October 15. 1896] 



N.4 TURE 



591 



boih in the London and provincial colleges, in view of the 

 increased cost of scientific education and the necessity of making 

 it as cheap as possible to the students. It is the Government 

 aid in Germany and elsewhere on the continent which enables 

 the great teaching institutions there to compete at such advantage 

 with the universities and colleijes of this country, and to out- 

 distance them in scientific and industrial products." 



Stiidexts of the Royal College of Science, South Kensington, 

 have reason to be proud of the heritage to which they have 

 succeeded. Huxley look the greatest interest in the College, 

 with which he was connected until his death ; and there he in- 

 troduced the system of teaching which has revolutionised the 

 methods of training in biology. Prof. J. W. Judd dwelt upon 

 this fact in the course of an adtlress delivered to the students of 

 the College on Wednesday in last week, and his words should 

 make them all feel that they are connected with a great institu- 

 tion, whose interests they should watch over, and whose position 

 they should endeavour to sustain, by keeping the aims and work 

 of their late noble Dean in vie«. Five years has yet to elapse 

 before the College celebrates its first jubilee. Nevertheless, if 

 the students remember how recent has been the recognition of 

 that culture in which scientific training takes a leading part, as 

 ilistinguished from that derived from jiurely literary pursuits, 

 they may indeed be proud of the position which the College 

 occupies. The prizes and medals won in the College this year 

 were distributed as follows : — Royal Scholarships : First year's, 

 J. W. Barker, C. E. CJoodyear, F. R. \'erity, and E. T. Thomas ; 

 second year's, W. M. While and E. Smith. The Edward 

 Forbes' Medal for Biology, E. C. Horrell ; the Murchison Medal 

 for Geology. E. E. L. Dixon ; Tyndall Prize for Physics, E. T. 

 Harrison ; Bessemer Medal for .Mining, J. Crowther; and Frank 

 1 lattun Prize for Chemistry, G. T. Morgan. 



The Technical Eilucation Board of the London County 

 Council are evidently determined to provide instruction for 

 all the sorts and conditions of men and women in the mctro- 

 jKili;. We are glad to .see the completeness of the arrangements 

 they have made for the present winter. The most exacting 

 critic will surely find it difficult to point to any class of the com- 

 munity which has been forgotten. The perusal of recent 

 nun-.bers of the Tecliiiical Eiliication Gazette shows that the 

 workers of London can have the benefit of instruction from the 

 leading professors of the metropolitan colleges at merely nominal 

 fees — lor nothing indeed, in not a few cases. At the Central 

 School of Arts and Crafts, the teaching will be specially adapted 

 to those employed in the different parts of the building trades, 

 for workers in glass, bronze, and lead, enamellers, and the 

 various branches of the gold and silver trades. Xo attempt 

 will, however, be made, to meet the requirements of the 

 amateur. It must be noted that there is no lack of atten- 

 tion to the necessity of providing a sound scientific foundation 

 on which to build up a particular technical knowledge. The 

 atlvanced evening science classes, which are being held both at 

 University and King's Colleges, will be of immense value, and 

 it will be a cause for the profoundest regret, if these courses are 

 not well attended. It will soon be impossible to find any part 

 of London where there is no thoroughly equipped and properly 

 staffed technical school, and such a fact speaks volumes for the 

 energy and wisdom of the Board's advisers. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 

 S) mollis Monthly Meteorological Magazine, September. — The 

 first daily weather map, sold in the Great Exhibition of 1851. 

 Mr. Synions publishes a reduced copy of a series of such maps 

 issued daily from August 8 to October 11, 1851, .Sundays 

 excepted, indicating the conditions of the atmosphere in several 

 parts of Great Britain at gh. a.m. Twelve years later, in 

 September 1 863, M. Le \errier issued his weather maps from 

 the Paris Observatory, which are now continued in an extended 

 form by the Paris Meteorolipgical Office. — Dry periods. On 

 .\ugust I, Mr. Symons wrote to the Times, pointing out that at 

 Camden Square, London, the rainfall of the first seven months 

 of this year (8'27 inches) is only 60 per cent, of the average for 

 the thirty-seven years 1S59 95 ; during the ten years 1SS7-96 the 

 average for the same period was only 1 1 -65 inches, while for the 

 twenty eight years 1859-86 it was I4'24 inches. Commenting 

 on this, Mr. J. M. Eraser, of Lochmaddy, Hebrides, states that 

 the average rainfall for the first eight months of the twelve years 

 18S4-95 is 27 78 inches, and the average for the same period in 



NO. 1407, VOL. 54] 



1890-95 vv.as 30'II inches, while this year the total for the 

 first eight months is 34'S6 inches It is noteworthy that the 

 deficiency in the south of England should be made up by a 

 heavy yearly increase in the opposite extreme of the kingdom. 



