Notes

Abstract

THE Loan Exhibition of Scientific Apparatus at South Kensington, to which we have already referred (vol. xi. p. 301), will open on the 1st of April, 1876, and remain open until the end of September, after which time the objects will be returned to the owners. It will, as we have already intimated, consist of instruments and apparatus employed for research, and other scientific purposes, and for teaching. It will also include apparatus illustrative of the progress of science, and its application to the arts, as well as such as may possess special interest on account of the persons by whom, or the investigations in which, it had been employed. The precise limits are detailed under several sections in a syllabus which has been issued for the information of exhibitors. Models, drawings, or photographs will also be admissible where the originals cannot be sent. The apparatus may, in certain cases, be arranged in train as used for typical investigations; and arrangements will be made, as far as it may be found practicable, for systematically explaining and illustrating the use of the apparatus in the various sections. Forms on which to enter descriptions of objects offered for exhibition may be obtained on application to the Director of the South Kensington Museum, London, S. W. These forms should be filled up and returned as soon as possible, so that exhibitors may receive early intimation as to the admissibility of the objects they propose to send. The cost of carriage of all objects selected for exhibition will be defrayed by the Science and Art Department. It is hoped that institutions or individuals having instruments of historic interest will be good enough to lend them. The following are the various sections into which the Exhibition will be divided:—Arithmetic, Geometry, Measurement, Kinematics, Statics and Dynamics, Molecular Physics, Sound, Light, Heat, Magnetism, Electricity, Astronomy, Applied Mechanics—[as the Exhibition must be regarded as chiefly referring to education, research, and other scientific purposes, it must in this division consist principally of models, diagrams, mechanical drawings, and small machines, illustrative of the principles and progress of mechanical science, and of the application of mechanics to the arts],—Chemistry Meteorology, Geography, Geology and Mining, Mineralogy, Crystallography, and Biology.