The stoves and greenhouses contain the collection of tender plants. They are open to the public daily (Sundays excepted) from 2 to 4 P.M.

The building to the east of the Danby Gate contains the Botanical Laboratory, Museum, Lecture-room, and private room of the Professor.

The Laboratory is open between the hours of ten and five daily during Term for practical work, both elementary and advanced, under the superintendence of the Professor and Assistant.

The Botanical Museum, essentially a teaching one, is open to members of the University interested in the subject, upon application to the Professor.

To the west of the Danby Gate, in a building which was formerly the official residence of the Professor of Botany, are housed the Library and the Herbarium.

The Library contains the books bequeathed by Bobart, Sherard, Fielding, and Daubeny, besides those purchased; and, in addition, the books left by Professor John Sibthorp, and now assigned to the Sibthorpian Professor of Rural Economy, are in the collection. It is rich in seventeenth and eighteenth century botanical books, the gifts of these benefactors, and contains some very rare works. The chief botanical periodicals of the present day are taken in, and these, with all the books in the Library, are available for consultation and reference by members of the University and others daily, between the hours of ten and four, on application to the Sherardian Professor of Botany.

The Herbarium is an extensive one, embracing several historical collections such as those of Morison, Sherard, Dillenius, and Sibthorp, which are kept apart, and the general Herbarium, which is arranged conveniently for study. There is also a special collection of British Flowering Plants. Like the Library, the Herbarium is open daily between the hours of ten and four to members of the University and others, on application to the Professor of Botany.

§ 9. The Radcliffe Observatory.

The Radcliffe Observatory, founded about the year 1771, is not now strictly an educational establishment: but the Radcliffe Ob

servers have, since the separation of the offices of Radcliffe Observer and Savilian Professor in 1839, admitted advanced students to the benefit of practical instruction in observing, on personal application.

The Astronomical instruments of the Observatory are at present: (1) a transit-circle with telescope of 66 inches focal length and 5 inches aperture; (2) an equatorial telescope of 12 feet focal length and 10 inches aperture, presented to the Observatory by J. Gurney Barclay, Esq., of Leyton, Essex; (3) a heliometer, of which the telescope is of 101⁄2 feet focal length and 71⁄2 inches aperture; (4) an equatorially-mounted telescope of 10 feet focal length and 7 inches aperture; (5) a 42-inch achromatic telescope; (6) four sidereal clocks, and two box chronometers: these instruments are in regular use. There are in addition, (7) two 8-feet mural quadrants with corresponding 12-feet zenith sector, (8) a transit-instrument and mural circle, (9) an unmounted Gregorian telescope with 18-inch mirror by Short, and several other instruments which have now become obsolete.

The Meteorological instruments consist of a photographic barograph, thermograph, and hygrograph; and an anemograph, raingauge, and sunshine recorder, for automatic registration of the corresponding elements; and of the ordinary standard instruments, viz. barometer, dry and wet bulb thermometers, maximum and minimum thermometers, and rain-gauges.

The Observatory is one of the stations reporting daily by telegraph to the Meteorological Office, London, in connexion with the system of daily Weather Charts and Forecasts issued by that Office.

§ 10. College Scientific Institutions.

Besides the scientific institutions already described, belonging to the University and under the charge of the University Professors, there are lecture-rooms and laboratories for scientific work at the following Colleges :

At Balliol there is a Chemical Laboratory, upheld jointly by Balliol and Trinity Colleges, which is fitted with all the appliances required in preparing for the Preliminary Examination in Physics and for any of the University Examinations in Chemistry. There is also a Lectureroom, with a collection of physical apparatus in which experimental

lectures on the subjects of the Preliminary Examination in Physics are given. There is a small Library of scientific books and periodicals, both English and foreign. The Laboratory is intended primarily for the use of members of Balliol and Trinity Colleges: members of other Colleges are admitted to the lectures on payment of a fee, and may be allowed the use of the Laboratory by special arrangement.

