372 
NATURE 
[March 9, 1871 
NN 
5 est 
Ir will have been observed that Sir F. Goldsmid carried his 
motion in the House of Commons last week : ‘‘ That, in the 
opinion of this House, young men qualified by character and 
attainments for admission into the service of the Government of 
India as civil engineers, ought not to be excluded from such 
service by reason of their not having been educated at a Govern- 
ment College.” If the facilities afforded by existing institutions 
are not found sufficient for the training of practical engineers, it 
is quite right that the Government should step in and supply the 
deficiency ; our recent article on the subject shows whether the 
Institute of Civil Engineers is alive to the wants of the time in 
this respect. And if the Government establishes such a College, 
it is quite right that it should examine all candidates who 
present themselves, and give diplomas to those who pass them 
with credit; otherwise, it shows but little faith in its own 
system of education. Mr. Lowe has well pointed out that the 
Government will place itself altogether in a false position if it 
abandons its intention with reference to the proposed College, 
and yet takes no notice of the want of adequate instruction in 
the existing institutions. A leading article in the Aygineer of 
last week on the subject points out that the idea of a compe- 
tition between the Royal Engineers and the proposed College is 
a bugbear. 
THE number of candidates for admission to the Royal Society 
this year is fifty. 
THE members of the French Institute have learned with deep 
regret the death of one of its most celebrated members. M. 
Lartet died in the department of the Gers during the investment of 
Paris. It is in that very department that he discovered an im- 
mense quantity of fossils at Saint Salut. M. Lartet was pro- 
fessor of Palzeontology at the Museum of Natural History, filling 
the place of the lamented d’Archiac. He was ill from the time 
of his nomination, and was unable to deliver a single lecture 
except his inaugural address. M. Lartet is known to the whole 
scientific world by an immense quantity of academic and scientific 
memoirs. His only work of consequence was published in con- 
nection with Mr. Henry Christy, an English merchant well 
known for his love of geology. That publication, which marks 
a starting point in paleontological inquiries, is called Reliquie 
Aquitanice, and cost the late Mr. Christy an immense sum of 
money. 
WE are very glad to observe that a fund is being raised in this 
country for the relief of French horticulturists and gardeners who 
have suffered by the recent war. Many of them have been 
reduced toa deplorable plight, their gardens, greenhouses, and 
orchards having been completely destroyed. Their condition 
presents a strong claim on their more fortunate cov/réres in this 
country. Contributions may be made in money, plants, cuttings, 
grafts, stocks, seeds, tools, mats, &c., and it is urgently re- 
quested that subscriptions in money be forwarded at once to the 
treasurer, Mr. G. F. Wilson, F.R.S., Heatherbank, Weybridge 
Heath, or to the honorary secretary, Rev. H. H. Dombrain, 
Westwell Vicarage, Ashford, Kent. 
THE impulse given to the study of Natural Science at Rugby 
is already bearing fruit. Mr. R. J. Williamson, who was elected 
to a Natural Science Studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, on 
the 4th, and Mr. C. J. Taylor, who obtained Miss Burdett 
Coutts’s Geological Scholarship on the third of this month, were 
both Rugbeians. Including these, Rugby has had six Natural 
Science Honours during the last twelve months, viz., two Oxford 
‘* Firsts,” one Cambridge ‘‘ First,” two Christ Church Student- 
ships, and the Geological Scholarship. All this is encouraging 
for the future. 
Tue Bookseller records the death at Dartford, at the age of 
eighty-two, of Mr. Augustus Applegarth, the eminent mechanist 
and inventor, to whom the world at large and the printing trade 


in particular are largely indebted for his improvements in the 
printing-press. Untii substituted by Hoe’s American machine, 
the Zimes was printed from an Applegarth, which printed from 
8,000 to 10,000 copies per hour. Mr. Applegarth took out no fewer 
than eighteen patents for various purposes, including three for the 
printing of bank-notes, and for printing silk; but, like many 
inventors, although he enriched others, he failed to secure a 
fortune for himself. 
M. SorREL, one of the youngest members of the Observatory, 
has been a victim of the privations endured during the invest- 
ment of Paris. He was engaged in the artillery of the National 
Guard. He had made one ascent on board the ‘* Géant” and 
another on board the ‘‘ Pole nord.” 
THE cattle plague is raging amongst the herds which were 
congregated for the revictualling of Paris, and the carcases of 
dead animals are every day brought,out in open carts, and con- 
ducted to Monfaugon to be buried. It appears that the same 
plague followed the invasion of 1814. M. Bouley, a member of 
the French Institute, contended in its last sitting that the meat of 
those animals could be eaten with impunity, and he said in 
support of his argument that cases of plague were discovered 
during the investment of Paris, and that the animals were not 
thrown away as useless. But it must not be forgotten that the 
mortality during the siege was very high, and that a part of the 
deaths may possibly be attributed to the bad quality of the meat 
taken from infected animals. 
THE weather at Paris is now very mild, and some fears are 
expressed of an outbreak of epidemic, in consequence of the 
burial of so many dead bodies of men and horses round Paris. 
It is supposed that 200,000 men and more than 100,000 horses 
were killed, besides 60,000 persons who died from different 
affections. 
OnE of the most interesting scientific novelties of the day is 
the discovery of a true bone cave near Pheenixville, Pennsylvania, 
by Mr. C. M. Wheatley, reported in Harper's Weekly. The re- 
mains of animals, all extinct, are quite abundant and varied, 
and include bones of mastodon, horse, mylodon, and other forms, 
and are in great part entirely new to science. A preliminary re- 
port upon them, by Prof. Cope, was to appear in the March 
number of the American Fournal of Science. 
THE same journal refers to the explorations made during the 
past summer in the western territories of the United States by 
the parties of Prof, Hayden and Prof. Marsh, the latter of whom 
has just published an interesting 7é¢swmé of his geological obser- 
vations. The principal field of his labours, as already stated, 
was the neighbourhood of Fort Bridger, among certain fresh- 
water deposits from an ancient lake, the strata of which formed 
a thickness in places of at least 1,500 feet. Vertebrate remains 
of great variety were found entombed in these deposits, differing 
in marked features from those belonging to the Miocene basin 
east of the Rocky Mountains. In the latter bones of ruminating 
animals were especially abundant, while fishes and reptiles, with 
the exception of a single species of tortoise, were entirely ‘want- 
ing. In the Fort Bridger basin, on the other hand, reptilian 
life was in great development, and was represented by crocodiles, 
tortoises, lizards, and serpents, together with numerous fish, while 
many mammals, allied to the tapirs, as well as other smail 
quadrupeds, occupied its borders. A detailed report of this ex- 
ploration will be found in the March number of the American 
Journal of Science. 
LIEUTENANT PayYER, well known for his geological investi- 
gations in the Alps, has lately communicated some facts in regard 
to discoveries in Greenland by the late German expedition, of 
which he was a member ; and in this he calls attention especially 
to the probability of the hypothesis that Greeniand is essentially 
a congeries of islands similar to that west of it, and not a 
