24 



A'A TURE 



\^Nov. 4, iSSo 



able to the several Professors named in them respectively (that is 



(i) The Savilian Professor of Astronomy shall have the 

 charge of the University Observatory, and shall undertake the 

 pergonal and regular supervision of the same, and of the several 

 demonstrators and other assistants employed therein, and shall 

 be responsible for all the work carried on there. 



(2) The Professor of Experimental Philosophy shall have the 

 charge of the Clarendon Laboratory, and shall undertake the 

 personal and regular supervision of the same, and of the several 

 demonstrators and other assistants employed therein, and shall 

 be responsible for all the work carried on there. 



(3) The Waynflcte Professor of Chemistry shall have the 

 charcre of the Chemical Laboratories in the University Museum, 

 or such part thereof ai the Univer>ity may by statute assign to 

 him, and shall undertake the personal and regular supervision of 

 the same, and of the several demonstrators and other assistants 

 employed therein, and shall be responsible for all the work 

 carried on there. 



(4) The Linacre Professor of Human and Comparative Ana- 

 tomy shall have the charge of the Anatomical and Ethnological 

 Collections and the Anatomical Laboratories in the University 

 Museum, or such part thereof as the University may by statute 

 assign to him ; and shall undertake the personal and regular 

 supervision of the same, and of the several demonstrators and 

 other assistants employed therein, and sliall be responsible for all 

 the work carried on there. 



(5) The Professor of Lotany and Rural Economy shall have 

 the charge and supervi-ion of the Botanical Gardens and 

 Botanical Collections belonging to the University ; and it shall 

 be part of his duty to make such Gardens and Collections 

 accessilile to, and available for, the instruction of students 

 ■iltending his lectures. 



(6) The Professors of Geology and Mineralogy respectively 

 shall have the charge and supervision of the Geological and 

 Palreontological Collections, and of the Mineralogical Collection, 

 belonging to the University ; and it shall be part of their duties 

 to make such collections respectively accessible to, and available 

 for the instruction of, students attending their lectures. 



iThe Professor of Classical Archfeology, 

 The Wykeham Professor of Physics, and 

 The Waynflete Professor of Physiology, 

 shall, in like manner, if the University by Statute shall think fit 

 10 charge them therewith, undertake the charge of any collec- 

 tions or laboratories connected with the subjects of their re- 

 spective Chairs, which the University may from time to time 

 assign to them, and shall have similar duties in respect thereof. 



(8) The several Professors named in the foregoing particular 

 regulations shall in tlie performance of the duties committed to 

 them by such regulations be subject to the statutes of the 

 University for the time being in force in that behalf. 



This Statute is proposed to be made by the University of 

 Oxford Commissioners under the Universities of O.xford and 

 Cambridge Act, 1S77, for the University. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 

 Paris 

 Academy of Sciences, October 26.— M. Wurtz in the chair. 

 — The following papers were read ; — On attenuation of the virus 

 of chicken-cholera, by M. Pasteur. If the most virulent virus 

 (to be got from a fowl which has died of the chronic form of 

 the disease) be taken and successive cultivations made of it in 

 the pure state, in bouillon of fowl's muscles, the interval of time 

 between one sowing and another is found to affect the virulence. 

