April 20, 191 1] 



NATURE 



26Q 



inents before they are fit, as is frequently done for the 

 sake of higher grants. For the lower standards in the 

 boys' and girls' departments she claimed more freedom, 

 more activity, a better bridge from the infants' school. 

 She asked that in the ordinary schools there should be a 

 later leaving age, a more suitable curriculum, smaller 

 classes, better attendance. All education up to twelve 

 should be primary in name and practice. The transition 

 to secondary schools should be easy for all scholars about 

 the age of Uvelve years, and secondary schools of varying 



> 3 should provide the coping-stone of primary education. 



^s Cleghorn pleaded for the abolition of half-time, for 

 a more vocational bias in the work of the present 

 secondary schools, and for the extension to England of 

 the powers already granted to Scotland of enforcing 

 attendance at continuation schools until the age of seven- 

 teen years. 



Among other matters of wide interest which were 

 brought before the National Union of Teachers at the 

 Aberystwyth conference we note especially the careful 

 statement of the difficulties attending ameliorative medical 

 work, contributed by Dr. Lewis Williams, the Bradford 

 medical superintendent. At the Bradford school clinic 

 6446 cases were dealt with during last year, of which 

 3520 have actually received treatment, and of these 3000 

 have been cured of disease, had vision corrected, or teeth 

 attended to. It is impossible to read this paper without 

 arriving at the conclusion that the school clinic is a valu- 

 able — even a necessary — institution, and that the case for 

 the extension of school clinics has an appalling strength. 

 In view of recent controversies, it was inevitable that 

 keen interest should be shown in the subject of a paper 

 by Mr. T. P. Sykes, " Function and Position of H.M. 

 Inspectors of Schools in the Elementary-school System," 

 read at the same conference. The paper was evidently 

 written before the recent Parliamentary discussion, 

 and its main purpose was to put forward a view 

 of the duties of the inspectorate which is very 

 different from the one which ' appears to prevail. Mr. 

 Sykes would wish inspectors to devote their energies to 

 securing proper conditions of work, involving adequate 

 expenditure and administration. They should see that the 

 Medical Inspection and the Child Feeding Acts are 

 properly carried out, that schools are not overcrowded, 

 that there are proper staffs of certified teachers, that 

 salaries are such as to secure efficiency. As a professional 

 teacher. Mr. Sykes protested against the present system 

 of interference by inspectors with methods of teaching, 

 and he gave instances of its deleterious effect. Mr. Sykes 

 did not, however, suggest any method of testing the 

 efficiency of the work. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Geological Society, April 5. — Dr. C. W. Andrews, 

 F.R.S., vice-president, in the chair. — E. S. Cobbold : 

 Trilobites from the Paradoxides beds of Comley (Shrop- 

 shire), with notes on some of the associated brachiopoda 

 by Dr. C. A. Matley. The author describes and illustrates 

 the type-specimens of Paradoxides groomii, Lapworth, 

 1891, and the associated trilobites from the basement beds 

 of the Middle Cambrian of Comley Quarry. Among the 

 latter there are two or three other species of Paradoxides, 

 represented by fragments insufificient for specific deter- 

 mination ; also a species of Dorypyge, allied to D. orietis, 

 Gronwall, and one of Conocoryphe allied to C. emarginaia, 

 Linnarsson. He also describes some of the trilobites from 

 a higher horizon containing Paradoxides davidis, Salter, 

 -'I'll P. rugulosus, Corda ; and notes on the brachiopoda 

 1 this horizon are contributed by Dr. Matley. A 

 [)lete list of the trilobites hitherto identified from the 

 ' Cambrian deposits is given. — Dr. D. Woolacott : 

 stratigraphy and tectonics of the Permian of Durham 

 \rvnthern area). The Permian strata of Durham and 

 Northumberland lie unconformably on a basin of the Coal 

 Measures ; they may be divided into : — (4) upper red beds 

 with salt and thin fosslliferous Magnesian Limestones 



NO. 2164, VOL. 86] 



(only exposed in the south of Durham), 300 feet ; (j) the 

 Alagnesian Limestone ; (2) the Marl Slate, 3 feet ; (i) the 

 Yellow Sands, from o to 150 feet. These beds, which, 

 vary much in thickness, lie in North Durham in the 

 general form of a syncline beneath Sunderland. The un- 

 fossiliferous Yellow Sands are probably a deltaic forma- 

 tion reassorted by wind, the other beds being the result 

 of deposition in an inland sea undergoing desiccation. 

