74 



NATURE 



[Nov. 20, 1879 



curriculum. It appeared from counsel's opinion that the pro- 

 posed degree would not carry with it the rights and privileges of 

 the master of arts degree. On the latter ground opposition was 

 made to the statute by a considerable portion of those engaged 

 in teaching natural science at Oxford. Prof. Odling had issued 

 a memorandum, extensively signed by residents interested in 

 science, in which he had explained his reasons for opposing the 

 statute.' The statute, by completely separating the faculties of 

 arts anil natural science, would allow no honour student in one 

 faculty to become an honour student in the other without 

 bcinnin" in the new faculty ab initio ; and no honour student in 

 the faculty of natural science could fall back, as at present, on 

 the ordinary pass degree. The broader question of lowering 

 the value of natural science degrees by putting them on a different 

 footing from degrees in arts, was not discussed in congregation 

 on Tuesday ; but Dr. Magrath's amendment to reject the whole 

 statute except the preamble, was passed by a vote of fifty-four 

 ao-ainst forty-eight. The whole subject will thus have to be 

 rediscussed on a future occasion. 



The examination in the Honour School of Natural Science 

 will commence next Monday, November 24. 



Cambridge. — The Cambridge women students add no unim- 

 portant quota to the numbers in residence, numbering something 

 lik 160 or 170 this term. At Girton College there are over fifty 

 students, including about six of the first year who purpose studying 

 natural science. They have a good chemical laboratory, under 

 Miss Herschel's superintendence, also a library which includes 

 many valuable presents of books and apparatus. There are now 

 eleven lecture- and class-rooms, and a good hospital and nurse's 

 room have been built, capable of being entirely detached from 

 the rest of the College. Miss Tomlinson's success in winning an 

 entrance scholarship at the London School of Medicine for 

 Women, and entering for the London Medical Examinations, 

 will doubtless tend to show that a Cambridge course in science is 

 no bad preparation for women as well as men before proceeding 

 to medical degrees. 



The Newnham College Association will shortly have two 

 houses of residence facing one another, together with a complete 

 set of lecture-rooms and a chemical laboratory. There are 

 eighty-two students in residence at Cambridge who have come 

 for the lectures to women, besides about twenty who attend the 

 lectures each term, being residents, school-mistresses, &c. Miss 

 Lawrence, who gained marks equivalent to a second-class when 

 informally examined in the last Natural Sciences Tripos, remains 

 in residence, and demonstrates for the lady-students who attend 

 Dr. Michael Foster's and Mr. Balfour's lectures. Mr. Vines's 

 lectures on Vegetable Physiology are open to ladies who obtain 

 special permission. 



Mr. Freeman, of St. John's College, has given to the Women's 

 Association a quantity of valuable electrical apparatus » hich will 

 be used in giving instruction in experimenial physics. Mr. R. T. 

 Wright, on leaving Cambridge, resigns his active work for the 

 Association as secretary, and pending the formation of the 

 Newnham College Company, Miss M. G. Kennedy is appointed 

 secretary to the Association for the remaining period of its 

 existence. Nine scholarships have beeu awarded by the Associa- 

 tion on the last higher local and other examinations, and over 

 700/. thus given or lent to students in one year. About 1,000/. 

 has been paid to the Association during the year by students 

 attending its lectures. As soon as the memorandum and articles 

 of association of Newnham College are complete, a copy will 

 be kept by Mrs. Bate-on at St. John's Lodge, for inspection by 

 any member of the existing Association. 



A noteworthy entertainment of the British Medical Asso- 

 ciation by Cambridge University, town, and county, may be 

 expected next August, when Prof. Humphry will preside. The 

 president's position will be very conspicuous, for he is now, by 

 Mr. Lestourgeon's retirement, senior surgeon and clinical lecturer 

 on surgery to the Cambridge (Addenbrooke's) Hospital and Medi- 

 cal School, as well as professor of anatomy. A puolic meeting 

 was held on Friday, the 14th, in the Cambridge Guildhall, at 

 2.30, under the presidency of the Vice-Chancellor (Dr. E. H. 

 Perowne, Master of Corpus Christi College), when Dr. Humphry 

 made a statement of the objects of the Association and the pro- 

 posed arrangements for the meeting. His son, Mr. A. P. Hum- 

 phry, one of the Esquire Bedells, is honorary secretary of the 

 Local Executive Committee. Most probably at least a thousand 

 members will attend the meeting. Dr. Michael Foster will 

 deliver the address in Physiology, and Mr. Timothy Holmes that 

 on Surgery. Dr. Paget, Regius Professor of Medicine, will pre 



side over the section of Medicine, he having been president of 

 the Association itself when it last met in Cambridge ; and Sir 

 James Paget will be president of the newly constituted section oi 

 Pathology. Dr. J. B. Bradbury is to deliver the address in 

 medicine at the meeting ; he holds the Linacre Lectureship, 

 delivering lectures on pathology, is medical lecturer of Gonville 

 and Caius College, and one of the physicians to Addenbrooke's 

 Hospital, and took a distinguished position in the Cambridge 

 Natural Sciences Tripos. 



