The former (xiphisternum) was bifid through its whole length.

The scientific value of this additional sternal rib-in a Darwinian sense-is simply great. It evinces in a clear and forcible manner a latent disposition in the human subject, either to revert to an original and lower condition, or to retain traces of that previous condition. We have already seen that some of the lowest forms of Primates have ten true ribs, others have nine, some eight, and others again seven, as in the human subject. But it is interesting, indeed, to find that the conflict between the major number ten and the minor seven takes place in the lower Primates. As we pass up to the higher Primates, there seems to be a decided tendency towards fixity at the number of seven true ribs. But yet a few solitary examples-besides the human subject-illustrate the lower type, as in the chimpanzee already mentioned. number of ribs in the lower forms of monkeys seems to be a repetition of that in the Carnivora, and subject to the same fluctuations between seven and ten true ribs. Although the few specimens which I have examined of the higher Primates show a decided tendency towards fixity at the number of seven, yet I believe that in a very large number of skeletons of each of the higher species, various transitional grades would be met with closely according with those in the human subject. It is somewhat remarkable that each of the variations of the eighth rib in the human subject which I have described should all be on the right side.

The

From the preceding facts it may be decidedly inferred that the tenth, ninth, and eighth true ribs are gradually lost in the transition from the lower to the higher Primates, except in a few isolated examples. The recurrence of the eighth true rib in the human subject cannot be looked upon as an accident, any more than the presence of a distinct peroneus quartus, and a moderately large extensor primi internodii hallucis coming from the tibialis anticus, exactly as in the chimpanzee, in the same individual whose sternum, with an almost complete eighth rib, has been described. J. BESWICK-PERRIN

NOTES

THE men of the North do not seem disposed to let grass grow under their feet in respect to their proposed College of Physical Science, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Of the 35,000!. required, in addition to to the Durham University endowment, to carry out their plans, upwards of 23,6007. has been already subscribed. Three of the professorial chairs have now been filled, viz. -Experimental Physics: A. S. Herschel, M. A. Chemistry: A. Freire-Marreco, M. A. Geology: David Page, LL. D., F.R.S.E. No decision has yet been made public in respect to the professorship of Mathematics. This appointment, together with the chair of Experimental Physics, is in the hands of the Dean and Chapter of Durham. These selections will give general satisfaction, and are sufficient assurance of the desire of the Committee to obtain the services of the men within reach, without reference to local influence or predilections. Indeed it seems to us just possible that the claims of one eminent local geologist may have suffered somewhat through the fear of a charge of partiality. Few family names stand higher in the scientific world than that of Herschel, and its present representative is well known as a teacher of experimental philosophy. M. Freire-Marreco has long served the University of Durham as its reader in chemistry and the Newcastle College of Medicine as its lecturer. Apart from his acquirements as a chemist and his ability as a teacher, there is perhaps no one who is so thoroughly versed in the chemical technology of the industries of the North of England. Dr. Page's elementary works on geology are widely appreciated, and if one may judge of his capacity as a lecturer by his power of interesting a general audience, he is eminently fitted to instruct

the rising generation of mining engineers. We learn that the opening of the College is fixed for October 7, and shall watch with pleasure the progress of the undertaking, bidding it heartily "God speed."

AT a meeting of the Council of University College, London, held on Saturday last, a scheme for the establishment of a Sharpey Physiological Scholarship in the College was adopted. It is expected that the annual value of the Scholarship will be about 100/.

SIR DOMINIC CORRIGAN, Bart., M.D., M. P., has been ap. pointed Vice-Chancellor of the Queen's University in Ireland, in the room of the late Sir Maziere Brady, Bart.

ONLY one gentleman has this year obtained the degree of D.Sc. of the University of London, Mr. W. A. Tilden, in

Chemistry.

M. H. SAINTE-CLAIR-DEVILLE, one of the most learned and popular members of the Institute, was a candidate at the recent French election on the moderate Republican ticket. M. Broca, the celebrated anthropologist, who will soon be a member of the Institute, was also a candidate on the same ticket, as was also M. Wolowsky, a member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. We learn that M. Wolowski has been returned at the head of the poll, and that MM. Scheurer-Restner and Laboulaye have also been elected for Paris. The Institute is fast becoming, not actually a political body, but a body more closely connected with politics than it was formerly. For some time past a résumé of the sittings of the Academy has been inserted regularly in the Journal Officiel, which is becoming every day more scientific in its character. The National Society of Men of Letters recently held its ordinary meeting, when it was proposed to erase from ts list of members MM. Victor Hugo, Pyat, and Rochefort, who are being prosecuted for their deeds during the Commune. But the meeting rejected the motion.