 The magnesium carbonate existed in the waters of the sea, 

 and was either deposited along with the calcium carbonate 

 or introduced by seepage when the beds were being laid 

 down. Great changes in the amount and distribution of 

 these carbonates have, however, taken place since deposi- 

 tion. The percentage of calcium carbonate is sometimes 

 more than 99, while that of magnesium carbonate is 

 occasionally as much as 50. The fauna of the Magnesian 

 Limestone is very restricted (about 140 species) and 

 most peculiarly distributed. The marked pala»ntological 

 features are the profusion of individuals in the Middle 

 Fosslliferous Limestone (which appears to have formed a 

 shell-bank in the Middle Magnesian-Limestone sea), and 

 their sudden disappearance in the Upper Limestone. No- 

 corals, echinoderms, polyzoa, brachiopods, or cephalopods 

 have ever been found above the top of the Middle Fossll- 

 iferous division, only a few fishes, gastropods, lamelli- 

 branchs, entomostraca, and foraminifera occurring in the 

 Upper beds. The Lower and Middle Fosslliferous Lime- 

 stones are marked by the presence of Producttts horridus. 

 Sow. Fish-remains occur at two horizons, namely, the 

 Marl Slate and the Flexible Limestone, and the beds above 

 these deposits. The Brecciated beds, which occur at 

 various horizons, chiefl}', however, in the two Middle 

 divisions, constitute the most marked tectonic feature of 

 the Magnesian Limestone of the area. They have been 

 produced by thrusting, which brought about a decrease in- 

 the lateral extension of the Permian. Associated with the 

 breccias are other proofs of thrusting : — (t) thrust or 

 shear-planes ; (2) disturbed and displaced masses of Lower 

 Limestone ; (3) intruded bre<?cias ; (4) slickensided ancT 

 grooved, horizontal and vertical surfaces ; (5) cleavage ; 



(6) folding, both on a local and on a general scale ; 



(7) buckling, thickening, and squeezing-out of beds ;• 



(8) phacoidal and other structures ; and (9) fissuring. 



Dublin. 



Royal Dublin Society, March 28.— Mr. R. Lloyd 

 Praeger in the chair. — Prof. T. Johnson: (i) Archae- 

 opteris simplex, sp.nov. ; (2) Is Arch.neopteris, Dawson, a 

 pteridosperm ? The author gave an account of his- 

 examination of specimens of ArchfEopteris, Daws., in the 

 botanical division of the National Museum, and in the 

 Royal College of Science, Dublin. He recorded in the 

 first part of his paper the occurrence in the south of 

 Ireland, in the Upper Devonian beds, of A. hibernica, var. 

 minor, Cr^pin, .4. roemeriana, Gopp., and A. Tchermaki, 

 Stur, in a fertile state. In the second part of the paper 

 certain features in the structure of .-1. hibernica, Forbes, 

 sp., are described. The more interesting features are the 

 presence of fertile adaxial and sterile abaxial lolx-s in the 

 fertile pinnule or sporophyllule, the vascularity of the 

 stalk of the sporangium, and the transverse septation of 

 the latter. The paper concludes with a discussion of the 

 relationship of Archaeopteris to the Ophioglossacea?, the 

 Sphenophvllacea^, and the Pteridospermea:. — Dr. J. H. 

 Pollok : The vacuum-tul>e spectra of the vapours of some 

 metals and metallic chlorides. The author showed repro- 

 ductions of the spectra of the metals or chlorides of 

 thallium, lead, copper, bismuth, iron, aluminium, 

 chromium, manganese, nickel, cobalt, barium, strontium, 

 calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, and lithium 

 taken by means of his new quartz vacuum tube. .As 

 observed' in the spectra referred to in part i. of this paper, 

 there is invariably a marked difference between the spectra 

 taken without a -condenser and with a condenser in the 

 secondary circuit. In the former case bands show a 

 greater tendency to develop, in the latter there are in- 

 variably manv more lines, but some become weaker. The 

 new lilies, and lines that become stronger, are very gener- 

 ally those showing the discontinuous lines when metallic 

 electrodes are sparked in air, and a sph-r-'ril -onH-no-r is 

 used in photographing. 



