470 



NATURE 



[June i, 191 i 



five hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the 

 University of St. Andrews. 



Mk. K. Newstead, lecturer in economic entomology and 

 parasitology in the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, 

 has been appointed to the newly established Dutton 

 memorial chair of entomology in the University of Liver- 

 pool. 



Thb Mathematical Society and the Society of Applied 

 Physics of Gottingen have given 100,000 marks to a fund 

 for' the creation of an Institute of Mathematics in connec- 

 tion with tho University of Gottingen. Two donations of 

 50,000 marks from manufacturing houses have also \ii-.'\\ 

 received. 



We learn from Science that the Alabama legislatur. .-,. 

 made the University of Alabama an additional grant of 

 60,000/., to be expended during the next four years for 

 maintenance and new buildings. On his recent visit to 

 Pittsburg, Mr. Carnegie presented the Carnegie Technical 

 Schools with a valuable 72S-acre tract of land that he had 

 owned for some years, twenty-five miles up the Allegheny 

 River from Pittsburg. It will be converted at once into 

 an experimental station and engineering camp. 



We learn from the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 

 that a system of schools and stations to teach agriculture 

 in the several States, in harmony with the plan for 

 apprenticeship trade-schools, has recently been sanctioned 

 by the Brazilian Government. At the head is to be a 

 higher school of agriculture and veterinary surgery, situated 

 at Rio de Janeiro. The school will give education 

 fitting students for places as experts in the general 

 extension of agricultural training. With the cooperation of 

 the State Government, agricultural schools, experimental 

 stations, model farms, and stock ranches will be established 

 as soon as the genera! working out of the plans justifies 

 such work. Elementary instruction in rural industries will 

 be encouraged in schools for elementary education already 

 established. By demonstrations at experimental stations 

 and elsewhere it is intended to instruct farmers in the use 

 of modern implements and methods necessary to success 

 in farming. 



The Education (School and Continuation Class Attend- 

 ance) Bill was presented to the House of Commons by 

 Mr. Runciman on May 26. The principal objects of the 

 Bill are to abolish the existing half-time system, to enable 

 local education authorities to compel the attendance at 

 continuation classes up to the age of sixteen of children 

 who have ceased to attend a public elementary school, and, 

 where this compulsion is not applied, to make fourteen 

 the normal age for leaving school. At present a child 

 under fourteen years of age can obtain exemption from 

 school attendance in different ways, according to the dis- 

 trict. These methods depend upon previous attendance at 

 school, or proficiency, or a combination of the two. The 

 Bill proposes that compulsory attendance at school up to 

 the age of thirteen shall be universal, and not dependent 

 upon local by-laws. Beyond thirteen years, under the 

 Bill, every child must either continue to attend school up 

 to the age of fourteen, or — where the principle of com- 

 pulsion to attend continuation classes to the age of six- 

 teen has been adopted in the locality — obtain special 

 exemption from school attendance on the ground that he 

 is entering beneficial employment, when he will, of course, 

 attend the continuation school until the age of sixteen. 

 An exception is made in the case of children beneficially 

 employed in agriculture, for these may be specially 

 exempted from school attendance at thirteen, even when 

 there is no provision for compulsory attendance at con- 

 tinuation classes. If the Bill is passed, the half-time 

 system disappears by which children employed during part 

 of the day or week are compelled also to attend an 

 ordinary elementary school for other parts of the day or 

 week. 



The recently published report of the .Apprenticeship and 

 Skilled Employment Association, which deals with the 

 work accomplished during 19 10, is interesting reading. 

