136 



NATURE 



\ytmc 10, 1880 



can be done practically the author has put down a steam-engine 

 and boiler at his country residence near Tunbridge Wells, and 

 intends to test the principles involved upon a working scale 

 durin;j the winter. The steam-engine which drives the dynamo- 

 electric nnchine during the night for the purpose of giving light 

 is to be employed during the day in transmitting power through 

 an electric conductor to the farm for the purpose of carrying on 

 small farmiii,; operations such as turnip, chaff, and wood- 

 cutting, &c. Another interesting question which Dr. Sie- 

 mens lias set himself to answer is to determine which por- 

 tion of the r.ays constituting white light is efficacious in 

 producing chlorophyll, starch, and woody fibre, and which 

 in effecting the ripening of fruit. I''or this ]Hn-pose arrangements 

 are in preparation to distribute the spectrum of a powerful electric 

 light in a darkened chamber over a series of similar plants 

 exposed seriatim to the actinic, light-giving, and thermal portions 

 of the spectrum. Some experiments have been made with solar 

 light in this direction, but no very conclusive results could be 

 obtained, because the short periods of time during which the 

 solar spectrum can be maintained steadily in the same place are 

 so short that the effects produced upon vegetation have not been 

 of a sufficiently decided character ; whereas, with the aid of 

 electric light, the same spectrum may be kept on steadily for a 

 series of days without intermission. The author referred shortly 

 to the lamp which he designed for this purpose, having a focus 

 unchangeable in space, and without obstruction to the rays of 

 light falling downward. There is no clockwork ; the carbons 

 are pressed forward either by their own weight or by the force of 

 springs, the motion being checked by an abutment against which 

 the carbon presses at the junction of its cylindrical with its 

 conical portion. This is at a distance of ^ inch to .^ inch from 

 the arc centre, when the lieat is sufficient to cause the gradual 

 decomposition of the carbon, w'ithout being high enough to fuse 

 or injure tlie metal abutment. 



In the third portion of the paper the author refers to 

 the application of electricity as a means of mechanical pro- 

 ]Mlsion. He described the electric railway designed by Dr. 

 Werner Siemens, of Berlin, and tried at a local exhibition 

 held in that city. The rails were insulated from the earth 

 by wooden sleepers, and were in electrical connection with 

 a dynamo-electric machine worked by steam power at the 

 station. A magneto-electric machine on the driving carriage 

 was so fixed and connected with the axle of one pair of wdieels 

 as to give motion to the s.ame, the driving axle being severed 

 electrically by the introduction of an insulated w.asher. A 

 current of electricity is thus passed along one rail to work the 

 magneto-electric machine on the driving carriage, and back by 

 the other rail to the stationary machine on the ground. The 

 author anticipates a large application of the electric railway to 

 adits in mines, to locomotives between neighbouring places, and 

 to tunnels. In fact it is seriously contemplated to apply this 

 system at the St. Gotliard tunnel, where the large turbines are 

 available which have been employed in the boring operations. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE 



Cambridge. — In their latest-issued series of statutes for the 

 University of Cambridge, the Commissioners maintain Easter as 

 the boundary between the University Lent and Easter terms, and 

 require three-fourths of each term to be kept by residence. The 

 degree of li.achelor in Surgery is added to the list ; but the per- 

 mission to give degrees to peers and sons of peers who come to 

 the University in youth is limited to the B.A. degree, and the 

 University may prescribe for their examinations and residence by 

 grace._ Titular degrees in any of the seven faculties of Arts, Law, 

 Medicine, Surgery, Science, Letters, or Music may be granted 

 to foreigners of distinction and to British subjects who are of 

 conspicuous merit, or who have done good service to the State 

 or to the University. Complete honorary degrees, with right of 

 voting, may be given to those who obtain some University office 

 after residing three terms in the University. 



The Demonstrator of Anatomy will superintend a class for 

 Practical Histology during the next long vacation, beginning 

 July I ; another class will be held for Human Osteology. The 

 Cavendish Laboratory also will be open for practical work. 



Notice has been given by the Board of Natural Science Studies 

 that next June (1881) there will be a practical ex.-imination in all 

 the subjects of the examination in the first part of the Natural 

 Sciences Tripos. 