The papers of most general interest in the numbers of the 

 Journal of Botany for August, September, and October are : — 

 On the new genus of Commelynacea; (Spalliolirioii), from the 

 Malay Peninsula, by Mr. 1 1. N. Ridley, with a plate ; on the 

 displacement of species in New Zealand, by Mr. T. Kirk, 

 especi.illy the crowding out of native species by naturalised 

 plants, and the changes caused by cultivation, the introduction 

 of parasitic diseases, and other human agencies ; on Alga; from 

 Central .\frica, by MM. W. and G. S. West, with illustrations, 

 and diagnoses of several new species of desmids ; on new or 

 critical marine Alg.-e, by ^Ir. E. A. L. Batters ; a revised list 

 of the British CaryophyllaceL\:, by Mr. F. N. Williams ; with 

 continuations of Mr. Rendle's paper on African Acanthace.-e, 

 including diagnoses of many new species, and of a new genus 

 Liiidaiiea ; and of Dr. Schlechter's on African Asclepiadere. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



Manchester. 

 Literary and Philosophical Society, October 6. — Prof. 

 Osborne Reynolds, F. R,.S., Vice-President, in the chair. — Prof. 

 F. E. Weiss communicated a paper on Raehiopferis cylindrita, by 

 the late Mr. Thomas Hick. The name of Kachiopteris was given 

 by Williamson to some plant remains from the Lower Coal 

 Measures of Halifax, which he thought might be true ferns, and 

 described in the Philosophical Transactions, 1S78. Mr. Hick 

 describes in detail some further specimens, partly belonging to 

 the Cash Collection at Manchester Museum. In considering the 

 cortical tissues, special reference is made to the presence ot 

 small black bodies within the cortical cells, the presence of 

 which is characteristic for Rachiopteris, but the nature of which 

 is still very doubtful. Considerable attention is paid to the 

 division of the stele, as indicating the dichotomous inanner of 

 branching ; and mention is made of the presence at the points 

 of bifurcation of endogenous organs, probably of the nature of 

 roots. From the knowledge of the anatomical details, Mr. 

 Hick concludes that Rachiopteris cannot possibly be a root, but 

 is probably a stem or leaf structure of a plant having more 

 affinity with the Filices than with the Lycopodiacere. — On the 

 structure and contents of the tubers of Anthoceros tuberosiis, 

 by J. H. Ashworth. The tubers of Anthoceros tuberosiis are 

 described in Gottsche's " Synopsis Hepaticarum '' as oval bodies 

 containing a farinaceous mass within a deeply-coloured envelope. 

 The author finds that these tubers, which lie beneath the thallus, 

 and are connected to it by a stalk, have a wall formed of three 

 or four layers of corky cells, some of which are produced into 

 hair-like processes. Within these protective layers lie closely- 

 packed cells containing granules and fluid oil drops. The 

 granules are not starch, but give all the reactions for proteids, 

 and appear to be aleurone grains. Besides these stalked tubers 

 there are similar tuberous masses formed in the thallus, which 

 have not been previously described. These, which are rather 

 smaller in size than the tubers, are formed between the upper 

 and lower layers of the thallus, and are composed of cells 

 exactly like the inner cells of the stalked tubers. The tubers 

 may be regarded as gemmae, in which the inner cells have be- 

 come stored with food material, and are protected by the corky 

 layers against being dried up, Anthoceros tuberosiis being found 

 on the banks of the Swan River in Western Australia, where it 

 is exposed to severe drought. 



P.\RIS. 

 Academy of Sciences, October 5. — M. A. Chatin in the 

 chair. — Researches on the explosive properties of acetylene, by 

 M.M. Berlhelot and Vieille. Details of experiments carried out 

 with a view of seeing what precautions, if any, are necessary in 

 the preparation, compression, and storage of acetylene for com- 

 mercial uses. It has been known for some time that the decom- 

 position of acetylene by a heated wire, by mercury fulminate, or 

 by the electric spark, is not propagated any considerable dis- 

 tance if the gas is under atinospheric pressure. At pressures of 

 two atmospheres and over, however, the decomposition is com- 

 plete, the explosive pressure produced rising so rapidly with the 

 initial compression, that- the effects produced by detonation of 

 the liquefied gas resemble those of ordinary explosives. — Remarks 



