48o 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIII. No. 333 



pretty high pressure will deteriorate ; originality and freedom frona 

 affectation are all very well in their way, but we can easily have too 

 much of them ; and it is better that none should be either original 

 or free from cant but those who insist on being so, no matter what 

 hinderances obstruct, nor what incentives are offered them to see 

 things through the regulation medium. To insist on seeing things 

 for one's self is to be an ISiCm)^, or, in plain English, an idiot ; nor 

 do I see any safer check against general vigor and clearness of 

 thought, with consequent terseness of expression, than that pro- 

 vided by the curricula of our universities and schools of public in- 

 struction. If a young man, in spite of every effort to fit him with 

 blinkers, will insist on getting rid of them, he must do so at his 

 own risk. He will not be long in finding out his mistake." 

 There is a fine flavor of " Hudibras " in this view of the case, 

 which Mr. Sully might use as an example of heredity. 



— The university delegates have decided, says the Educatzo7ial 

 Times, to arrange a second meeting of university extension and 

 other students in Oxford in August next. The objects of the 

 meeting are to stimulate and direct systematic home study by 

 means of short courses of lectures, to supplement university ex- 

 tension teaching by a brief period of residence and study in Ox- 

 ford, and to afford opportunities for conference between teachers 

 and others interested in education on the best means of developing 

 university extension and other educational work. The meeting 

 will be divided into two parts. The arrangements for the first part, 

 which will last ten days, will be similar to those which were suc- 

 cessful last year. The second part of the meeting will consist of a 

 supplementary period of three weeks' quiet study. The first part 

 of the meeting will begin with an inaugural address by Professor 

 Stuart, M.P., on Tuesday, July 30, and will end on Friday evening, 

 Aug. 9. During the ten days there will be delivered on each 

 morning, at 10.15, ^"d at noon, short courses of lectures on his- 

 tory, literature, science, art, and political economy, and a number 

 of evening lectures of a more general character. Among those 

 who have already promised their assistance are Professor Max 

 Miiller, Professor S. R. Gardiner, Sir Robert Ball, Mrs. Fawcett, 

 Rev. W. Hudson Shaw, Messrs. Arthur Sidgwick. R. G. Moulton, 

 R. W. Macan, H. J. Mackinder, E. B. Poulton, D. S. M'CoU, F. 

 Madan, etc. The second part of the meeting will begin on Satur- 

 day morning, Aug. 10, and end on Friday evening, Aug. 30. It is 

 proposed that this period should be devoted to quiet study. Lec- 

 tures will be delivered each morning at 9.45 and 11.45, ^"d a class 

 will be held after each lecture. The courses will be longer than 

 those of Part I., and will deal in greater detail with the subjects 

 then introduced. 



— The strife between " Classics " and " Moderns " has assumed 

 great proportions in Holland. Professor Naher of the University 

 of Amsterdam has made the proposal that Greek should be re- 

 moved from the curriculum of the gymnasia, and should only be 

 compulsory for those who wish to study philology. It is to be 

 noted that Herr Naher is a professor of classical philology. At 

 present, every Dutch student, to obtain a certificate of maturity, 

 must show proficiency in German, French, and English, as well as 

 in Greek and Latin. 



— The Michigan Legislature has just appropriated for the Michi- 

 gan Mining School, $104,000 for the furnishing and maintenance of 

 the school during the years 1889 and 1890. 



— The annual report of the Ohio Meteorological Bureau for 1888 

 shows that at the close of 1887, forty-seven observers were report- 

 ing to the bureau. Five of the number were officers of the United 

 States Signal Service, and six were reporters of rainfall only. The 

 number of stations now reporting is fifty-two. The work of the 

 observers is entirely voluntary and without pay. It has been per- 

 formed continuously and faithfully, as the tabulated results show. 

