250 



NATURE 



{July 25. 1872 



the examination on I'rof. Bentley's course, "On the Classifica- 

 tion of Plants," Miss Eleanor K.Garrett gained the first prize, 

 Miss ElizabeUi J. (^.irrett the second, and L. T. Thorne the 

 third. .Si.xty-six Pass Certificates were granted, and no fewer 

 than twenty- two yonng ladies were among the successful candi- 

 dates. 



We are glad (■-> sec from the report on the teaching of Prac- 

 tical Physiology in the London schools, which appears in the 

 liL'Jical Times of Saturday, that the means and method for 

 teaching this subject to University College, the only one yet re- 

 ported on, are in every way satisfactory. 



Harper s Weekly records the death of Mr. Coleman T. Robiii- 

 S3n, of New York, a gentleman well known for the attention 

 he has paid to the subject of American lepidoptera. A man of 

 wealth, and able to gratify his tastes in this direction, he ac- 

 quired, by his own efforts and by purchase, a very extensive 

 cabinet, embracmg over twenty thousand specimens, which not 

 long ago he presented to the American Museum of Natural 

 History in the Central Park. Mr. Robinson published quite 

 extensively upon American lepidoptera — a paper upon the 

 sphinges of Cuba being perhaps the most important. In some 

 of his labours he was associated with Mr. Grote. 



We hear from America of the death of Mr. Robert Swifl, 

 who had paid great attention to terrestrial and marine moUusca. 

 His valuable cabinet of shells will be presented by his daughter 

 to the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences. He had already 

 given to the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution an extensive 

 series of specimens of the birds of St. Thomas and Porto Rico. 



A MONUME.NT has been erected to Boerhiave, the great 

 naturalist and physicirn, at Leyden in Holland. The statue is 

 lift. Sin. high, and stands on a pedestal of 10 ft. in height. 

 The fin;ure represents him a; a professor lecturing. 



We leirn from the Times of Iiiiia of June 28 that the Jifjjr.u 

 Jl/ai/ and other journals in the Madras Presidency are altogeth;r 

 discontented with the recent jadgm;nt of the Court of Inquiry as 

 to the cyclone, to which we referred last we;k. Tiie Af.iii has 

 subjected the judgment to a searching criticism, and, after co:n- 

 paring it with the evidence, concludes that the Court throughout 

 has erred egregiously on the side of severity. It seems to be 

 thought that the Board of Trade will cither reverse or modify the 

 Court's judgment. 



Dr. E. Decaisxe, in a note communicited to the Academy 

 of Sciences on the 3rd of June, shows that from the triple point 

 of view of the fecundity of marriages, of the absolute number of 

 births, and of the excess of births over deaths, France occupies 

 the lowest place of all the European States. In Prussia 100 

 marriages give 460 children ; in France the same number of 

 marriages give only 300 children. In Prussia the number of 

 births for each 100 of the population generally is 3' 98 per annum ; 

 in France there are only 2 '55. In Prussia the excess of births 

 over deatiis in each milliDn of the population is 13,000 per 

 annum, whilst in France it only .amounts to 2,400. " If we ad 

 mit," says Dr. Decaisne, "as a conclusion from the above figures, 

 that the doubling of the population of France, despoiled of two 

 of its finest province^, and by unheard of disasters, will require 

 170 years to be effected, whilst that of Prussia requires only 42 

 years, Great Britain 52, and Russia C6, some estimate may be 

 made of the amount of the evil that has befallen this country." 

 He does not hesitate to say that, as the first step towards the res- 

 toration of th« former power of France, the first thing that should 

 occupy her s!a'.e;men is the reconstitution, the reorganisation of 

 human life ; and everyone should throw aside that false patriotism 

 which h.ns been the cause of so much ill. 



Ar its List session the Congress of the United States made an 

 appropriation of 75,000 dollars for the continuation of Professor 



I layden's geological exploration of th ■ Territories; and on the 

 15th of June the Professor had already established his camp at 

 Ogden, Utah, preparatory to prosecuting liis researches. The 

 present session seems likely to be marked by still further additions 

 to our knowledge of the physical and natural history of the 

 C5ntr.al and western regions of the United States. 



According to the Vale College Courant, a new era in the 

 educational development of the Japanese has been entered upon 

 in the opening of an exhibition of curiosities of nature and art in 

 Vedo in the beginning of April last. The formation of collec- 

 tions of this kind is usually characteristic of an advanced stage 

 of culture ; and in imitating the European and American ex- 

 ample in this respect the Japanese show their great superiority 

 to the Chinese and other Oriental nations. The exhibition re- 

 ferred to was opened in a temple sacred to the spirit of Con- 

 fucius, and situated in the grounds of the old Chinese college. 

 This institution was the chief seat in Japan of the study of 

 Chinese literature, but has been closed for som e years, as the 

 study of the Chinese has now become obsolete. The exhibi- 

 tion, to which a charge for admission of about two cents was 

 made, was projected by the Japanese themselves ; and although 

 small, yet, according to the writer in the Coiimiit, it was 

 really very good and well selected. The specimens were those 

 mainly pertaining to the fauna and flora of Japan, embracing 

 reptiles, fishes, insects, and birds, the last being well stuffed and 

 mounted. Specimens of timber, in polished slabs, were ex- 

 hibited ; and the cases of insects were filled with a very great 

 variety of species. To the wonders of nature were added 

 numerous art curiosities, mainly of old and rare patterns of 

 articles of lacquered bronze. 



A coRREsrovDENT of the Chemieal Nezos asks why 

 the Cavendish Society ha; for years ceased to publish works of 

 scientific value, and suggests that some of the works of its 

 founders and officers —Faraday, Graham, Hofmann, Daubeny, 

 Miller, Stenhouse — as well as others, are so scarce, that their 

 publication by the Society would be a boon to many, and would 

 remunerate it for its trouble in publishing them. 



General Mver, the indefatigable head of the United States 

 Signal Service, has proposed, according to Ilai-Jiey's IVeekly, 

 to take the occasion of various balloon ascensions during 

 the present season, especially from Boston, to make obser- 

 vations in regard to the temperature, barometric jiressure, 

 and the currents of the higher altitudes of the atmosphere. 

 Sergeant Schaeffer, of the corps, ha; been detailed for this pur- 

 pose, and has been in training for some time preparatory to his 

 important work. 



We learn from the Fifth Annual Report of the Peabody In- 

 stitute of Baltimore, for the year ending June I, that upwards of 

 13,000 dollars have been spent on books and binding, and that 

 during the year 120 lectures have been delivered at the Institute 

 — 30 being popular lectures, and 90 what are ciUed class lectures, 

 designed for more minute instruction in special branches of know- 

 ledge." Of the popular lectures Prof. W. II. Miles gave ten — 

 mostly geological — on such subjects as "Revelations of the 

 Microscope and of the Deep-.Sea Soundings," " Coral and the 

 Coral Islands," "Glaciers, Rivers, and Oceans," "TheGeo- 

 logicd Ilibtory of Man," &c. The class lectures are divided 

 into six courses, of which two are scientific — the one consisting 

 of twenty lectures on Physiology by Prof. F. T. Miles, of Mary- 

 land University, and the other twenty lectures on Sound and 

 Heat by Prof. H. C. White, of St. John's College, Baltimore. 

 The average number in each class, independent of single ad- 

 mission, was thirty- seven, the charge for a course of twenty 

 lectures being only 3 dol;. Daring the year 3,883 volumes 

 besi les pamphlets have been added to the library, the number of 

 readers having been 2, 5S2, 