THE Revue des Cours Scientifiques commences with July 1 a new series, with the new title La Revue Scientifique, under the old editorship of MM. Yung and Alglave. The first number of the new series contains a sketch of the labours of the late M. Claparède, translations of Profs. Huxley and Tyndall's addresses at the Liverpool meeting of the British Association, and some fresh notes by Prof. Van Beneden on Commensalism in the Animal Kingdom.

THE weekly journal, L'Institut, has just entered on the fortieth year of its existence.

HERR RÜMKER has communicated to the Astronomische Nachrichten the following ephemeris of a new comet discovered by Temple on the 14th ult. :

AT the Anniversary Meeting of the Meteorological Society, held June 21, C. W. Walker, Esq., F. R. S., F. R. A.S., the president, in the chair, the following officers were elected :-President: Dr. John W. Tripe. Vice-Presidents: N. Beardmore, C. O. F. Cator, G. J. Symons, C. V. Walker, F. R.S. Treasurer : H. Perigal. Trustees Sir Antonio Brady, S. W. Silver. Secretaries: Chas. Brooke, F. R.S., Jas. Glaisher, F. R. S. Foreign Secretary: Lieut.-Col. Alexander Strange, F.R.S.

to attend the medical lectures at that University, in furtherance of the expressed wishes of His Majesty's Finnish subjects.

AT the last Calcutta University Convocation the novelty was the presence of eight native Brahme ladies.

GOLD is reported in New Caledonia, near the Scot River. SUCH is the ease with which scientific intelligence is now propagated that the experiments of Dr. Fayrer, in India, on snakebites, have attracted attention in the Panama Herald. It is there stated that an efficacious native Indian remedy for snake-bites has long been employed in many parts of the interior, and more suc cessfully than ammonia, codron, cuaco, and other substances. The composition referred to is made by adding to a bottle of alcohol, as strong as can be got, and of at least 35°, the contents of the gall-bladders of every poisonous snake that can be got at. The dose is a thimble-full internally and the like externally.

THE Mechanics' Magazine for June 9 and 16 contains a full and interesting report of the recent conversazione of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

FIRST REPORT OF THE SCHEme of edUCATION COMMITTEE OF THE LONDON SCHOOL BOARD

THE questions referred to us appear to fall under two chief divisions :-(1) The nature of the schools which it is desirab'e that the School Board should provide ; and (2) the methods of instruction which should be adopted in such schools; and we shall therefore group our recommendations under these two heads.

Before proceeding to state these recommendations, it is important to observe that they need not be considered to apply, unreservedly, to those already existing schools which may now, or hereafter, be taken over by the Board.

The nature of the schools to be provided by the School Board will, as a general rule, be determined by the conditions under which grants of public money are made to schools by the Education Department.

Under the new code grants are made to public elementary schools of two kinds-those in which the instruction is given in the daytime, and those in which it is given in the evening. Under the regulations of the Science and Art Department, payments are made to teachers of science and art classes upon the results of examinations passed by the scholars. It will be desirable, in the first place, to deal with the two kinds of schools, viz., public elementary day schools, and public elementary evening schools, which it is the immediate duty of the Board to provide; and, subsequently, to consider the classes of the Science and Art Department, in relation to these schools.

I. PUBLIC ELEMENTARY DAY SCHOOLS Public elementary day schools are conveniently classified into infant schools, for children below seven years of age; junior schools, for children seven and ten years of age; and senior schools, for older children.

Some of the recommendations we have to make are general, or hold good for all three classes of schools, while others apply only to one or two of them.

General Recommendations

a. MIXED OR SEPARATE SCHOOLS. - By mixed schools, we understand schools in which male and female children are taught in the same classes; by separate schools, those in which boys and girls are taught in separate rooms.