The recent memorials concerning the academical encourage- 

 ment of the higher education of women are to be considered 

 and reported on by a syndicate consisting of the Vice-Chancellor, 

 Drs. Bateson, Phcar, Westcott, and E. C. Clark, Professors 

 Cayley, Adams, Liveing, and Stuart, Messrs. G. F. Browne, 

 Ferrers, E. W. Blore, R. Burn, H. Sidgwick, J. Peile, A. 

 Austen-Leigh, and G. W. Prothero, to report before the end of 

 Lent Term next. 



The Sedgwick prize, given every third year for the best essay 

 on some suliject in geology or the kindred sciences, open to the 

 competition of all graduates of the University who have resided 

 sixty days during the twelvemonth preceding the day on which 

 tlic essay must be sent in, has been awarded to Walter Keeping, 

 Inccptor in Arts, of Christ's College. The subject of the essay 

 is, "On the Fossils and Pakijontological Affinities of the Neo- 

 comian Beds of Upware, Wicken, and Brickhill." 



Sir John Lubbock has been elected without opposition to 

 represent London University in Parliament. 



Prof. IIenrici, F.R.S., has been appointed to the Professor- 

 ship of Applied Mathematics in University College, London. 



Great importance has been given to the first session of the 

 Superior Council of Instruction of France, composed of about 

 fifty members, of whom forty have been nominated by the dif- 

 ferent classes of French teachers, from the Sorbonne to the 

 humblest village school. A decree has granted to each of them 

 a sum of 20 francs a day for the duration of the session, and 

 travelling expenses. M. Jules Ferry opened the session by a 

 speech in [which he explained his views, and submitted to 

 the new organisation a programme of reforms. This programme 

 has been sent by the General Assembly to a special commission 

 composed of fifty members appointed to report on it. M. 

 Jules Simon has been appointed president of that commission. 

 It is said that, although approving the general tendency of these 

 reforms, the commission is resolved to protect Greek studie-, 

 which had been sacrificed in the Ministerial project. But it 

 agrees to render the study of either the English or the German 

 language an obligation from the admission to the school up to 

 the end of the course of studies. The commission has held 

 already three long sittings for determining these points. The 

 discussion will be long in general sitting. For the first time in 

 the history of France the University has her own parliament 

 to deliberate on all the subjects relating to public instruction. 

 None of these deliberations are to be binding on the Govern- 

 ment. All the provisions of the laws are to be voted as formerly 

 by the French Chamber of Deputies and Senate. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 



The BuUdiit of the Torrey Botatiical Club is now published 

 in regular monthly parts, instead of at irregular intervals. The 

 papers are of course chiefly of local interest, and that is especially 

 the case with the three numbers which we have received for the 

 current year, though now and then morphological notes by Mr. 

 Meehan and others are of a wider scope. At all events the 

 BuUdiii gives us in this country a lively idea of the activity of 

 botanical research on the other side of the Atlantic. Mr. W. R. 

 Gerard gives a description and drawing of a fungus new to 

 science, Siinhltim rul>esceiis, belonging to the Phalloidei. 



Under the new editorship of Mr. James Britten the jfonma! 

 of Botany loses none of its interest. In addition to contributions 

 to phyto-geography, and smaller articles of special interest to the 

 \\orkers in the critical botany of British plants, the following, 

 which have appeared in recent numbers, may be mentioned as 

 being of a wider scope : — Mr. J. G. Baker's Synopsis of the 

 species of Isodcs, a useful contribution to our knowledge of 

 vascular ciyptogams ; a much-needed review of the British 

 Characere (not yet completed), by H. and J. Groves ; and the 

 botany of the British Polar Expedition of 1875-6, by Mr. H. C. 

 Hart, the naturalist to the expedition. 



The N'uovo Giornalc Botanico Italiano continues to be sup- 

 plied with good and useful papers in the various departments of 

 botany. In the two numbers already published during the 

 present year (vol. xii. Nos. I and 2) there are articles by several 

 of the leading Italian botanists. The editor, Prof. Caruel, gives 

 a list of fifty false genera or species of plants founded on terato- 

 I0gic.1l or pathological circumstances. In an article on the 

 par.isitism of fungi by A. Bertoloni, he divides the class of fungi 

 into two great divisions, according to their mode of life. The 



