January 15, 1886.] 



SCIE2TCE. 



o3 



LONDON LETTER. 



The application to the treasury, on behalf of 

 the Marine biological association, to which refer- 

 ence was made in a former letter, has been very 

 successful. An intimation has been received by 

 the council that their lordships propose to submit 

 to the house of commons an estimate which will 

 grant to the association the sum of five thousand 

 pounds, to be paid in two annual instalments, 

 together with a yearly subscription of five hun- 

 dred pounds for five years afterwards. This is as 

 it should be, and the conditions imposed are prac- 

 tically nominal, as they entirely coincide with 

 the intentions of the council. The accounts are 

 to be formally audited, and afterward published : 

 assistance is to be given to the solution of the 

 economic questions connected with the British 

 fisheries ; and accommodation is to be afforded 

 to investigators who may desire to work out 

 definite problems of marine zoology. A resident 

 superintendent has been found in the person of 

 Mr. Walter Heape, who will enter upon his duties 

 with the new year, and in preparation for them 

 has already visited the chief American institutions 

 of the same kind. He is well known as an em- 

 bryologist. and has recently received the honorary 

 degree of M. A. from the University of Cambridge, 

 for his services as demonstrator of animal mor- 

 phology. Having been brought up to a business life 

 which promised to be one of considerable success, 

 he deliberately relinquished it in order to devote 

 himself to scientific pursuits : and in 1879 he was 

 attracted to Cambridge by the high reputation of 

 Mr. F. M: Balfour, who died three years later. But 

 the impulse which Balfour had given to the study 

 of morphology in the university was well sus- 

 tained by his senior pupils, Sedgwick. Welldon. 

 and Heape ; the latter of whom will now have the 

 opportunity, in the new laboratory at Plymouth, 

 of doing very much to advance his favorite 

 sciences of morphology and embryology. 



A very interesting exhibition of the appliances 

 used in geographical education has been recently 

 opened under the supervision of the Royal geo- 

 graphical society. About eighteen months ago, 

 Mr. J. S. Keltie (sub-editor of Nature) was ap- 

 pointed by the council of the society as an inspect- 

 or of geographical education for the purpose of 

 obtaining information respecting its position and 

 methods by personal investigation, both in the 

 United Kingdom and on the continent of Europe, 

 and by correspondence as regards A merica. He 

 has published an elaborate report, which has been 

 recently issued as one of the society's supplemen- 

 tary papers ; and the collection which he made 

 of the various appliances used in geographical 



education is now on view. The exhibits are 

 classed as follows : 1. Wall-maps ; 2. Globes ; 3. 

 Telluria, planetaria, etc. ; 4. Models and relief- 

 maps ; 5. Geographical pictures ; 6. Atlases ; 7. 

 Text-books ; 8. Miscellaneous. The collection is 

 one of great interest, though, as Mr. Keltie says, 

 " it contains specimens of all gradations of qual- 

 ity. In all classes will be found objects which 

 may be taken as examples of ' how not to do it.' " 

 It is hoped that many schoolmasters may be 

 induced to visit the exhibition during the Christ- 

 mas holidays, and a series of conferences on the 

 subject of geograpliical education has been ar- 

 ranged. Many eminent men at both the older 

 universities are desirous of seeing geography 

 form all}' introduced as a branch of scientific 

 study. The appointment of a university teacher 

 in the subject was suggested at Cambridge some 

 time ago, and it is rumored that a similar step 

 will soon be actually taken at Oxford. Should 

 this prove to be the case, there can be no doubt 

 that it would have a powerful influence in im- 

 proving the position of geography in the public 

 schools, where it receives, as a rule, from one to 

 two hours weekly of more or less perfunctory 

 teaching at the hands of men who have no special 

 interest in their work, even if they are not abso- 

 lutely opposed to it from its taking up time which 

 they would like to see devoted to classics. At 

 Kings college. London, Prof. H. G. Seeley, F.R.S., 

 is professor of geography. 



The fact of the comparatively slow adoption of 

 the electric light in England has already been 

 mentioned in these letters, although the reasons 

 thereof may not have been. The chief reason is to 

 be found in the restrictions upon the development 

 of the industry laid down by the electric lighting 

 act of 1882. Until these are relaxed, no com- 

 mercial company can light a district with any 

 chance of financial success, owing mainly to what 

 are known as the ' compulsory purchase clauses.' 

 Within the last few days an official programme 

 of legislation for next session has been put for- 

 ward, and among the measures there named is 

 a new electric lighting bill. The political pros- 

 pect, however, is so disturbed, that the chances 

 of any such domestic measure becoming law this 

 session are very small. 



In connection with this subject, it may be 

 mentioned that there are well-founded rumors 

 of a new form of battery, suitable for electric 

 lighting, to which the inventors give the name 

 'primary' battery, but which is really a modi- 

 fication of the ordinary ' secondary ' battery, for 

 which it is claimed that its yield in ampere hours, 

 per pound of lead, far exceeds any thing yet 

 accomplished. Cells prepared in England have 



