362 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 219 



— It is intended to hold an international con- 

 gress on cremation in September of the present 

 year in Milan. 



— Mr. Thomas Wilson ot Washington has just 

 presented to the national museum a fine collection 

 of old coins, chiefly Eoman, which will shortly be 

 placed on exhibition. In the collection is a 

 Swedish daler coined in 1736. It is an oblong 

 plate of copper, about four inches long and three 

 inches wide, with four circular die-marks stamped 

 upon it. The coin weighs about a pound and a 

 half. The collection of Eoman coins starts with 

 a &imi3le lump of bronze, the aes rude, which 

 served as a medium of exchange among the 

 Romans seven hundred years before the Christian 

 era. This was obtained at Palustrina. There are 

 numerous rudely stamped coins of a later day, 

 consular coins of the republic, and later speci- 

 mens of coins of imperial Rome. These are 

 stamped with the heads or busts of the reigning 

 emperor. The coins are of gold, silver, and 

 bronze. A curious specimen of the collection is a 

 counterfeit coin made by some Roman rogue. It 

 is a copper coin washed with silver. 



— It is said that there were in Norway, in 1879, 

 1,630 cases of leprosy, some five hundred less than, 

 in 1856 ; so that the disease appears to be on the 

 decline. By a recent law the government is em- 

 powered to send all lepers to the hospitals, but 

 this power has not yet been exercised. 



— The address of Prof. Andrew F. West of 

 Princeton college, on • How to improve our classi- 

 cal training,' delivered last fall in Philadelphia, 

 has been printed in pamphlet form in response to 

 the request of a number of classical teachers. 



— Belgium's recent educational changes show 

 at least one decided departure from German prac- 

 tice. The final examinations of the gymnasia 

 have been abolished, and a matriculation exam- 

 ination at the university substituted for them. 



— Professor Kirchhoff's abridged grammar of 

 Volaptik, the new universal language, has been 

 adapted to tlie use of English-speaking people by 

 Karl Dornbusch. This language has been formed 

 after twenty years' laborious i-esearch by M. 

 Schleyer of Constance. He has named it Vola- 

 ptik from piik (' language ') and vol (' universe '). 

 It has no artificial genders, a single conjugation, 

 and no irregular verbs. The roots of its words 

 have been borrowed from all the languages of 

 Europe. The adjective, verb, and adverb are 

 regularly formed from the substantive, and have 

 invariably the same termination. 



— One of the most important collections of 

 oriental manuscripts ever brought to Europe is the 



collection which belonged until recently to King 

 Theebaw of Burma, which had been handed down 

 to him as an heirloom by his ancestors or prede- 

 cessors, and which has now been placed, probably 

 for many centuries to come, on the shelves of the 

 library of the India office in London. 



— Lectures on geography are now being de- 

 livered at Cambridge university by gentlemen ap- 

 pointed by the Royal geographical society. The 

 uni\ersity lecturer on that subject assumes his 

 office in 1888, and the contribution of the uni- 

 versity toward his salary is only fifty pounds. 



— Mr. Gladstone has contributed to the April 

 number of the English historical review an article 

 on the last part of the ' Greville memoirs,' which 

 will be of documentary interest for the history of 

 the years 1852 to I860. 



— Prof. William G. Peck of the chair of math- 

 ematics and astronomy in Columbia college, whose 

 excellent series of mathematical text-books are in 

 such general use, has recently added to his list a 

 little work on ' Determinants ' (A. S. Barnes & 

 Co., New York). The book gives in forty-seven 

 well-printed pages just such an easy introduction 

 to the subject as the beginner wishes to have. 

 The examples are abundant, and the text clear 

 and accurate. 



— The Central-Organ filr die Interessen des 

 Realschulwesens prints on its titlepage, " Die 

 Realschule ist die Schule der Zukunft, well sie die 

 deutsche Schule ist." The same journal has for 



its motto, 



" Der Schule zu Ehreu 

 Die Freunde vermeliren, 

 Die Zweilier belehren, 

 Die Gegner toekehren 

 Ist unser Begehreu." 



— Prof. Friedrich Koldewey is editing a work 

 of great educational interest, entitled ' Monu- 

 mentaGermaniae pedagogica.' The first volume 

 has already appeared : it contains the ' Braun- 

 schweigischen schulorduungen' from the earliest 

 times until 1828. 



— Prof. S. S. Laurie, who occupies the chair 

 of pedagogics at the University of Edinburgh, is 

 about to receive the degree of LL.D. from St. 

 Andrews university. 



— Dr. Gobat, the head of the education depart- 

 ment of Switzerland, is about to introduce some 

 radical reforms. He criticises the present code as 

 having no sound psychological basis. He says 

 that it makes the development of the mind con- 

 form to it, instead of itself conforming to the de- 

 velopment of the mind. He finds that the reason 

 the classics are losing interest is that they are 

 poorly taught. 



