, 

 elected Assistant Professor of Mechanics at the Normal College 

 of Science and Royal School of Mines, South Kensington. Mr. 

 Sidney Young, D.Sc. London, succeeds Mr. W. L. Goodwin as 

 Chemical Lecturer and Demonstrator, the latter having ob- 

 tained the professorship of Sackville College, New Brunswick, 

 Canada. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 

 London 



Royal Society, May II, — "On the Organisation of the Fossil 

 Plants of the Coal-measures," part xii. By Prof. W. C. 

 Williamson, F.R.S. 



At the recent meeting of the British Association at York, 

 Messrs. Cash and Hick read a memoir, since published in part 

 iv. of vol. vii. of the Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological 

 and Polytechnic Society, in which they described a stem from 

 the Halifax Carboniferous deposits characterised b> a form of 

 bark hitherto unobserved in those rocks. To this plant they 

 gave the name of Myriophylloides Williamsonis. It was charac- 

 terised by having a large cellular medulla, surrounded by a thin 

 vascular zone composed of short radiating lamella;. This, in 

 turn, was invested by a cylinder of cortical parenchyma from 

 which radiated a number of thin cellular laminae, like the spokes 

 of a wheel, separating large lacuna;. Each lamina generally 

 consisted of a siDgle series of cells. At their peripheral end, 

 these laminae merged in a thick, large-celled, cortical paren- 

 chyma. The generic name, Myriophylloides, was given to the 

 plant because of the resemblance between sections of its cortical 

 tissues and those. of the recent Myriophyllum. Two reasons 

 induced the author to object to this name (Nature, December 

 8, 1881, p. 124), and to propose the substitution of that of 

 Helophyton. Such substitution, however, was rendered un- 

 necessary by the discovery, by Mr. Spencer, of Halifax, of some 

 additional specimens which indicate that the supposed new plant 

 was merely the corticated state of the Astromyelon, described 

 by the author in his Memoir, part xi. (Phil. Trans., 1878). 

 These specimens showed that the plant was more complex than 

 had been supposed, different ramifications of it having each their 

 jndividual- peculiarities. 



