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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVI II. No.. 455 



enoe ought to result in broader views of the relation of the univer- 

 sity to university extension. 



— University extension has attracted much attention in France. 

 The ministry of education has appointed a committee to investi- 

 gate the workings of the movement in England, and delegates of 

 the French government were present at the Oxford summer meet- 

 ing. 



— Rev. "W. Hudson Shaw, M.A., one of the most popular of 

 the Oxford university extension lecturers, has been engfiged by 

 the American Society for the extension of University Teaching for 

 the entire winter of 1893-3. 



— The effort of the American Society for the Extension of Uni- 

 versity Teaching to establish the system of graded work in the 

 Philadelphia centres is meeting with strong success. The West 

 Philadelphia centre has agreed to fallow courses of twenty-four 

 weeks each, in literature, history, and science. Wagner Institute 

 plans two such courses in literature and American history. In 

 urging this graded work upon the centres, the popular idea is not 

 lost sight of, but is united with that of consecutive, well-graded 

 study. 



— The University of Wisconsin offers for the coming winter 

 university extension lectures on '• The Colonization of North 

 America," by Professor Turner; "English Literature," by Pro- 

 fessor Freeman; "Scandinavian Literature," by Professor Olsen ; 

 "Antiquities of Tndiaand Iran," by Dr. Tolman; " Bacteriology," 

 by Professor Birge; " The Physiology of Plants," by Professor 

 Barnes; '• Electricity," by Dr Loomis; and " Geology," by Pro- 

 fessor Salisbury. Courses in other departments will be given if 

 any desire for them is expressed. According to the regulations 

 adopted by the board of regents, courses can be given only where 

 the lecturers can go and return without interfering with their 

 class-room duties; but if the success of the proposed courses war- 

 lants it, lecturers who can give their entire time to the work will 

 probably be provided. 



— Cincinnati has begun the work of university extension with 

 great enthusiasm And zeal. Classes in history, chemisti-y, and 

 Latin have already begun. Biology, analytics, and trigonometry 

 are proposed for a later course. 



— Rhode Island is a conservative state, but when it makes up 

 its mind to change, it enters upon the proposed work with ear- 

 neatness and vigor. Brown University has already successfully 

 inaugurated university extension in the State. The promptness 

 with which the vaiious towns follow it^ lead is only a new exam- 

 ple of the power which the universities possess for developing and 

 moulding the educational interests of the State. Mount Pleasant, 

 one of the suburbs of Providence, has just formed a new exten- 

 sion centre, with lectures on English history, by President An- 

 drews of Broivn University. Professor Wilfred H. Munro, direc- 

 tor of university extension for Brown University, has been invited 

 to explain the movement and help in the organization of a centre 

 at Newport. The teachers of Providence are also interested, and 

 plans for several classes under university professors are being dis- 

 cussed . 



— The Trentog^; N.J., university extension centre offers four 

 courses of six lectures each, in place of the single course given 

 last year. This indicates strong and healthy growth. The first 

 course will be from Oct. 16 to Nov. 10, upon "The Plays of 

 ShakEspeare," by Dr. Murray, dean of Princeton College; the sec- 

 ond, " Historical Geology," from Nov. 17 to Dec. 33, by Professor 

 W. B. Scott of Princeton ; the thii-d, "Political Economy," from 

 Jan, 13 to Feb. 16, by Professor Robert Ellis Thompson of the 

 University of Pennsylvania; and the fourth, illustrated lectures 

 on " Light and Color," from Feb 33 to March 39. by Professor 

 Goodspeed of the University of Pennsylvania. Besides furnishing 

 these twenty-four lectures for three dollars, the Trenton centre 

 offers a supplementary course without charge, if, as is quite prob- 

 able, the funds received warrant it. 



— Topeka, Kan , is to have a university extension course of 

 twelve lectures on electricity, by Professor Blake of the University 

 of Kmsas. 



