SCIENCE TEACHING. 3 573 
the experimental work in the laboratory. As great a mistake may be 
made by relying on laboratory work alone as there was formerly by 
neglecting it altogether. Professor C. F. Mabery regretted that 
chemistry was not taught practically in high schools and academics. 
School trustees generally thought that seventy-five dollars a year was 
a liberal aliowance for laboratory purposes. He would have young 
people begin with common phenomena, such as the rusting of iron, Xe. 
He would insist on his pupils mastering the principles of stoichio- 
metry, and in working, as far as possible, quantitatively, even in 
general chemistry. 
Mr. C. L. Mees heartily endorsed the ideas advanced by Prof. 
Mabery. For three hundred dollars, a good practical chemical labo- 
ratory could be established in high schools, which, if properly 
conducted, would result in great good. He would insist on a student 
repeating his work until it was exact. No careless work should be 
allowed. Mr. C. W. Kolbe gave an illustration of high school instruc- 
tion in chemistry, which was evidently purely bookish. The young 
man who had passed a brilliant examination in stoichiometry failed to 
do the simplest kind of problem afterwards, because, he said, “it was 
not in the book.” 
GENERAL NOTES. 
-_-_OO oO 
PARYPHANTA HocHSTETTERI.—A dead specimen of what I take to 
be the voung of this fine Jand shell has been sent me by Dr. Gaze, who 
collected it on Mt. Frederick, near Westport. The shell is very thin, 
and with a greatest diameter of 54 inch, has only four whorls. It has 
the small umbilicus of P. Hochstetteri, but differs from the type of that 
species in being of a darker colour, obscurely longitudinally banded, and 
without any undulating chestnut coloured lines. This is the most 
southerly locality in which it has been found.—F. W. Hurroy. 
INTRODUCED PLANTS oF OTAGo.—In Vol. VII. of the ‘“‘Transactions 
of the New Zealand Institute,” I published a list of those introduced 
plants which up to date (1874) I had gathered in this Provincial 
District. In Vol. X. Mr. T. Kirk in “ Contributions to the Botany of 
Otago” (p. 414) added more than 70 additional species. Some of those 
named in our lists are not spreading perceptibly or have even 
disappeared from what may be called the wild state, e.g., Berberis 
‘vulgaris, Barbarea precox, Ribes grossularia, &e. Others have become 
truly wild and are spreading freely. The following additional notes 
may serve as supplement to the papers referred to. The species numbered 
are newly recorded :— 
1. Ranunculus sceleratus, L.—Common in wet ground and swamps 
in the Clutha valley, and throughout the goldfields district. 
2. Papaver dubium, L. var. Lecogu, Lamotte.—In waste grounds, 
heaps of tailings, &c., in the Clutha valley. 