 With intervals up to one month, six weeks, or two months, no 

 change of virulence is noted, but as the interval is enlarged the 

 virus is found to become weaker. The attenuation does not 

 take place with mathematical regularity. No change can be 

 detected in the microscopic organisms to account for the changes 

 in its power. But M. Pasteur shows by experiments (in which 

 some bouillon, to which a little strong virus had been added, was 

 inclosed and kept some time in sealed tubes) that it is probably 

 the oxygen of the air that attenuates the virulence. May it not 

 then also affect other kinds of virus? — Experimental study of 

 the action of the organism of sheep, more or less refrac- 

 tory to splenic fever, on the infectious agent ; what becomes 

 of specific microbia introduced directly into the circulation by 

 large transfusions of authracoid blood, by M. Chauveau. After 

 such transfusion into animals whose resistance to the disease is 

 considerable and strengthener by preventive inoculation, the 



bacterian rods soon disappear from the blood (in a few hours 

 one cannot find them). They are not destroyed, however, 

 but are arrested in the cipillary system of the lungs and 

 of other parenchymatous organs, where they may be found 

 with retained vitality when the transfusion has been rapidly 

 fatal. When the animal survives more than three days the bac- 

 teria disappear from the lung and the spleen (as well as the 

 blood), and health may be regained. One region alone proves 

 favourable to maintenance and development of the bacterian 

 life, viz., the surface of the brain (pia mater), and the develop- 

 ment there has quite special characters (elongation and inflexion 

 of the rods and appearance of spores), resembling those which 

 belong to artificial cultivations. The infectious activity of these 

 bacteria of the pia mater is considerable. — On linear differential 

 eqi anions, by M. Appell. — The Secretary announced the opening 

 of a subscription for erection of a monument to the memory of 

 Spallanzani in his native town. — On the class of Hnear differential 

 equations, with rational coefficients, the solution of which de- 

 pends on the quadrature of an algebraic prodnct which contains 

 no other irrationality than the square root of an entire and rational 

 polyno ne, by M. Dillner. — Photography of the nebula of Orion, 

 by Prof. Draper. — Application of selenium to the construction 

 of a photo-electric regulator of heat for the burning in of stained 

 gla>s windows, by M. Germain. As far as possible from the 

 muffle furnace is placed a dark chamber closed by a parabolic 

 reflector, the focus of which is in the axial line of the telescope 

 commonly used. At this focus is a ball of selenium between 

 two cups of brats, leaving a zone of selenium visible. 

 One cup is connected by German silver wire to a thermo- 

 electric pile (of thirty elements), adapted for strong heat and 

 exposed to that of the muffle, and the pile is connected (by the 

 other poles of its elements) to the side of a stoppered porous 

 vessel filled with water, ensuring a sensibly constant temperature 

 on that side. The thermo-electric current increases with the 

 temperature, and while the part of the muffle covered by the 

 telescope remains dark, the selenium does not effectively alter in 

 resistance, but when a cherry-red tint is reached (indicating time 

 to stop), the resistance of the selenium is reduced about a fourth. 

 The current gains strength and sounds a bell, or affects a system 

 whereby the fuel is diverted. (With the pile is connected a 

 galvanometer, a condenser, and other secondary arrangements.) 

 '—On some modifications undergone by glass, by M. Salleron. 

 Pie calls attention to the corrosion, deformation, and fracture of 

 areometers used in sugar-works which treat molasses by osmose ; 

 where the instruments are kept several days in a liquid at 95°, of 

 density, 1014(2° B), and containingsugar 115 gr., ash 91 gr. ; total 

 206 gr. per litre. The ash consists of chloride of potassium and 

 organic salts of potash. The cracks are all more or less spiral in 

 form. — Influence of light on germination, by M. Panchon, He 

 measured the quantities of oxygen absorbed during germination 

 by identical lots of seeds. Light (he finds) accelerates the 

 absorption in a constant manner ; the advantage in favour of 

 light being from a fourth to a third of the quantity absorbed in 

 darkness. The degree of illumination is relative to the quantity 

 absorbed. The respiratory acceleration in seeds illuminated by 

 day persists for several hours in the darkness. The accelerative 

 influence of light is more intense at low temperatures. 



CONTENTS Pagf. 



The First Volume OF THE Publications of the "Challenger." 



UyPr^f. T. H. Huxley, F.RS „• A V ■« ' ' ' 



The Lwa Fields of North-Westeem Europe. By Prof. Arch. 



Geikie, F.R.S • 3 



The Atomic Theory •„•„• ' " ^ 



New Zealand Molluscs. By Dr. J. Gwvn Jeffreys, F.R.S. . . 7 

 OUK Book Shelf :— 



" The Zoological Record for 1878 " 



Letters TO the Editor :— r, t, c- 



Tlie Recent Gas Explosion.— Herbert McLeod, F.R.S 



Geological Clim.ites.— Prof. Saml. Haughton, F.R S 



The Yang-tse, the Yellow River, and the Pei-ho.— Dr. A. WoEIKOF ■, 



Greek Fret.— Alfred C YlK-DDan (With Iitusttaiions) .... y 



Temperature of the Breath.— Dr. R. E. Dudgeon 10 



SoaringofBirds.— S. E. Peal {^F/M.X'Mr'-'"") •' "° 



Regclation.— Rev. George Henslow " 



Johannes Rudolf voN Wagner ^^ 



}kv\^,\\. (Withlllustrntions) . '^' 



Bell's Photophone (With lilustyaticns) ^5 



Notes ^'-^ 



Our Astronomical Column ; — 



TheCometsof 1812 and 1815 =' 



Ceraski's Circumpolar Variable Star ^' 



The Longitude of the Cape -^'■ 



Geographical Notes ~^ 



Kew Gardens Report ^; 



LIniversitv AND Educational Intelligence ^3 



Societies and Academies - ' 