It is universally agreed that infant schools may be mixed, not only without detriment, but with positive advantage to the children.

We therefore recommend that infant schools be mixed.

With respect to junior schools, so much depends upon the previous training of the children, and upon local circumstances, that we do not think it advisable to lay down any general rule regarding them.

On the other hand, while evidence has been brought before us tending to show that, under certain conditions, senior schoo.s may be mixed, we are decidedly of opinion, and we recommend, that the senior schools provided by the School Board of London should be separate.

b. LARGE OR Small SchoolS.-A Board school should con.

tain, under one management, an infant school or schools, a junior school, a senior boys' school, and a senior girls' school.

Large junior and senior schools of 500 children and upwards, can be worked with much greater economy and efficiency than small schools; and we have no hesitation in recommending that large schools be established wherever it is practicable to do so. But we are of opinion that the number of children in average attendance in any infant school, or infant department of a school, under one principal teacher, should not exceed 250 to 300.

C. THE PROPORTION OF TEACHERS TO SCHOLARS.-Efficient and economical teaching, other things being alike, depends upon two conditions: the first, the regularity of the attendance of the scholars; the second, the due proportion of the teaching power to the number of the scholars.

We are of opinion that the minimum number of teachers for a junior or senior school of 500 children should be 16—namely, I principal teacher, 4 assistant certificated teachers, and 11 pupil teachers; and that the teaching staff should be increased by I assistant certificated teacher and 3 pupil teachers for every additional 120 children.

d. THE EMPLOYMENT OF FEMALE TEACHERS. In infant and girls' schools, as a general rule, we recommend the employment of female teachers only; and we are of opinion that, in many cases, women may advantageously take charge of mixed junior schools. We do not think it advisable that female teachers should be employed in senior boys' schools.

c. HOURS OF INSTRUCTION.-We recommend that the period during which the children are under actual instruction in school should be five hours daily for five days in the week.

We recommend that arrangements should be made by which, during the time of religious teaching, any children withdrawn from such teaching shall receive separate instruction in secular subjects.

f. CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.-While we consider that the frequent use of corporal punishment is a mark of incompetency on the part of the teacher, we by no means deny the necessity of the occasional and exceptional employment of such punishment. But we recommend that every occurrence of corporal punishment be formally recorded in a book kept for the purpose; that the pupil teachers be absolutely prohibited from inflicting such punishment; and that the head teacher be held directly responsible for every punishment of the kind.

g. MUSIC AND DRILL.-On the 1st of February, 1871, the Board resolved-"That it is highly desirable that means should be provided for physical training, exercise, and drill, in public elementary schools established under the authority of this Board: and on the 22nd of March the Board passed another resolution—“ That the art and practice of singing be taught, as far as may be possible, in the Board schools, as a branch of elementary education."

The new code of the Education Department encourages drill, by providing that attendance at drill, under a competent instructor, "for not more than two hours a week and twenty weeks in the year," may be counted as school attendance; and although it does not make the teaching of vocal music compulsory, it inflicts a fine at the rate of one shilling per scholar in average attendance upon all schools in which vocal music is not taught.

We recommend that music and drill be taught in every school during the period devoted to actual instruction.

h. MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION.-On the 8th March, 1871, the Board resolved-That in the schools provided by the Board, the Bible shall be read, and there shall be given such explanations and such instruction therefrom in the principles of morality and religion, as are suited to the capacities of children; provided always

1. That in such explanations and instruction the provisions of the Act, in Sections VII. and XIV., be strictly observed, both in letter and spirit, and that no attempts be made in any such schools to attach children to any particular denomination.

2. That in regard of any particular school, the Board shall consider and determine upon any application by managers, parents, or ratepayers of the district, who may show special cause for exception of the school trom the operation of this resolution, in whole or in part.

We recommend, therefore, that provision should be made for giving effect to this resolution.

2. Particular Recommendations INFANT SCHOOLS.-We cannot too strongly insist upon the importance of schools for children under seven years of age. In a properly conducted infant school, children are not only with

drawn from evil and corrupting influences, and disciplined in habits of order, attention and cleanliness, but they receive such an amount of positive instruction as greatly ficilitates their progress in the more advanced schools. There appears to be no doubt that by regular attendance in an infant school, provided with efficient teachers, a large proportion of ordinary children of six or seven years of age may be enabled to pass in the first standard of the new code.