Mr. G. B. Atkinson, Trinity Hall, Cambridge, has been 

 appointed secretary of honour examinations. 



We are glad to learn that mathematics and geology are now 

 studied by more students who enter the Cambridge Higher Local 

 Examinations. In the examination in mathematics in June, the 

 candidates showed better style and appreciation of mathematical 

 ideas. All the subjects gain favourable reports, and in astro- 

 nomy one candidate did remarkably well. The work in the 

 differential and integral calculus was good, the introduction of 

 this paper having been successful. In botany there was much 

 guesswork and little evidence of histological work by candidates. 

 One of the candidates, placed first in zoology, sent up admirable 

 work in botany. Some candidates did very well in practical 

 chemistry. The examiner's report on physiology, now first 

 introduced as a separate subject, is on the whole favourable ; 

 only one set of papers on physics was sent up. In 1S79, Group 

 C (Mathematics) had 60 candidates, of whom 19 failed and S 

 obtained a first class ; in Group E, 73, of whom 35 failed and 

 4 obtained a first class. 



The Report of the Board of Natural Sciences Studies, which 

 we referred to last week, was rejected by 46 to 26 votes. Prof. 

 Paget and Mr. Bettany issued a fly-sheet complaining that the 

 subjects of examination were now too numerous and extensive ; 

 encouraging candidates to an injurious amount of memory-work 

 in attaining "general knowledge and proficiency ;" and that 

 there should now be a Biological and a Physical Tripos. Mr. 

 Sedley Taylor and Mr. Vines, as well as Prof. Dewar and Mr. 

 Balfour, object to the advance of human anatomy to so con- 

 spicuous a place in the Tripos Dr. Humphry considers the 

 recognition of human anatomy in the Tripos not greater than it 

 deserves. However, he would now prefer a "Medical Tripos. 11 



. SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 

 Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, Normal and Patho- 

 logical, vol. xiv. part i., October. — Drs. Gibson and Malet, 

 on a pre-sternal fissure, uncovering the base of the heart, pi. 1. 

 — Dr. W. Ostler, case of congenital and progressive hypertrophy 

 of the right upper extremity. — Prof. Flower and Dr. Garson, 

 the scapular index as a race character in man. — Dr. W. Allen, 

 the varieties of the atlas in the human subject and the homo- 

 logues of its transverse processes, pi. 2. — Prof. Cleland, note on 

 the foregoing. — Dr. Creighton, the infection of the connective 

 tissue in scirrhous cancers of the breast. — Dr. Watson, the 

 homology of the sexual organs, illustrated by comparative 

 anatomy and pathology. — Prof. Bridge, on the pori abdominales 

 of vertebrata. — Prof. Turner, on the pori abdominales in some 

 sharks. — Prof. Turner, a de-cription of a cleft sternum. — Dr. J. 

 Barlow, the physiological action of ozonised air. — Prof. Charles, 

 on the mode of propagation of nervous impulses. — Dr. Cook, on 

 a logwood staining solution. — Dr. Dobson, case of the develop- 

 ment of hair on the eyeball of a dog. — Dr. Osier, on Giacomini's 

 method of preserving the brain. — Anatomical notes. 



The recent numbers of the Scottish Naturalist, which has now- 

 been in existence for nine years, show no falling off from the 

 interest of the earlier ones. In addition to the descriptive papers 

 and lists of localities in the various departments of natural his- 

 tory, we find in the last number a paper on the Gaelic names or 

 plants, one on the effects of the past winter and present summer 

 on hard-wooded plants, and one on the auriferous quartz of 

 Wanlockhead. The list of Scottish insects by experts in the 

 various sections of entomology is still continued in each number. 

 The number for October contains an appreciative notice of the 

 late excellent naturalist, Sir Thomas Moncreiff, Bart., president 

 of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science. 



Royal Society of Tasmania, Papers [and Proceedings »f for 

 1877.— Hobart Town, 1878.— Among the more important 

 papers are the following :— F. W. Hutton, on some South 

 Australian Polyzoa (describes several new species from the shores 

 of St. Vincent's Gull).— Rev. J. E. T. Wood, census, with brief 

 descriptions of the marine shells of Tasmania and the adjacent 