 The distribution of weather telegrams, through the kindly interest 

 of Gen. A. W. Greely, chief signal-officer at Washington, D.C., has 

 been continued through the year. Of the thirty-six stations to 

 which the telegrams were sent at the beginning of the year, seven- 

 teen were discontinued during the year, mainly because of the 

 failure of display-men to properly display the predictions and report 

 to the bureau. Seventeen new stations were added during the 



year. These telegrams are furnished at government expense, the 

 only conditions imposed being that the places receiving them should 

 provide proper flags and arrange for their prompt display on re- 

 ceipt of the telegrams, and to report monthly on printed forms 

 supplied for the purpose. The board of directors acknowledge 

 their indebtedness to Gen. Greely for the encouragement and ma- 

 terial aid which he has given in the prosecution of the work of the 

 bureau. Without it, it would have been impossible to perform the 

 work which has been done the past year with the funds set apart 

 by the State for the purpose. In addition to the reports of current 

 weather observations, a number of interesting and important spe- 

 cial reports have been published in the monthly numbers through 

 the year. 



— Dr. George Owen Rees, F.R.S., died at Mayfield, Watford, 

 Herts, on May 27. Dr. Rees took his degree of M.D. at Glasgow 

 in 1837, and became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1843. 



— We learn from Nature that the foundation-stone of the 

 Framjee Dinshaw Petit Laboratory of Scientific Research, in Bom- 

 bay, was laid on April 8 by Lord Reay. Mr. Petit, the son of the 

 donor, explained that it had appeared to his father desirable, in the 

 interests of medical education, that a laboratory for scientific re- 

 search in biological and physical sciences should be established. 

 He had long cherished the wish to have the properties of Indian 

 drugs investigated, and made known to medical students. The 

 laboratory will be connected with the Grant Medical College. 



— Every one who takes the slightest interest in natural history 

 will be sorry to learn that the kangaroo is in danger of being extin- 

 guished. Its skin is so I'aluable, says Nature, that large numbers 

 of young kangaroos are killed ; and high authorities are of opinion, 

 that, unless the process is stopped, Australians will soon have seen 

 the last specimen of this interesting animal. Mr. R. G. Salomon, 

 one of the largest tanners in the United States, whither kangaroo- 

 skin is chiefly sent, urges that a fine should be imposed for the 

 killing of any kangaroo whose skin weighs less than ten-twelfths 

 of a pound ; and from a note on the subject in the Zoologist, by 

 Mr. A. F. Robin of Adelaide, we are glad to see that a serious 

 attempt is being made to secure the enforcement of this restriction 

 throughout Australia and Tasmania, and the proclamation of a 

 close season between Jan. i and May i. We must hope that the 

 Australian legislatures will understand the necessity of taking 

 speedy action in this matter. It would be scandalous if, in defer- 

 ence to the wishes of a few greedy traders, they were to allow 

 Australia to lose the most famous and most interesting of its char- 

 acteristic fauna. 



— A report was issued on Oct. 16, 1888, from the province of 

 Santa Catherina, Brazil, on the newly introduced ramie-plant. 

 The reporter, who is director of a colony called Grao Para, says 

 that 1 ,000,000 plants are growing there of the sort called Urtica 

 utilis, which is best qualified- to resist cold, and able to survive 

 frosts in the ground, without being pulled up and stored. It is not 

 being propagated by seeds, but by transplanting its very numerous 

 suckers, and putting them into the ground horizontally, so that they 

 grow from each knot. They grow best in sandy soil, as in stiff 

 wet soil the roots rot, but they must be strictly protected from 

 wind. They are planted in August and September, and cropped 

 as soon as they are six feet high, and are dark brown at the base. 

 The colony, says the Textile Recorder, has a Delantsheer machine 

 moved by water-power, which cost ^120 on the spot. At the Con- 

 cours International de la Ramie, on the Quay d'Orsay, this machine 

 was stated to cost ^40. This machine gives satisfactory but not 

 very good results. The colony got the first prize, a gold medal, at 

 Antwerp, for its ramie-fibres, and a manufacturer in the United 

 States offered, without success, to supply machinery gratuitously to 

 the colony in return for a monopoly of its produce of ramie. Com- 

 mander Joaquim Caetano Pinto introduced the plant from Europe, 

 and on Jan. 5, 1889, he signed a contract with the minister of agri- 

 culture by which he engages to import to the colony, at the public 

 expense, two hundred more families of immigrants. The govern- 

 ment also undertakes to help him by a donation of _^3,ooo for the 

 first hundred families, and as soon as they have arrived, but not 

 sooner, to begin making a road to the nearest railway-station on 



