254 
NATURE 
| Fan. 26, 1871 

THE Polytechnic School has been opened at Bordeaux. M. 
Gambetta delivered an inaugural address. The director is M. 
Serrey, Member of the French Academy; but the larger 
number of the professors are now besieged in Paris, serving in 
the ranks of the National Guard. They mostly belong to the 
artillery. Among them are M. Janin,’Professor of Physics; M. 
Laussedat, Professor of Topography ; M. Moutard, Professor of 
Mathematics ; M. Manheim, Professor of Descriptive Geometry. 
ARRANGEMENTS for instruction in Practical Chemistry have 
now been completed at the London Institution, Finsbury Circus, 
by the opening of the Chemical Laboratory, under the direction 
of Dr. Henry E. Armstrong, for the reception of students re- 
quiring instruction in Analytical Chemistry and the methods 
of Original Investigation. The evening class for Elementary 
Chemical Analysis will commence work on Feb. 13, and will 
meet three times a week, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 
from 6 to 8 P.M. from February to May. All students must be 
nominated by a proprietor, and the sons of proprietors have an 
advantage in the fees charged. 
THE Young Men’s Christian Association of New York an- 
nounces a course of popular scientific lectures by Dr. Doremus, 
on the ‘‘Triumphs of Modern Science.” ‘‘ The subject is an 
interesting one, but we regret,” says the Mew York Zechnologist, 
““to see that the Association has placed the price of tickets at 
1h dols. per lecture, or 5 dols.° for the course of four. At 
this rate, many young men who would otherwise attend and be 
interested, will prefer to pay a less amount and visit Booth’s, or 
even the opera-house of Jim Fisk, jun. We presume that the 
managers will claim that the enormous expenses incurred for 
chemical and physical illustrations render this high price neces- 
sary. This may be true in their case, but it is a pity that they 
and their lecturer should forget that neither Science itself nor its 
popularisation depends upon magnificent spectacular effects. It 
this were the case, then Tweed, Sweeny, and Hall, with their 
free entertainments given every 4th of July at the expense of the 
city, can beat any scientific lecturer in the country, and even 
Fisk, with the gorgeous scenery of his Twelve Temptations, will 
prove more attractive than Huxley or Tyndall. A good experi- 
ment, so extensive as to be visible in all parts of the audience 
hall, and so pertinent that it gives a perfect illustration of the 
point under discussion, isa thing that we admire above all things. 
But the burning of a pound of potassium, merely for the sake of 
making a blaze and a smoke ; the burning of diamonds, which, 
when performed on the lecture table of a popular audience hall, 
proves nothing, and is the sheerest mountebankery ; the dragging 
in of an aquarium, merely for the sake of advertising the maker’s 
name ; and in short, everything that does not aid the hearer in 
obtaining clear ideas in regard to the matter in hand, ought to be 
rigorously excluded. The simplest experiment, performed with 
the cheapest apparatus, becomes beautiful and interesting beyond 
any display of fireworks, when it clearly illustrates some great 
physical truth, while the most gorgeous display will, of itself 
alone, fail to excite that intellectual interest that is so far superior 
to mere physical emotion. In the name of Science, therefore, 
and of that intellectual progress, of which our Young Men’s 
Christian Association should be the promoters and advocates, we 
protest against a system which degrades the scientific lecture to a 
level with the performances of Houdin or Signor Blitz.” Sensible 
language this, and deserving of note in this country as well as 
America. 
WE learn from the American Technologist that the scientific 
lectures delivered and to be delivered this session before the 
American Institute are as follows :—Tuesday evening, December 
20, 1870, The Struggles of Science, by George B. Loring, M.D., 
of Salem, Mass.; Tuesday evening, December 27, 1870, How 
we stand and walk, by Prof, Burt G, Wilder, of Cornell 

University, Ithaca, N.Y.; Friday evening, January 6, 1871, 
The Triumphs of Modern Surgery, by Prof. F. H. Hamilton, of 
Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York ; Friday evening, 
January 20, 1871, On Water, by Prof. C. F. Chandler, of 
Columbia College, New York; Friday evening, January 27, 
1871, On Tides and Tidal Currents, and their effects upon Har- 
bours, by J. E. Hilgard, of the U.S. Coast Survey, Washington, 
D.C. ; Friday, February 3, 1871, On Light, by Henry Morton, 
President of Stevens Institute, Hoboken, N.J. These lectures 
are free to members of the Institute and their families, and are 
an evidence of the earnest work which this association is accom 
plishing in the way of the diffusion of knowledge. 
THE centenary anniversary of the birthday of Humboldt was 
celebrated in Boston by the raising of a subscription to the — 
amount of 7,040 dollars, which has been placed in the hands of 
the trustees of the Museum of Comparative Zoology as a 
Humboldt Scholarship for the benefit of young and needy per- 
sons engaged in study at the Museum, and the officers of the 
Museum have formally accepted the trust. 
THE wonderful bore of five miles through the Hoosac Moun- 
tains goes forward with persistent steadiness, and bids fair to be 
an accomplished fact in 1874, as promised by the contractors. 
Some conception of the magnitude of this great work may be 
formed when it is known that at the west end the workmen have 
fully one-third of a mile of solid mountain above their heads. 
A ZooLoGIcAL Garden in Central Park, New York, has 
been objected to on the following grounds:—The defect of 
the Central Park is a lack of breadth and repose. This 
defect grows out of the natural limitations fixed by the 
original rocky surface of its site, and from the necessity of 
providing structurally for the convenience and safety of great 
throngs of people in a public pleasure-ground that is expected 
finally to be situated in the heart of a densely populated city. 
The impracticability of making, in either section of the Park, 
open spaces of greensward as large as desirable was recognised 
from the outset, but as much as possible was done to gain ground 
in this direction, and the central meadow stretches are the result 
in the upper Park. They supply two connected spaces, each 
about.a quarter of a mile in extent, partially separated by a mass 
of rock and almost completely surrounded by a border of indi- 
genous trees, which are already beginning to take on umbrageous 
forms and to cast broad shadows over the now well-established 
turf. These meadows constitute the only broad space of quiet 
rural ground on the island which has been left undisturbed by 
artificial objects, and much labour has been expended to render 
practicable the preservation of their present general character. 
A Zoological Garden must be made up to a considerable extent, 
if not altogether, of small scattered buildings and small fenced 
yards ; it requires little breadth or unity of surface in its site, and 
it must be adapted to recreation of a completely diverse character 
from that which this ground has been prepared to serve. 
THE busy town of Sheffield, we are glad to see, is waking up 
to a sense of its position as one of the industrial centres of 
England. A meeting was recently held to consider the pro- 
priety ‘of presenting the Museum of the Literary and Philo- 
sophical Society to the town, on condition that a Free Public 
Museum be established by the Town Council, and a suitable 
building be erected. The President of the Society, Mr. H. C. 
Sorby, occupied the chair, and briefly opened the meeting. 
The Master Cutler, Mr. W. Bragge, then rose and proposed the 
following resolution, ‘‘ That upon the establishment by the Town 
Council of Sheffield of a Free Public Museum and the provision 
of such accommodation for it as the Council of the Literary and 
Philosophical Society shall deem suitable, the said Society hereby 
authorises its Council to transfer to the said Free Public Museum 
