510 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 616. 



hinge in scientific and medical research. In 

 this direction Germany has stolen a march 

 upon us, for the various governments in that 

 empire have unstintedly provided their uni- 

 versities with fully-equipped research labora- 

 tories, organized and conducted by professorial 

 directors. A university is something more 

 than a medical school, a workshop of research, 

 or a home of science. It must have loftier 

 aims than material advancement or com- 

 mercial prosperity. It must provide for cul- 

 ture in its widest sense, afford intellectual 

 guidance, encourage individuality, take cogni- 

 zance of the theoretical problems that arise in 

 the progress of civilization, be a storehouse of 

 knowledge, and a gymnasium for the exercise 

 of all the powers of the mind and to be truly 

 a university it must be an organism, and not 

 a mere conglomeration of parts. The one 

 great objection to the multiplication of uni- 

 versities is that they may tend to become local 

 seminaries, somewhat parochial in spirit, and 

 fed exclusively from one district, for it would 

 be a misfortune to a boy to pass from a sec- 

 ondary school to a university in the next street, 

 where he would meet as his fellow-students 

 only his old schoolfellows, and where, however 

 amply fed with knowledge, he would still be 

 surrounded by the same traditions and asso- 

 ciations and shop amongst which he had 

 been brought up. A provincial univer- 

 sity is a contradiction in terms. What is 

 wanted is a group of territorial universities, 

 each with distinctive features of its own, spec- 

 ially adapting it to its environment, but all 

 affording the most liberal instruction, the 

 finest culture, the best intellectual discipline 

 of the day, and collectively meeting the higher 

 educational needs of the whole country. 



The Geographical Journal states that Sir 

 Everard Im Thurn, governor of Fiji, made a 

 journey last November across the mountainous 

 interior of Viti Levu, from the mouth of the 

 Sigatoka River on the one side to Ba on the 

 opposite coast. The coast at the river-mouth 

 is unprotected by a reef, and the big ocean 

 waves locally called lokas, continually roll in, 

 making the narrow rocky entrance precarious 

 even for small boats, and piling up the great 



swelling sand-dunes characteristic of this part 

 of Fiji only. An entrance was, however, suc- 

 cessfully made in the steam-launch of the 

 Ranadij perhaps the first steam-craft to enter 

 the river. After presiding at the installation 

 of a new Roko, or native chief, the governor 

 and his party proceeded along the bridle-road 

 which crosses the flats of the Sigatoka and 

 winds over the rugged interior ranges. The 

 flats, which extend up to Fort Carnarvon, 

 seem capable of great development agricul- 

 turally. The route led through the scenes of 

 the war of 1876, in which Sir Arthur Gordon 

 finally ended the long strife waged by the 

 mountain tribes against the coast natives and 

 Europeans. On the present occasion the 

 travelers met everywhere with a most hos- 

 pitable reception, and the outer hills struck 

 the governor as offering great opportunities 

 for sheep-rearing, if the native system of 

 firing the whole country-side in search of wild 

 yams were stopped. Further on the Nalotu 

 range, with a wonderfully serrated crest of 

 dolomitic rock, was crossed by a small but 

 well-marked nick in the knife-edge, the steep 

 descent leading through thick trees to the flats 

 along the Ba River. On this, the northwest 

 side of the island, is the great sugar estate of 

 the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, ex- 

 tending some forty miles between the Ba and 

 ISTadi rivers, the capabilities of which consid- 

 erably impressed the governor. At one of the 

 more recently opened centers, Lautoka, the 

 mill is one of the most up-to-date in the world, 

 and the place has also the advantage of pos- 

 sessing sheltered anchorage and an excellent 

 wharf. What is wanted, however, is the con- 

 nection of its tram system with that at the 

 other end of the estate. An interesting ex- 

 periment in the reclamation of coast swamp- 

 land has lately been made, the great difficulty 

 being the washing of the salt out of the soil. 

 From Ba the governor rode up by the excel- 

 lent bridle-path to Nadarivatu (which it is 

 hoped to develop as a sanatorium), through 

 some of the finest mountain scenery imag- 

 inable. 



Nature states that the committee of the 

 Quekett Microscopical Club has arranged for 