The inducements which lead parents to keep older children from school are almost wholly absent in the cases of those under seven years of age, who are able to earn little or nothing, and are of no use in the house. And the fact that the younger children are taken care of in an infant school will often remove one of the chief difficulties in the way of securing the regular attendance of the elder girls of a family at the junior and senior schools.

The subjects in which we recommend that instruction should be given in infant schools are :

a. Morality and religion.

b. Reading, writing, and arithmetic.

c. Object lessons of a simple character, with some such exercise of the hands and eyes as is given in the "Kinder-Garten" system.

In addition, the general recommendations respecting music and drill apply to infant schools, in which singing and physical exercises, adapted to the tender years of the children, are of paramount importance.

JUNIOR AND SENIOR SCHOOLS.-We recommend that certain kinds of instruction shall form an essen ial pa t of the teaching of every elementary school; while others may or may not be added to them, at the dscretion of the managers of individual schools, or by the specia' d rection of the Board.

A. ESSENTIAL SUBJECTS.

a. Morality and religion.

b. Reading, writing, and arithmetic: English grammar in senior schools; with mensuration in senior boys' schools.

c. Systematised object lessons, embracing in the six school years a course of elementary instruction in physical science, and serving as an introduction to the science examinations which are conducted by the Science and Art Department.

d. The History of Britain.

e. Elementary geography.

f. Elementary social economy.

g. Elementary drawing, leading up to the examinations in mechanical drawing, and to the art teaching of the Science and Art Department.

h. In girls' schools, plain needlework and cutting out.

B. DISCRETIONARY SUBJECTS, which may be taught to advanced scholars.

a. Algebra and geometry.

b. Latin or a modern language.

II. PUBLIC ELEMENTARY EVENING SCHOOLS Evening Schools are of great importance, partly as a means of providing elementary education for those who, for various reasons, fail to obtain sufficient instruction in elementary day schools; and, partly, because it is easy to connect with such schools special classes in which a higher kind of instruction than that contemplated by the Sixth Standard can be given to the more intelligent and older scholars. In this manner the advantages of further instruction may be secured by those scholars who are unable or unwilling to go into secondary schools, but who are both able and willing to pay for instruction of a more advanced kind than that given in primary schools.

We recommend that the course of instruction in these evening schools shall be of the same general character as that already recommended for the junior and senior cementary day schools. Elementary evening schools should, in all cases, be separate, and the General Recommendation (a) respecting moral and religious instruction applies to them. In all other respects we recommend that the managers should be left free to adapt the instruction given in the schools to local requirements.

According to the New Code, the scholars in evening schools must be not under 12, nor above 18. years of age, and no attendance is reckoned unless the scholar has been under instruction in secular subjects for one hour and a half.

III. SCIENCE AND ART CLASSES

Numerous classes for instruction in Science and Art are already in existence; their current expenses, and the remuneration of teachers, being defrayed, in part, by the grants paid upon the result of the annual examinations, and, in part, by pupils' fees.

These classes are usually held in the evening, and are frequently connected with evening schools.

The Science and Art Department comes into relation with these classes, and with the examination of the scholars taught in them, through the agency of Committees who voluntarily charge themselves with the responsibility of seeing that the regulations of the Department are carried out. The establishment of Science and Art Classes in connection with Public Elementary Evening Schools, therefore, would not involve the Board either in trouble or expen e.

We recommend that the formation of such classes be en. couraged and facilitated.

The Elementary Education Act does not confer upon a School Board the power of providing secondary schools, and it is silent as to the mode by which a connection may be established between the elementary and the secondary schools of the country. But it is of such importance to the efficiency of popular education that means should be provided by which scholars of more than average merit shall be enabled to pass from elementary into secondary schools. that we feel it our duty to offer some suggestions upon the subject

The practical difficulty in the way of the passage of boys and girls from an elemen ary into a second try school, is the cost of their maintenance; and the best way of meeting that difficulty appears to be to establish exhibuions equivalent to the earnings of boys and girls of from 13 to 16 years of age, tenable for the period during which they rema n under instruction in the secondary schools. The funds out of which such exhibitions may be created already exist, and the machinery for distributing them has been provided by the Legislature in the Endowed Schools Ac'.

