328 
“is described by Mr. Sharpe as ‘‘ the grandest collection of birds 
ever made.” 
From the Seventh Annual Report of Examinations in Tech- 
nology, under the direction of the City and Guilds of London Insti- 
tute for the Advancement of Technical Education, we notice that 
there is again a fair increase in the number of candidates who 
presented themselves, and a satisfactory proportional increase in 
the number of those who have passed. In 1884, 3,635 candidates 
were examined, of whom 1,829 passed. In 15885, 3,968 can- 
didates were examined, of whom 2,168 have passed. Thus the 
increase of passes is six more than the total increase in the num- 
ber of candidates. There is a slight falling off in the number of 
subjects in which the examinations have been held, owing to the 
fact that in four of the subjects, viz. :—Salt Manufacture, Oils 
and Fats, Silk Manufacture, and Mechanical Preparation of Ores, 
the number of candidates was below the minimum for which an 
examination is held. Applications for examination were received, 
however, in 46 out of the 47 subjects included in the programme. 
From the returns furnished in November last, it appears that 
6,396 persons were receiving instruction in the registered classes 
of the Institute, as compared with 5,874 in the previous year. 
These numbers do not include the students in attendance at the 
technical classes of various schools and colleges at which the 
Professors do not accept payment on results. Two new subjects 
were this year added to the list, viz. : —Boot and Shoe Manu- 
facture and Framework Knitting, in which subjects 69 candidates 
and 40 candidates respectively presented themselves. Nearly all 
these candidates received instruction in the recently-opened 
Technical School at Leicester. The percentage of failures on 
the results of the examinations in all subjects has decreased from 
49°7 in 1884 to 45°3 in 1885. The proportion of failures is still 
large, showing the necessity of better instruction on the part of 
the teachers, and of more careful and sustained work on the 
part of the students. Of the inability of the majority of the 
candidates to make intelligible sketches, the examiners continue 
to complain; but it is hoped that this defect in the education of 
artizans will gradually be remedied as linear drawing comes to 
be more generally taught in our public elementary schools. 
During the past session, 263 classes have been held in different 
parts of the kingdom in connection with the Institute’s examina- 
tions. Of the 6,396 students in attendance at these classes, 
3,271 presented themselves for examination, and that of these 
1,670 succeeded in satisfying the examiners. Last year, the 
number of candidates who passed from the registered classes of 
the Institute was 1,387, showing an increase of 283, which is a 
large proportion of the total increase, viz., 333 of successful 
candidates. This year, for the first time, Manchester heads the 
list of provincial centres from which the largest number of can- 
didates have passed, the number being 147 as against 115 last 
year. A like number of candidates have passed from the Poly- 
technic Institution, London. Next in order of merit comes 
Glasgow, with 119 as against 139 last year, Bradford with 97 as 
against 90, Leeds with $4 as against 70 (55 from the Yorkshire 
College), Bolton with 75 as against 98, and Huddersfield with 72 
as against 39. It is expected that about 750 of this year’s suc- 
cessful candidates will gain a full Technological Certificate, in 
virtue of their having obtained from the Science and Art 
Department the necessary qualifying certificates in Science, in 
addition to their certificate in Technology. Of the 1,829 can- 
didates who passed last year, 566 obtained the full certificate. 
This increase of 184 in the number of full certificates is a very 
satisfactory feature in this year’s examinations, Compared with 
the total number of successful candidates, the percentage of those 
to whom full certificates will be awarded has increased from 31°2 
to 34°5. From year to year, improvements suggest themselves 
in the working of these examinations, by which they are ren- 
dered more practical, and at the same time better adapted to the 
NATURE 
[August 6, 1885 
requirements of the students. The opening of the Central In- 
stitution, by affording new facilities for the training of technical 
teachers, will, it is hoped, do much towards improving the cha- 
racter of the instruction in the Institute’s classes in connection 
with these examinations. Summer Courses for teachers, to be 
continued in subsequent years, have this year been held for the 
first time at the Central Institution, and the applications for ad- 
mission to these courses show that the value of the instruction 
is likely to be fully appreciated by those for whom it is in- 
tended. 
THE death is announced, at the age of fifty-five years, of Mr. 
Robert F, Fairlie, the well-known engineer; and also of Dr. 
Heinrich Wilhelm Reichardt, Professor of Botany in the Uni- 
versity of Vienna. 
Ar the annual speech day at Reading School, on Tuesday, 
July 28, a new laboratory was opened by Dr. J. H. Gladstone, 
F.R.S. The Town Clerk (Mr. H. Day) read a statement to 
the effect that-natural science had been taught in the school 
since the year 1872, but up to 1884 no adequate class-rooms had 
been fitted up or set apart for that purpose, except in a tem- 
porary way. Last year the Head Master submitted a scheme to 
the Trustees, and after the subject had been fairly thought over, 
three gentlemen, Messrs. G. W. Palmer, Alfred Palmer, and 
Walter Palmer, sons of the Member for Reading, volunteered to 
provide the accommodation recommended by Dr. Walker. The 
trustees gladly availed themselves of so generous an offer, and 
the result was that the school now possessed in that room—fitted 
up for chemical analysis, and in the adjacent lecture-room— 
| excellent means of giving instruction in the usual branches of 
natural science. Dr. Gladstone then declared the laboratory 
open. Having praised its general arrangements, he congratu 
lated the school on having obtained so magnificent a gift from 
the Messrs. Palmer, who were thus endeavouring to place 
chemistry upon an equal footing with the other studies carried 
on at that school. He would not go into the great controversy 
between things and words, but they would all agree that it was 
necessary that the knowledge of things should precede the 
knowledge of words, because the knowledge of words was only 
a kind of simulacrum unless the knowledge of things preceded 
it. A knowledge of chemistry was pre-eminently an experimental 
science, and they wanted that kind of training for all boys. 
Different studies gave a different training to the mind, and 
chemistry gave a training not only to the perceptive faculties, 
but also to the reasoning processes, and therefore chemistry had 
been wisely chosen to take an important part in the curriculum 
of that school, 
THE foundation stone of the new buildings of the Sorbonne, 
which are to cost 22 millions, was laid on Monday by M. Goblet, 
French Minister of Education. The cellars and ground floor 
have already been built. 
THE protracted season of midsummer heat throughout the 
United States has been broken, the Z%mes correspondent states, 
by a series of drenching rains, accompanied by cyclones. A 
severe easterly storm began on Sunday, continuing throughout 
Monday, the wind changing to westward, and rains deluging 
the entire country east of the Mississippi. The heaviest rain- 
fall, which was at Chicago, reached 5% inches in the twelve 
hours ending Sunday at midnight. A universal report from all 
parts of the country tells of the vast damage done by the floods 
and cyclones. The rainfall on Monday evening at Philadelphia 
was nearly 3 inches. The cyclone started in Maryland about 
two o’clock on Monday afternoon, passing northward along the 
eastern border of Philadelphia at three o’clock. It wrecked 
houses and mills and destroyed cattle and crops in Maryland and 
Delaware, doing the severest injury along the Delaware river 
front of Philadelphia. Passing from south to north, a low, 
| black, revolving ball of smoke moved at the rate of nearly a 
