982 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 651 



The monument is to be erected on the spot 

 where Dr. Long first performed a surgical 

 operation under anesthesia. 



Professor Alfred Newton, F.E.S., who 

 held the chair of zoology and comparative 

 anatomy at Cambridge and eminent as an 

 ornithologist, has died at the age of seventy- 

 eight years. 



Dr. Edward John Eouth, F.E.S., the emi- 

 nent mathematician of the University of Cam- 

 bridge, died on June 1, at the age of seventy- 

 six years. Dr. Routh made important con- 

 tributions to mathematics, but was best known 

 as a coach. From 1861 to 1885, with the 

 single exception of 1883, the senior wrangler 

 each year was one of his pupils, besides twice 

 before that date and once afterwards — in all 

 twenty-seven times. In the thirty-one years 

 of his teaching career, from 1857 to 1888, he 

 coached nearly seven hundred young men 

 through the mathematical tripos, of whom 

 more than five hundred took rank as wranglers. 



Dr. Maxwell Tylden Masters, F.E.S., the 

 well-known English botanist, from 1866 to the 

 time of his death editor of The Gardeners' 

 Chronicle, died on May 30, at the age of 

 seventy-four years. 



We learn from Nature that a special meet- 

 ing of the proprietors of the London Institu- 

 tion, Finsbury Circus, was held on May 8 to 

 consider a proposed scheme of rebuilding, 

 having for its objects " such an increase of 

 revenue as would enable the committee to 

 carry out the objects of the charter on a wider 

 basis than at present, and at the same time 

 to give improved accommodation to the pro- 

 prietors." The scheme provides for the re- 

 moval of the present lecture theater and 

 smoking room, thus rendering vacant 10,612 

 supei-ficial feet of land, to be let on a building 

 lease for eighty or ninety years. The altera- 

 tions would include a new theater, a storage 

 room for 200,000 volumes, refreshment and 

 other rooms, and the dividing of the present 

 reference library into a reading room, small 

 lecture room and a committee room. The 

 cost is estimated to be about £15,600. Strong 



criticism of the scheme led to the adjournment 

 of the meeting for four weeks. 



The Cardiff public telescope and observa- 

 tory are proving a decided success. During 

 the last few weeks, in response to an appeal 

 from Mr. Albert Taylor, a large number of 

 teachers in the locality have applied for per- 

 mission to use the instrument. The attend- 

 ance of the general public also has been such 

 as quite to warrant the corporation in the 

 expense to which it went in connection with 

 the obseiratory. 



The Electrical World says: It is stated that 

 so unprofitable have the insurance companies 

 found risks on college buildings that there 

 is prospect of a general increase in rates. The 

 entire May issue of Insurance Engineering 

 is devoted to an analysis of school and college 

 conditions. From reports of 322 institutions 

 the editor says : " We learn the lesson f romi 

 the schools and colleges that precautions 

 against fire have been generally neglected." 

 In eighteen years the figures gathered show 

 that 784 fires in college buildings have caused 

 a loss of $10,500,000 and a heavy loss of life. 

 The average money loss has exceeded $13,300. 



Last autumn Mr. A. Trevor-Battye made a 

 tour on the Continent, and visited the prin- 

 cipal zoological gardens of Holland, Germany 

 and Austria for the purpose of observing the 

 houses, cages and enclosures, and comparing 

 them with those in the Eegent's-park Gardens. 

 Eecently at the scientific meeting of the 

 Zoological Society, he embodied his results in 

 a paper, which was illustrated by a series of 

 ofiicial plans and diagrams. According to the 

 London Times two points specially impressed 

 him — the care given to the preparations of 

 plans of a house as part of a general scheme, 

 and the tendency to get rid, so far as it could 

 be done with safety, of bars and wiring. As 

 prominent examples he cited the fine masses 

 of rockwork for wild sheep and goats and the 

 rocky areas for lions and tigers, separated 

 from the spectators by a wide ditch, hidden 

 by greenery, at Carl Hagenbeck's Tierpark at 

 Stellingen. The method of shifting ostriches 

 from the house to the paddocks in use at 

 Hamburg was commended, as was the house 