At Christ Church there is a Laboratory and Lecture-room in which Dr. Lee's Readers in Chemistry and Physics give instruction in their respective subjects both for Preliminary and for Final Examinations. The Laboratory contains all the apparatus necessary for a complete course of instruction in Practical Chemistry as required in University Examinations, and has a small Library attached to it. It is open without charge for teaching or apparatus to members of Christ Church, and, with a fee, to other members of the University.

The anatomical collection belonging to Dr. Lee's trustees, which was formerly kept in the Laboratory building, is now at the University Museum, under the joint charge of the Linacre Professor and of Dr. Lee's Reader in Anatomy.

At the Magdalen Laboratory all the practical work required for the Preliminary Examinations in Physics and Chemistry, and a considerable part of the work for the Final School of Chemistry, can be done. There is a good collection of apparatus.

At Trinity the Millard Laboratory for Experimental Mechanics and Engineering was opened by the College in 1886 to provide instruction in Theoretical and Practical Mechanics, and has since been enlarged by the addition of buildings in St. John's College. It is now partly maintained by the University.

The object of the course of instruction is to put before men the physical aspect of Engineering, without which the manual training of a workshop is incomplete. With this end in view, men are required to study mechanical drawing and the construction of instruments and machines, by hand and machine tools, and to go through a series of experiments on the strength of materials, the consumption of fuel in steam and gas engines, and dynamometric tests, in order that they may learn the methods of making relevant experiments and accurate measurements.

The Laboratory is supplied with steam-engines, and dynamometers

for testing them, also with hand and power-lathes, planing and drilling machines, and a full supply of engineers' bench tools. There is also a collection of apparatus needed in teaching electrical engineering.

The instruction given is of a kind likely to be useful to men who mean to turn their attention after leaving the University to engineering or manufacturing work of any kind, or to learn electrical testing, or any special branch of Applied Physics.

Lectures are given on the subjects of the Preliminary Examination in Physics. The Laboratory is open to members of the University, other than members of Trinity College, on payment of a terminal fee of £3.

§ 11. The Indian Institute.

The Indian Institute is intended to form a centre of teaching and information on subjects relative to India and its inhabitants, to promote Indian studies of all kinds, and generally to increase knowledge of Indian affairs. The Library contains about 12,000 Oriental books, 250 Indian and other Eastern manuscripts, besides a number of maps, and the reading-room is supplied with Indian newspapers and periodicals, English and vernacular, including many of the official publications of the Indian Provincial Governments. The Museum contains a collection of specimens and examples selected and arranged so as to give, so to speak, a concise synopsis of India.

The Institute is also intended to act as an attractive meetingplace for Oriental students of all countries, to draw together and assist the Selected Candidates for the Civil Service of India, and to befriend or aid natives of India who may be studying in Oxford.

Subject to the control of the Curators, the charge and supervision of the Institute is in the hands of the Boden Professor of Sanskrit.

CHAPTER VII.

EXAMINATIONS.

THE teaching and many of the other advantages of the University are open to all its members, whether they do or do not enter for and pass its Examinations; but the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and consequently all degrees of which the B.A. degree is a condition precedent-all degrees, that is, except those in Music and the newly established degrees in Letters and Science—are open only to those who are willing to pursue the courses of study recognized by the University. Any one therefore who wishes to reside without entering for the Examinations in Arts, should obtain beforehand exemption from the often strict regulations of the different Societies within the University, to one of which he must necessarily belong. Such exemption is often allowed by Colleges upon proof of the intention of serious study, and the Delegates of Non-Collegiate Students have made a special regulation providing for the admission of persons not proposing to proceed to the B.A. degree (p. 21).

The admission of candidates for the new 'Research' degrees who have not qualified for a degree in Arts is regulated by University Statute (p. 217); and compliance with the Statute will no doubt be regarded as sufficient qualification for admission to any Society within the University.

Examinations in Arts, more usually called 'Schools,' are sharply divided into Pass and Honour Examinations; in the former there is but one standard, in the latter the names of candidates who satisfy the examiners are distributed into three or four classes, each of which represents a different level of merit. No one is admitted to a place in the Class Lists who has exceeded a certain number of Terms reckoned from the date of his matriculation, but no limits of