The Endowed Schools Commissioners have fully recognised the claims of scholars in public elementary schools to share the advantages of the endowed schools. We recommend, there fore, that the Board enter into official communication with the Endowed Schools Commissioners, and agree with them upon some scheme by which the children in public elementary schools shall be enabled to obtain their rightful share of the benefits of those endowments with which the Commissioners are empowered to deal.

T. H. HUXLEY (Chairman).

JOSEPH ANGUS

ALFRED BARRY
EDM. HAY CURRIE
EMILY DAVIES
LAWRENCE
BENJN. LUCRAFT
J. MACGREGOR
CHARLES REED
JAMES H. RIGG
WILLIAM ROGERS
EDW. J. TABRUM

Faunas in order rightly to understand her own. The greater part of her surface constitutes the western extremity of that great Russo-European tract I have above commented upon, its flora, and probably also its fauna, here blending with the West European type, which spreads more or less over it from the Iberian peninsula. To the south-east she has an end of the Swiss Alps, connected to a certain degree with the Pyrenees to the south-west by the chain of the Cevennes, but at an elevation too low, and which has probably always been too low, for the interchange of the truly alpine forms of those two lofty ranges. South of the Cevennes she includes a portion of the great Mediterranean region; and the marine productions of her coasts are those of three different aquatic regions-the North Sea, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean. The few endemic or local races she may possess appear to be on those southern declivities which bound the Mediterranean region; and if the volcanic elevations of Central France have a special interest, it is more from the absence of many species common at similar altitudes in the mouutains to the east or to the south-west, than from the presence of peculiar races not of the lowest grades, with the exception, perhaps, of a very few species now rare, and which may prove to be the lingering remains of expiring races.

With so many natural advantages, French science, represented during the last two centuries by as great, if not a greater, number of eminent men than any other country, has long felt the necessity of a thorough investigation of the biological productions of her territory. The French Floras, both general and local, are now numerous, and some of them excellent. The geographical distribution of plants in France has also been the subject of various essays as well as separate works. It is only to be regretted that in the Floras themselves the instructive practice of indicating under each species its extra-Gallican distribution has not yet been adopted. In Zoology no general fauna has been attempted, since De Blainville's, which was never completed, and none is believed to be even in contemplation; but I have a long list of partial Faunas and Memoirs on the animals of various classes of several French departments; and Rey and Mulsant are publishing, in the Transactions of two Lyons Societies, detailed monographs of all French Coleoptera.

The progress of French naturalists in Biology in general up to 1867 has been fully detailed as to Zoology by Milne-Edwards, in hisRapport sur les Progrès de la Zoologie en France;" and as to Systematic Botany by Ad. Brongniart in his "Rapport sur les Progrès de la Botanique Phytographique." The recent progress as to both branches, as well as in regard to other natural sciences, has also been reviewed by M. Emile Blanchard in his annual addresses to the meetings of the delegates of French scientific societies, held every April at the Sorbonne from 1865 to 1870. The Société Botanique de France had also up to that time been active, and the publication of its proceedings brought down nearly to the latest meetings. I am compelled, however, for want of time, to defer some details I had contemplated relating to the recent labours of French biologists; but I cannot refrain from inserting the following note on a work mentioned only, but not analysed, in the last volume of the "Zoological Record," obligingly communicated to me with other memoranda by Prof. Deshayes, whilst slowly recovering from a severe illness contracted during the German siege :— "In Mollusca we have also to regret that we have no complete work embracing the whole of this important branch of the animal kingdom. It is true that we make use of numerous works published in England, amongst which several are excellent, such as those of Forbes and Hanley, Gwyn Jeffreys, &c. Nevertheless I have to point out to you an excellent work published in 1869 by M. Petit de la Saussaye. The author, a very able and scientific conchologist, is unfortunately just dead. He has had the advantage of preparing a general catalogue of Testaceous Mollusca of the European Seas, possessing in his own collection nearly the whole of the species inserted, and of having received direct from the authors named specimens of the species foreign to the French coasts. This work is divided into two parts. The first is devoted to the methodical and synonymical catalogue of the species amounting to 1,150. In the second part, these species are distributed geographically into seven zones, starting from the most northern and ending with the hot regions of the Mediterranean. These zones are thus distinguished :-1, the Polar zone; 2, the Boreal zone; 3, the British zone; 4, the Celtic zone; 5, the Lusitanian zone; 6, the Mediterranean zone ; and 7, the Algerian zone. Some years since it would have been impossible for M. Petit to have established the fifth zone, for that nothing, literally nothing, was known of the malacological fauna of Spain. Its seas were until 1867 less known than those

