Dec. 



[8 So] 



NATURE 



i8i 



morphological growth-impulse is better fitted for the 

 requirements of the case than any possible dependence 

 on gravitation as a guiding force. When the end of a 

 branch is injured it is clear that if a side-shoot is to be de- 

 veloped to carry on the function of the injured apex, it will 

 have the best chance of success if it starts from the posi- 

 tionwhich the end of theoriginal branch had already gained 

 before it was injured. Therefore the bud which is nearest 

 to the injured apex will be the most suitable one to be 

 developed into a new branch. And thus it is advanta- 

 geous to the plant that the place where the new develop- 

 ment is to take place should be determined morphologi- 

 cally, not by gravitation. 



Thus in the bramble the behaviour of cuttings is a 

 repetition (cf. Vochting, " Organbildung," p. 107) of the 

 normal process of restoration of a deranged function in the 

 plant ; how far this is the case with other plants must 

 remain at present undetermined. 



NOTES 

 We are very glad to hear that Ledford College is taking a 

 leading part in giving (o women the opportunity of studying 

 thoroughly physical science. It has this session opened a 

 physical laboratory, irnder the able direction of Dr. Lodge. A 

 chemical laboratory was added to the College some years ago, 

 and has proved of great service to the students, several of whom 

 have passed the science examination of the University of London. 



/ 



The death is announced of M. Lecard, a promising French 

 botanist, as the result of excessive fatigues during his late journey 

 in Soudan. M. Lecard was formerly director of the Public 

 Botanical Gardens at Saigon, in Cochin-China, and at Richard 

 Toll in the colony of Senegal. During the past year he was 

 intrusted by the French Minister of Public Instruction M'ith the 

 important mission of studying the flora of the Upper Niger, a 

 question now of no slight interest in view of the probable con- 

 struction of the Trans-Saharan Railway. Various difficulties 

 prevented his reaching the Niger. At Kouridiani, however, 

 the most distant point reached in his journey, where he was 

 forced to pass the rainy season, he made the valuable discovery 

 of five varieties of annual vines, the fruits of which so closely 

 resemble our ordinary grapes that he regarded them as fully 

 able to replace the grape in the production of raisins and wine. 

 M. Lecard hoped also to find in his new discovery the means of 

 satisfactorily combating the phylloxera, and inspired with this 

 desire, sought to make extensive collections of the seeds of tlie 

 ' vines to bring back to France. M. Lecard, in a letter recently 

 read by Dumas before the French Academy of Science.^, ex- 

 pressed the fear of having lost his health by the privations 

 incident to this journey — a prevision unfortunately too com- 

 pletely realised. 



The death is reported of Dr. Wilhelm Ileintz, Professor of 

 ' Chemistry at Halle University, at the age of sixty-three years. 



The death has taken place, on the l6lh inst., at the age of 

 ninety-one years, of Mdlle. de Montgolfier, daughter of Etienne 

 de Montgolfier, the inventor of the balloon to which his name 

 is attached. 



Prof. Williamson, Graham's successor in the Chair of 

 Chemistry at University College, London, has complied with the 

 request of the committee of the Chemical Section of the Philo- 

 sophical Society of Glasgow that he should act as adjudicator in 

 the competition for the Graham Med.al. 



Prof. Tyndall, Prof. Haeckel, and Dr. Andrew Buchanan 

 have been elected Honorary Members of tlie Philosophical 

 Society of Glasgo^^■. 



Among the buildings which are to be erected on the new 

 01;s:rva:<.ry --cur.ris in I'ai is wlicn le-rllv hav.tlrd wix 1 1 Arlmiral 



Mouchez w ill be the great dome for the large refracting telescope 

 which is now building. This dome will measure twenty metres 

 in diameter, and its weight will exceed sixty tons. 



The credit of 300,000 francs asked by M. Cochery for the 

 forthcoming Exhibition of Electricity and Congress of Elec- 

 tricians at Paris has been voted by the Chamber of Deputies 

 unanimously. The Bill has been sent to the Senate, which will 

 probably have passed it by the time this number is published. 



On December 12 took place at the Sorbonne the celebration 

 of the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the Polytechnic 

 Association for delivering scientific lectures all over France. 

 This Society was established a few months after the Revolution 

 of July, 1830, by a certain number of pupils of this celebrated 

 school. The principal address was given by M. Gambetta, who 

 praised science in magnificent style. M. Gambetta declared his 

 conviction that Auguste Comte was the profoundest thinker of 

 the whole century. 



Frequent observations on the retrograde motion of glaciers 

 have been made of late years. One of the most assiduous of 

 observers is Plerr W. Gromer, proprietor of the Hotel on the 

 Schafberg. He reports that during September the retrograde 

 motion was exceptionally large, larger indeed than he had evei 

 seen during seventeen years. The Gosau glacier (Dachstein), 

 the Hochalmspitze, and the Uebergossene Alp showed hardly 

 any ice at all on September 12 last, so that with the telescope 

 only dlbris of rocks could be seen. Herr Gromer ascribes this 

 plienomenon to the unusually high temperature which reigned 

 upon the Alps during last winter, as well as to the constant rain 

 during the summer. 



We are glad to receive a third edition of vol. i. of Harcourt 

 and Madan's "Exercises in Practical Chemistry" (the Claren- 

 don Press). Mr. Madan is the sole reviser of this edition, and 

 we quote with approvahthe following passage from his preface : — 

 " Practical chemistry seems in danger of being made far too 

 much a study of a few reactions of salts, got up for the purpose 

 of detecting them in the course of an analysis. This is of course 

 due to the requirements of examiners, to satisfy which nearly all 

 the very moderate time available for practical instruction in 

 schools must at the present day be spent. Moreover analytical 

 work (in the narrow, technical sense) entails, like Latin verses, 

 less trouble to the teacher and less risk to the pupil than other 

 kinds of practical work ; while it undoubtedly affords, when 

 intelligently used, a very excellent training in the application 01 

 logical methods. But it may well be doubted whether a more 

 real and valuable advance in a scientific education is not made 

 by the careful preparation and examination of the properties of 

 such a substance as oxygen, or by an exact study of a few 

 examples of oxidation and reduction, than by simply observing, 

 for instance, that chlorides give a white precipitate with silver 

 nitrate which is soluble in ammonia." 



Mr. C. Schoesster, one of the Commissioners at the Mel- 

 bourne Exhibition, we learn from the Colonies and India, has 

 been visiting .the Geelong vineyards, and reports that they are 

 sufiering from Phylloxera in the worst form, and ought to be 

 totally destroyed. 



Prof. Dewar will give the first of his Christmas Lectures 

 (adapted to a juvenile audience) on Atoms, at the Royal Insti- 

 tution on Tuesday uext, December 28, at three o'clock. 



A botaniCjVL society for Northern Thuringia has been 

 founded at Sondershausen by Prof. Leimbach. The new Society 

 takes the title of " Irmischia,'' in memory of the celebrated 

 botanist Irmisch, who died at Sondershausen last year. The 

 in'uedia'e nbi-rt of tlie Snciefy, wh'ch has already a good 



