Nov. 27, 1873J 



NATURE 



71 



ment will give great satisfaction. Sir Robert Kane, F.R.S., 

 having resigned tlie post of Dean of Faculty to the College, 

 for the purpose of spending his winters in the south of Europe, 

 Professor Galloway has been selected to fill this post. It is said 

 that there either are, or will very shortly be, a vacancy in the 

 Professorship of Chemistry owing to Professor Sullivan's 

 appointment to the Presidentship of the Queen's College, Cork. 



Dr. E. H. Bennett has been elected Professor of Surgery in 

 the University of Dublin, in succession to the late Dr. R. W. 

 Smith ; and Dr. Thos. E. Little has been elected to fill the post 

 of University Anatomist. In connection with news from the 

 Dublin University, we may mention that it is understood that the 

 authorities have determined to build a new museum for their 

 anatomical and zoological collections. At present, in connection 

 with the Medical School, there is a small collection of human 

 and comparative anatomy, and, in the Arts' School a very good 

 collection of zoology. It is intended to combine these two in a 

 new building. The College authorities would confer a great 

 boon on natural science in Dublin if they w'ould venture to go a 

 step further and make their new museum contain all their bio- 

 logical collections. The advantages would be great of having 

 the distribution of animals in space and time shown in con- 

 nection the one with the other ; and there is something incon- 

 gruous in separating the specimens illustrating the past and 

 present races of mankind from the zoological collection, and 

 combining the specimens illustrating the anatomy and physiology 

 of the human species with those illustrative of the other animals. 

 For the convenience of the students, we trust that the extensive 

 herbarium of the College may also be lodged under the roof of 

 the new building, which, to be useful, need contain no lofty 

 halls or grand corridors, but should consist of a series of well- 

 lit rooms, after the fashion of, we would suggest, that nicest of 

 museums, the one for Economic Botany at Kew. 



The following memorandum on the Whitworth Scholar- 

 • ships, prepared by Sir Joseph Whitworth, has been ap- 

 proved by the Lords of the Committee of the Council on 

 Education: — "I wish that candidates for my Scholarships 

 in 1S74, who, owing to the shortness of the notice, may 

 not have been able to be in a mechanical shop for six months 

 before the competition takes place, should be allowed to com- 

 pete, but that if successful, their scholarship should not begin 

 until they have worked six months in a mechanical shop. I 

 think the same privilege should be accorded to candidates in 

 1S75, who have not served eighteen months in a mechanical 

 shop, the scholarship not beginning until this period is com- 

 pleted." 



The I20th session of the Society of Arts was opened on the 

 19th inst. with an address by the Chairman of the Council, 

 Major-General F. Eardley-Wilmot, F.R.S. 



The magnum opus of three generations of botanists, De Can- 

 doUe's " Prodromi-s Systematis naturalis vegetabilium," con- 

 taining a diagnosis of every known species of flowering plant, 

 has now been completed as far as Dicotyledons are concerned, 

 and it is not intended to continue the work into the Monocoty- 

 ledons. In commemoration of the completion of the work, 

 the Horticultural Society of Belgium has awarded M. de 

 CandoUe a special medal. The publication of the work was 

 commenced in 1818. 



The trustees of the Gilchrist Educational Fund offer a scho- 

 larship of the value of 50/. per annum, tenable for three years 

 at Girton College, Cambridge, to be competed for at the General 

 Examination for Women, conducted liythe University of London 

 in May, 1S74. 



From the commencement of next year. Tin Gardeners Chro- 

 nicle and Agricultural Gazette will be divided into two papers, 



each weekly, to be devoted to the interests of the two sister 

 sciences. 



Dr. William Wallace, in opening recently the session of 

 the Chemical Section of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, 

 spoke, among other things, of the endowment of research. From 

 what he said on this subject, we think the following pointed re- 

 marks worthy of attention : — With regard to students who at- 

 tended evening lectures and classes, a very great deal had been 

 done for them by the Society of Arts, and by the examiners o^^ 

 the .Science and Art Department, both of which had given great 

 encouragement to the class of students whom they were intended 

 to benefit. What was lacked most v/as a stimulus to men of the 

 highest educational class. In this country, apart from professor- 

 ships, there were no means of assisting that class except, perhaps, 

 a few sinecures and the conferring of empty titles. In France, at 

 least under the Imperial regime, when a man acquired renown in a 

 particular line of investigation, a laboratory with all the best and 

 mo.st suitable appliances was immediately fitted up for him. 

 Hence Paris was provided with a series of the most complete 

 laboratories for metallurgy, for agriculture, for the sugar manu- 

 facture, and for many other branches of the science ; and 

 students might go to study a particular subject with the certainty 

 that they would have a most efficient teacher and the advantages 

 of a laboratory fitted up specially, and, as one might say, regard- 

 less of expense, with the apparatus and requirements necessary 

 for the teaching and study of the subject. It appeared to him 

 (Dr. Wallace) that the endowment of research would form a de- 

 sirable stimulus for chemists, many of whom had the necessary 

 education and talent, but could not afford the time nor the ex- 

 pense, often considerable, of obtaining the apparatus and ma- 

 terials required. 



A Society of Physical and Natural Science was founded four 

 years ago at Caracas, Venezuela ; but the political agitations of 

 the country have, until recently, hindered its development. 

 Meanwhile it has commenced the publication of a Bulletin under 

 the title of Fargasia, so named in honour of the American 

 botanist Vargas. L'Institut learns, by a letter from Dr. Ernst, 

 who is at once president, secretary, and treasurer of the society, 

 that the present Government of Venezuela intends to promote, 

 as much as it can, the growth of scientific studies, mainly by th; 

 establishment of various in~titutioni for public instractior. Dr. 

 Ernst, appointed Professor of Botany in the University of Cara- 

 cas, where hitherto there has been no such chair, has been 

 charged with the direction or rather the creation of a botanic 

 garden and a museum of natural history. In the museum Prof. 

 Ernst intends to collect — ist, a herbarium of Venezuela ; 2nd, a 

 general herbarium ; 3rd, a collection relating to economic botany. 

 He intends to publish in a few years a Flora of Caracas. Dr. 

 Ernst appeals to European botanists and collectors for exchanges 

 to assist him in the formation of these herbaria. 



It is not often that Mr. Disraeli says anything which calls 

 for particular notice in a journal of this kind, tlierefore it is witli 

 peculiar pleasure that we quote the opinion he uttered last week 

 at the Glasgow banquet as to the share which Science has had 

 during the present century in moulding the world. Coming 

 from a man of his shrewdness and sentimentality withal, the 

 w'ordshave a striking force. Speaking of the last fifty years, he 

 said : — " How much has liappcnei in these fifty years — a period 

 more remarkable than any, I will venture to say, in the annals 

 of mankind. I am not thinking of the rise and fall of empires, 

 tlie change of dynasties, the establishment of Governments. I 

 am thinking of those revolutions of science which have had 

 much more eflect than any political causes, which have changed 

 the position and prospects of mankind more than all the con- 

 quests and all the codes and all the legislators that ever lived." 



At the first meeting of the Edinburgh Botanical Society for 



