446 



NA TURE 



{August 31, 1882 



NOTES 

 M. Janssen delivered with great success a long address as 

 President of the French Association for the Progress of Science, 

 which met at La Rochelle on the same day that the British 

 Association met at Southampton. The address of Dr. Janssen 

 was very well received, and is reported at length in the Revue 

 Scicntifiqiu. But La Rochelle being quite a small place, of 

 about 20,000 inhabitants, the interest of the session has been in 

 some respects impaired, and has been mostly confined to the 

 several excursions. 1 he finances of the Association are very 

 prosperous, and its income is exclusively spent in the interest of 

 science. 



A Hall of Residence for Women Students at University 

 College, London, and at the School of Medicine for Women, is 

 to be opened next October, at No. I, Byng Place, Gordon 

 Square, W.C., in the neighbourhood of these institutions. 

 Students who would otherwise live in lodgings, or in non- 

 academic boarding houses, will welcome the opportunities thus 

 afforded, whether most importance be attached to the household 

 arrangements, specially adapted to secure their health and 

 comfort, or to the facilities afforded for quiet study, or to that 

 intellectual and social intercourse with each other which consti- 

 tutes the fellowship so justly valued in the older Universities 

 The degrees of the University of London are open to women, 

 and the courses of study which prepare for such degrees are in 

 themselves among the best attainable forms of modern training. 

 University College, London, has supported the action of the 

 University by admitting women on the same footing as men to 

 all the classes of its Faculties of Arts and Law and of Science, 

 and to its libraries, thus throwing 0| en to them a full training in 

 these fields of study. The London School of Medicine for 

 Women, near University College, although not connected with 

 it, is the only institution in England that trains women for 

 degrees in medicine and surgery, and is formally recognised by 

 the University of London. Students of painting, etching, and 

 sculpture have long enjoyed the advantages of the Slade School, 

 which is an important part of one Faculty of Arts in University 

 College, and proximity to the British Museum, with its art 

 collections, will also be considered as another great advantage. 

 On all these accounts the neighbourhood of the College has 

 become a focus for women's education. The very necessary 

 condition is imposed that students applying for admission shall 

 be required to satisfy the committee that their object is serious 

 study ; and if any student should require private tuition, the 

 principal is empowered by the committee to make the necessary 

 arrangements. Communicaiions should be addressed to the 

 Principal, Miss Green, 6, Henrietta L Street, Cavendish Square. 

 Many well-known names appear in the list of those who approve 

 the scheme ; among others, the Countess of Airlie, the Dean of 

 Westminster, Sir F. Bramwell, Mrs. Henry Fawcett, Prof. 

 Carey Foster, Dr. Gladstone, Prof. Huxley, Lady Stanley of 

 Alderley, Mr. B. Samuelson, M.P., Dr. Siemens, Mr. W. 

 Spottiswoode, Prof. Williamson, and the Misses Browne. 



The Sanitary Institute of Great Britain holds its autumn 

 Congress at Newcastle upon-Tyne, from September 26 to 30. 

 The Exhibition of Sanitary Apparatus and Appliances in con- 

 nection with the Congiess will be held in the Tyne Brewery 

 Buildings, Bath Lane, from September 26 to October 21. The 

 president of the Congress is Capt. Douglas Galton, R.E., C.B., 

 F.R.S. The sections of the Congress are : (1) Sanitary Science 

 and Preventive Medicine, President, Dennis Embleton, M.D., 

 F.R.C.P. ; (2) Engineering and Architecture, President, Henry 

 Law, M.Inst.C.E. ; (3) Chemistry, Meteorology, and Geology, 

 President, Arthur Mitchell, M.D., F.R.S. On Saturday, 

 September 30, a lecture to the working classes will be given by 

 B. W. Richardson, M.D., F.R.S. 



The Eighth Annual Conference of the Cryptogamic Society 

 of Scotland will be held at Kenmore, Perthshire, on September 

 4, and following days. Fellows who purpose being present are 

 requested to communicate as soon as possible with Dr. F. 

 Buchanan White, Perth. Kenmore may be reached from Aber- 

 feldy, on the Highland Railway, or from Killin Station, on the 

 Callander and Oban Railway. It is situated at the east end of 

 Loch Tay (on which a steamer has now been placed). The im- 

 mediate neighbourhood has been favourably reported on as pre- 

 senting a presumably rich fungus flora, while Ben Lawers and 

 other mountains are distant only a few miles, as is the cele- 

 brated Fortingal Yew, supposed to be the oldest living tree in 

 Europe. 



Capt. R. G.Morris, R.E., and Lieut. Darwin, R.E., selected 

 by the Astronomer Royal to leave England to observe the transit 

 of Venus, sailed from Plymouth on Saturday afternoon in the 

 Liguria of the Orient line. Four German expeditions will soon 

 leave Hamburg for America to observe the transit, being 

 destined for different points of view on the Not them and 

 Southern continents. Each party will consist of two proved 

 astronomers, and a student assistant. The points of observation 

 allotted to the Germans are in Connecticut, South Carolina, 

 Costa Rica, and the Straits of Magellan. The observers will 

 remain at their appointed stations several months, and those at 

 Punta Arenas will be attended and assisted by the Imperial gun- 

 boat Albatross. 



In the month of September two more s'atues will be inaugu- 

 rated in France — one at Nolley (near Dijon) to Carnot, and the 

 other at Serres in Ariege, in the honour of Lakanal. We referred 

 to Carnot at the time his statue was proposed ; Lakanal was the 

 secretary of the nth class of the National Institute when it was 

 established by the Government of the Convention. It was 

 Lakanal who wrote the regulations which are now in existence 

 with a few immaterial alterations. He lived a long time an 

 exile in America, and returned to Paris after the revolution of 

 1830, and was nominated member of the Academy of Morales 

 and Political Science. The new Minister of Public Instruction 

 will be present at the ceremony, and deliver a speech, in which 

 he will explain the tendency of his administration. 



The mirror of ;the Leverrier telescope, more than 1 metre in 

 diameter, has been silvered anew by a process employed for the 

 first time with great success. A kind of circular wall in gutta- 

 percha and plaster was built, so that a kind of trough was made 

 with the concave mirror forming the bottom. This space was 

 filled up by the silvering solution, and the operation was ter- 

 minated as usual by the Leon Foucault process. The trouble of 

 turning over the glass, which weighs 600 kilogs., was thus saved. 

 This success is all the more to be appreciated that the silvering 

 must take place every two or three years. The curvature of the 

 mirror not being quite perfect, it w ill be used mostly for spectrum 

 analysis of the light emanating from planets. 



The work of building a new central school for " Ingenieurs 

 des Arts et Manufactures," was inaugurated at Paris a few days 

 ago in a square called Carre St. Martin, situated in the rear of 

 the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. The laying of the first 

 stone will soon take place, and w ill be celebrated as a public 

 ceremony. This central school and the Conservatoire will form 

 a ' ' group scholaire ' ' of unexampled usefulness for high industrial 

 studies. 



We announced last week the death of the well-known Russian 

 navigator and ex plorer, Admiral Count Liitke. Feodor Petro- 

 witch Liitke was born at St. Petersburg on September 29, 1797. 

 He served, in 1813, as a volunteer in the fleet appointed to 

 besiege Danzig, then in possession of the French, and was for 

 his bravery made midshipman. In 1817-18 he accompanied 

 Golowin in the latter's voyage round the world ; was commis- 

 sioned in 1821 to explore Kamtschatka, and in 1S21 24 made 