— Kansas City has orijanized a society of university extension, 

 with Hon. Edward H. Allen, president; Professor John T. Bu- 

 channan, vice-president; J. F. Downing, treasurer; and John 

 Sullivan, secretary. At the meeting when the organization was 

 eifected, short addresses were made by Professor Blackmar of 

 Kansas University, and by Dr. S S. Lows of Kansas City, ex- 

 president of Missouri University. Professor Blackmar stated that 

 Kansas University would offer eighteen different courses to the 

 people of Kansas City. 



— Among the encouraging signs of the times we observe that 

 the colleges open with full classes, and, usually, large accessions. 

 Harvard. Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 

 New England, the University of Michigan, and all the State uni- 

 versities of the West, as well as Columbia, Princeton, and Lehigh, 

 nearer our own doors, all report crowded classes. Our own State 

 university — Cornell — is just heard from, the accounts of the 

 registration having only just been made up, owing to the rush of 

 business in the registrar's office. The Ithaca Journal gives us the 

 following for Oct. 15: freshmen, 431; sophomores, 337; juniors, 

 331; seniors, 186; graduate students, 136; total, 1,491. The 

 Journal of the 17tb states that accessions for the week carry the 

 total above 1,500; while the increase for the year, dating back to 

 Oct. 15, 1890, is about 335, or 15 per cent. The increase, curi- 

 ously enough, is mainly in the two extremes, arts and engineer- 

 ing; the other courses remaining about stationary. Candidates 

 for B A. number 140, for C.E. and M.E. about 650. The univer- 

 sity is about equally divided between the literary, the so-called 

 liberal, departments and courses, and the scientific and engineer- 

 ing. Sibley College enrolls just one-third of the students in the 

 university, having 481 undergraduates, of whom 193 are regular 

 fi-eshmen; while its proportion of the graduate students and its 

 "specials," of whom we are told there are usually about a dozen, 

 makes its enrolment somewhere about 535 in all. The number of 

 graduates, principally coming from other colleges, has trebled in 

 the year. The university is greatly embarrassed, notwithstanding 

 its great endowment, by the continual d<^niands for new buildings, 

 which must be paid for out of the income. 



— In a recent number of Petermann's Mitteilungen Dr. F. 

 Krtimmel states the results of his investigations of the Sargasso 

 Sea, a summary of which is given in the Proceedings of the Royal 

 Geographical Society for October. He differs entirely from 

 Humboldt as to the shape of the floating mass of vegetation. 

 The "great bank of Flores and Corvo" is, he says. Humboldt's 

 summing up of the observations made by sailing-vessels_ passing 

 through the Sargasso Sea on their way from the southern hemi- 

 spere to Europe. These followed with slight variations the same 

 course, and their observations were naturally limited in extent. 

 It was on these insufficient data that Humboldt founded his theo- 

 ries as to the size and shape of the Sargasso Sea, but now, by the 

 aid of steam, we are able to arrive at more correct conclusions on 

 these points. On a map which he has prepared. Dr. Kriimmel 

 has plotted out the general contour of the mass of floating vege- 

 tation, and has indicated in what parts of the sea the sargasso is 

 found in the greatest abundance. In shape the Sargasso Sea is a 

 sort of ellipse, the great axis of which almost coincides with the 

 Tropic of Cancer, while the two foci are near longitude 'lij" and 

 70° west. Around this central ellipse others are indicated, larger 

 in size, but with the vegetation much less dense. In their general 

 outlines they follow u ith sufScient nearness the course of the pre- 

 vailing winds. As to the origin of the alga;, Dr. Kriimmel is 

 strongly of the opinion that they come from the land — not only 

 from the Gulf of Mexico and the coast of Florida, but from the 

 shores of the Antilles and the Bahamas. The most recent studies 

 with regard to the origin and course of the Gulf Stream tend, he 

 thinks, strongly to support those who assert that the al:<86 come 

 from the land, and to disprove the contention of those who sup- 

 port the hypothesis of a marine origin. Now that it is settled 

 that the Gulf Stream is not a single nairow stream issuing from 

 the Gulf of Mexico, but an accumulation of converging currents 

 sweeping past the coasts of the Antilles and through the adjoining 

 seas, it is obvious that the quantity of algae carried away must be 

 much greater than it could have been were the old hypotheses of 