of New Holland or California. It was only in that year that Hidalgo published a well drawn up synonymic catalogue in Crosse and Fischer's "Journal de Conchyliologie.'

The British Isles have less even than France of an endemic character in respect of biology. They form, as it were, an outlying portion of regions already mentioned, the greater part, as in the case of France, belonging to the extreme end of the great RussoEuropean tract. Like France, also, they partake, although in a reduced degree, of that Western type which extends upwards from the Iberian Peninsula. They are, however, completely severed from the Mediterranean as from the Alpine regions; their mountain vegetation, and, as far as I can learn, their mountain zoology, is Scandinavian; and if it shows any connection with southern ranges, it is rather with the Pyrenees than with the Alps. The chief distinctive character of Britain is derived from her insular position, which acts as a check upon the passive immigration of races, and is one cause of the comparative poverty of her Fauna and Flora; the isolation, on the other hand, may not be ancient enough or complete enough for the production and preservation of endemic forms. As far as we know, there is not in phænogamic botany, nor in any of the orders of animals in which the question has been sufficiently considered, a single endemic British race of a grade high enough to be qualified as a species in the Linnæan sense. How far that may be the case with the lower cryptogams cannot at present be determined; there is still much difficulty in establishing species upon natural affinities, and in some Lichens and Fungi, for instance, much confusion between phases of individual life and real genera and species remains to be cleared up. The study of our neighbours' Faunas and Floras is therefore necessary to make us fully acquainted with the animals and plants we have, and useful in showing us what we have not, but should have had, were it not for causes which require investigation; such, for instance, as plants like Salvia pratensis, a common European species to be met with in abundance the moment we cross the Channel, but either absent from or confined to single localities in England.

There is no country, however, in which the native Flora and Fauna has been so long and so steadily the subject of close investigation as our own, nor where it continues to be worked out in detail by so numerous a staff of observers. To the Floras we possess, a valuable addition has been made within the last twelvemonth in J. D Hooker's "Student's Flora of the British Isles ;" the best we have for the purposes of the teacher, and in which the careful notation of the general distribution of each species is a great improvement on our older standard classbooks. H. C. Watson's recently completed "Compendium of the Cybele Britannica treats of the geographical relations of our plants with that accuracy of detail which characterises all his works. In Zoology, although we may not have compact synoptical Faunas corresponding with our Floras in all branches of the animal kingdom, the series of works on British Vertebrata published by Van Voorst are a better and more complete account of our indigenous races than any Continental State can boast of; and I observe with much pleasure that in the new edition announced of the "British Birds," Mr. Newton proposes specially to follow out the determination of their geographical range, upon which Mr. Yarrell had bestowed so much pains. With regard to our Mollusca, we have been very fortunate. Forbes and Hanley's costly work, published by the Ray Society, has been followed by Gwyn Jeffreys's "British Conchology,' the great merits of which as a Malacological Fauna of Britain have been fully acknowledged abroad as well as at home. The present geographical as well as the fossil range of the species is specially attended to, and the only thing missed is perhaps a general synoptical view of the characters of the classes, families, and genera into which the species are distributed. The Ray Society series comprises also several most valuable works on the lower orders of British animals; but the entomological fauna of our country, especially in relation to the insects of the adjoining Continent, notwithstanding the numerous able naturalists who devote themselves to its study, appears to be somewhat in arrear. In answer to my query as to works where our Insects are compared with those of other countries, I received from our Secretary, Mr. Stainton, the following reply:-"The questions you have put to me with reference to our entomological literature are very important; they, however, painfully call my attention to the necessarily unsatisfactory nature of my replies. Wollaston's 'Coleoptera Hesperidum' is the only separate * Referred to in my Address of 1869.