i; 



NATURE 



{_Dec. 20, 1883 



that the largest obtainable place of meeting in the district is 

 invariably crowded. 



A MEETING and conversauone will be held under the auspices 

 of the National Association of Science and Art Teachers, in the 

 Manchester Technical School and Mechanics' Institution on 

 Saturday, December 22. Prof. Roscoe, F.R.S., will take the 

 chair. It is expected that a large number of science and art 

 teachers will be present, including visitors and delegates from 

 the Liverpool, Birmingham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne branches 

 of the Association. It has been arranged on this occasion to 

 bring togetlier for exhibition a collection of apparatus, inodels_ 

 text-books, diagrams, and appliances of a new and interesting 

 nature bearing upon the study of science and art. We have no 

 doubt the meeting will be a successful one. The Association is 

 Calculated to be of great service to science teachers, and deserves 

 encouragement. Prof. Huxley is president, and the secretary is 

 Mr. W. E. Crowther, Technical School, Manchester. 



AT the last meeting of Superintendents of National Education 

 at Washington, Prof. Bickmore described the lectures on natural 

 history which he now gives every Saturday to school teachers, 

 and the first history of these lectures. The authorities of the 

 Natural History Museum wrote to the Board of Education in 

 New York suggesting that a select few of their teachers should 

 come to hear an informal address upon the objects there exhibited. 

 Sets of these lectures were attended first by those few, then by 

 fifty, then by over one hundred teachers. They are now given 

 to a full hall every Saturday. No continued systematic series of 

 illustrations could be met with, so a photographer was employed 

 to take transparencies of specimens and copies of various illus- 

 trations bearing upon the subject to be exhibited by the oxy- 

 hydrogen light. Another lantern is also used to throw light 

 upon the written lists and diagrams or upon objects which are 

 arranged in pigeon-holes, upon each one of which exactly the 

 lecturer can throw the light as it is wanted. 



After some interesting reflections U| on the wonderful strides 

 in population revealed by the last United States census. Dr. 

 Harris pointed out to the same meeting how partial would be 

 the value of any special technical educaiion that might be given 

 to a whole school. He urged that mechanical inventions were 

 everyday throwing out of work "hands" that had acquired 

 manual dexterity. Education of the brain to directive intelligence 

 is the great want. The large development of invention is set 

 down to the study of natural science ar.d of the phenomena of 

 physical processes. On the other hand, the relish, by many 

 students at least, for manual instruction leads the authorities at 

 Boston to report that "manual training is so great a rilief to the 

 iteration of .school work that it is a positive benefit rather than a 

 detriment to the course in the other studies." 



We learn from Trondhjem that the starling has been seen for 

 the last two winters in the north of the Trondhjem Aoit, silting 

 on the roofs of houses at Christmas time, notwithstanding the 

 cold, which was considerable for the season. In the present 

 year some of the birds are again to be seen after their usual 

 period of migration. 



Naturen reports that Prof. Heiberg of Christiania has demon- 

 strated the presence in the air passages and pulmonary substance 

 of hares of a form of strongylus, both barren and charged with 

 ova, which would appear to be the cause of an otherwise unex- 

 plained mortality among these animals in the autumn of last 

 year in the district of Eidsvold in Norway. 



Several Russian writers have of late been drawing attention 

 to the fact that the Japanese seas harbour various species of fish 

 which are poisonous. Dr. Sawtscherks even suggests that ships 

 going to these waters ought to be provided with descriptions and 



representations of these suspected fish, of which twelve varieties 

 would appear to belong to Tetrodon, 7". inermis, the Japanese 

 " Kanatuka," being reported as especially venomous. Accord- 

 ing to Dr. Guldrew, one Japanese fish, known as Fuku, is so 

 poisonous that death follows almost instantaneously after eating 

 only a moderate-sized bit of the flesh. The Japanese are for- 

 bidden by law to eat this fish, but it is nevertheless not unfre- 

 quently the cause of death among the lower classes, who believe 

 it to be possessed of certain marvellous properties, on account of 

 which they risk the danger of being poisoned. 



It is evident that we have much yet to learn respecting insects 

 which habitually go through their early stages in sea water. In 

 the current number of the Anurican Naturalist (December, 

 1883) is a account by A. W. Pearson of the larva of the 

 Dipterous family StyatiomyiiJiC that was found by him beneath 

 Zostera on the beach near the mouth of the Merrimac River. 

 With a few exceptions all marine insects are either Coleopterous 

 or Dipterous, and it is the latter order especially that shows itself 

 the most diversified in point of larval adaptation to extraordinary 

 conditions. 



M. TiLLO publishes in the last number of the livestia of the 

 Russian Geographical Society the results of very accurate 

 measurements he has made of the lengths of the rivers of Russia 

 in Europe. The measurements have been made on theten-versts- 

 to-an-inch map of Russia, and present great differences with 

 those which were published by General Stielbitsky in his work, 

 " Superficie de I'Europe ; " these last have been made on a map 

 of a much smaller scale (sixty versts to an inch), and contain 

 several errors. The figures of M. Tillo are, on the average, by 

 26 per cent, greater than those of M. Strelbitsky, showing thus 

 the error which may ensue from measurements made on smaller 

 maps ; several rivers, as the Kama, Dnieper, Dniester, and Oka, 

 are, in M. Strelbitsky's measurements, respectively by 200, 285, 

 3CX), and 315 versts too short; whilst the ten versts' map has 

 given to M. Tillo a length of the Dnieper only by one-twentieth 

 shorter than the three-versts-to an-inch map. The chief rivers 

 of Rus ia appear now with the following lengths: Volga, 2108 

 miles (the verst being taken equal to o 663 miles), L) ral, 1480 

 miles; Dnieper, 1329; Don, 1124; Kama, 1117; Petchora, 

 1024 ; and Oka, 915 miles. 



In the same periodical, M. Woeikof points out that the tea 

 tree and the bamboo could be advantageously cultivated in 

 Russian Transcaucasia. The most northern point where he has 

 seen the tea tree in Japan is Akita, clo.-e by the western shore 

 of Niphon, under 39° 45' N. lat. ; and he has been told that it 

 is grown even at the frontier of Amovori, under the fortieth 

 degree of latitude. The average temperature at Akita would be, 

 according to ineteorological observations at Niigaia and Hako- 

 dade, about ii°'5 Cels. for the year, zero in January, 23'°5 in 

 July, and 24°'5 in August. The tea tree grows very well also 

 in the valleys at Ponevara, under 38° N. lat., 900 feet above 

 the sea-level, where the average yearly temperature is no more 

 than 12°, and that of January no more than 0°, whilst every yean 

 there falls a deep snow. As to the bamboo tree, it is cultivated 

 under 39° 10', 500 feet above the sea-level, on the western slope ; 

 and under 38° 35', 400 to 450 feet above the sea level, on the 

 eastern slope. In the western parts of Transcaucasia, between 

 Batoam and Tuap e, the average yearly temperature varies from 

 13° to 15°, and that of January is between 4'''5 to 6°'5. Both 

 are thus higher than those of Japan. The summer is, perhaps, 

 a little colder, but this dilTerence would hardly exercise any 

 influence. Even in the interior of the country, up to the Great 

 Caucasus ridge, and east to that of Meakhi, the average tem- 

 peratures at places up to 1000 feet above the sea-level would 

 allow the culture of the tea tree. As to the rains, they are quite 