 The object of the association is the promotion of the 

 industrial training for boys and girls by apprenticeship 

 and other methods, including arrangements for attendance 



NO. 2170, VOL. 86] 



at trade schools aad at technical clasMS. The central 

 office of the association ;- •-•---•--' -t bring all local 

 agencies dealing with the nent of bogr* and 



girls into cooperation will. — It sufiplemaats, 



when necessary, the industrial information obtained by 

 local committees ; it encourages the formation of new 

 committees ; it arouses public interest in the objects of th»r 

 association by organising conferences, and issues such 

 literature as may be useful. The report shows th " 

 association has been successful in maintaining 

 relations with the Board of Trade, \h- r,.-n..r 

 Office, the London County Council, and 

 cerned directly or indirectly with the objo' 



on. It may be mentioned that the experiment : 

 on previous occasions in these columns, of tr 

 lind suitable employment for boys and girls who have _ 

 hitherto been employed as laboratory monitors in secondary Jjf 

 and higher grade schools, continues to receiv '"^ ■ -•"■"- 

 tion of the association. During the year u: 

 out of twenty-nine boys applying, fifteen havr 

 by the association in appropriate situations. So far, i"-- 

 efforts to place the girl laboratory monitors have met wit!i 

 no success, although various firms — chiefly dyers and 

 cleaners — have been applied to. The question of employ- 

 ing girls as laboratory attendants is, says the report, n 

 doubtful one, and it would be well if the advisability - i 

 employing girls in this capacity were reconsidered. Th^^ 

 offices of the association are at 36 and 37 Denison House, 

 Vauxhall Bridge Road, S.W. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Royal Society May 25. — Sir Archibald Geikie, K.C.B., 

 president, in the chair. — The Hon. C. A. Parson* ani 

 S. S. Cook : E.xperiments on the compression of liquiK 

 at high pressures. During the experiments on ti 

 behaviour of carbon under high pressures and temper. - 

 tures, described in a paper by Mrs. C. A. Parsons, June 

 27, 1907, to the Royal Society, very considerable volu- 

 metric compressions were observed in the case of oils and 

 other liquids. The present paper records some investiga- 

 tions into those compressibilities. The apparatus consists 

 of a hydraulic press capable of exerting a maximum force 

 of 2000 tons. Under the press is placed a massive block 

 of gun steel, with a 4-inch hole and plunger of tool steel 

 packed with a cup leather reinforced by a brass cup, which 

 has been found to be satisfactory up to pressures of 40 tons 

 per square inch, and quite tight for fiuids. The estima- 

 tion of the total friction by the method of the loop 

 diagram, and the correction for the elasticity of the mould 

 packings and ram by the method of replacing a known 

 volume of the fluid by steel, are fully described, and the 

 pressure in the mould is given by the water-gauge pressure 

 on the rams of the press, plus the weight of the moving 

 parts multiplied by the constants. The fall of temperature 

 on sudden removal of pressure, and the curves for iso- 

 thermal and adiabatic compression, are given for sonie«t 

 fluids. From these data the internal work of the fluid \s^ 

 calculated for water, ether, and parafliin oil. In the pre-j 

 liminary experiments the pressure was carried up t<w 

 40 tons per square inch, but because no advantage wa»| 

 apparent and some inconvenience was involved, the^ 

 pressure was limited to 4550 atmospheres, under whichr4 

 water is compressed to 87 per cent, of original bulk. Th'i 

 results as to compressibility are in close agreement wid»5 

 those of Amagat, so far as the latter were carried, i.e. ^ 

 3000 atmospheres. — Prof. W. H. Bragrar and H. L. 

 Portor : Energy transformations of X-rays. There seems 

 to be good reason to suppose that the energj' of the 

 secondary kathode ray comes from the energy of thej 

 primary X-ray. This leads to the " corpuscular " theorf^ 

 of the X-ray (and similarly of the 7 ray). Each such raj 

 must move without gradual change of form or energ" 

 until at last an atom through which it is passing cat^ 

 the conversion of form, that is to say, the transformation 

 to kathode-ray energ\\ On this view (i) the absorption! 

 of X-rays means simply the transformation of energy,J 

 and (2) the X-ray itself does not ionise at all. The 



