3o8 



NA TURE 



[January 27, 1898 



dates must be medical students of not less than eight terms' 

 standing. The value of the scholarships is 55/. a year for two 

 or three years. Applications are to be made to the tutors by 

 March i. 



M. Gernez, mattre de conferences at the Paris Normal 

 School, has been nominated director of the chemical research 

 laboratory, in succession to the late M. Joly. 



Prof. Frank Clowes has been elected Emeritus Professor 

 of Chemistry in the University College, Nottingham, on accept- 

 ing the position of chief chemist and chemical adviser to the 

 London County Council. He will thus retain his professorial 

 title and status, though no longer performing professorial duties. 

 The following is the resolution of the College Committee : — 

 " Resolved that in recognition of the valuable services rendered 

 to the College by Prof. Clowes, first in organising the Chemical 

 Department, and afterwards for sixteen years discharging the 

 duties of Chemical Professor, and for three years the duties of 

 Principal, an honorary position of Emeritus Professor of this 

 College be conferred upon him." 



The Somerset County Education Committee assists technical 

 education in the county in a number of ways, but no branch 

 of its work is likely to prove of more permanent value than 

 the system of aids to public secondary schools, for the pur- 

 poses of securing efficient teaching of scientific and technical 

 subjects. These grants usually take the form of capitation 

 grants, with the provision that, if made at all, the minimum 

 amount will be 100/. per annum. Schools receiving the grants 

 are open at all times, without previous notice, to inspection 

 by Mr. C. H. Bothamley— the Director of Technical Instruc- 

 tion—or other officer appointed for the purpose by the County 

 Committee. It is satisfactory to find that the increased 

 efficiency of the schools which has resulted from the aid and 

 supervision of the County Committee has led in several in- 

 stances to a marked increase in the number of pupils attend- 

 ing them. In addition to annual grants the Committee has 

 aided schools by grants for building and equipment. There 

 are, however, still considerable areas of the county in which 

 a supply of efficient secondary education is almost entirely 

 wanting. But the report of the County Committee points 

 out that until local authorities receive the wider powers which 

 it is hoped may be given to it by a Secondary Education Act, 

 it will be almost impossible to provide for boys and girls that 

 adequate supply of secondary education of a modern type, 

 which, it cannot be too often repeated, is the only foundation 

 on which it is possible to rear a system of higher technical 

 education such as will bring the higher sections of the indus- 

 trial community in this country up to the same level of know- 

 ledge of their work as their competitors in foreign countries. 

 It is also now becoming generally recognised that secondary 

 education of the kind referred to is rapidly becoming indis- 

 pensable to every one who desires to occupy a position of con- 

 trol and responsibility in his particular calling in life, whether 

 he afterwards endeavours to add any higher technical training 

 to his general education or not. The Somerset Committee 

 fully recognise this educational principle, and their report 

 shows that they act upon it so far as teey are able. 



Schools of Science carried on in connection with the De- 

 partment of Science and Art are schools in which systematic 

 courses of instruction are followed. When these conditions are 

 fulfilled, and a fair proportion of students take advanced 

 courses, a special grant is made to the schools in addition to 

 the ordinary grants. Recently, the Inspectors of the Depart- 

 ment were given instructions to report on all cases of Schools of 

 Science where the students leaving at the end of the first year, 

 or at the end of the second year, exceeded twenty-five per cent., 

 the idea being that such schools had no claim to be recognised 

 as true Schools of Science, for a sufficient proportion of the 

 students did not continue the systematic course of work laid 

 down. This action of the Department has met with consider- 

 able opposition from teachers and school authorities who wish 

 to obtain the special grant without being qualified for it. 

 Numerous schools which do not fulfil, and never expect to 

 fulfil, one of the essential conditions upon which the institution 

 of a special grant to Schools of Science was originally approved, 

 are yet claiming the special grant for such schools instead of the 

 ordinary grant. The Department has now issued a .second 

 memorandum stating that it is not desired to press unduly, by 

 any hard and fast rule of percentage, on those schools which 



NO. T474, VOL. 57] 



may, if time be allowed them, establish themselves as Schools 

 of Science, when it is clear that there is a bona fide effort to 

 make them such. More than this cannot very well be conceded, 

 for grants can be earned for instruction in any ordinary science 

 or art school or class, without the creation of a School of Science, 

 in the same form as in a School of Science, i.e. on attend- 

 ance. These grants are large, though not on so high a scale as 

 in a School of Science. The Departmental Circular points out 

 that the only justification of a grant higher than the ordinary 

 one IS that the school which receives it should fulfil conditions 

 which are not required from ordinary schools and classes. 

 Whether the conditions required should be in any way modified 

 can only be properly considered when the information called 

 for by the Department has been obtained. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 

 Bul/ettn of the American Alathetnatical Society, December 

 1897. — In accordance with the amended by-laws of the Society 

 (May 29, 1897), by which it was arranged that four New York 

 meetings annually should be held instead of eight, as previously, 

 viz. on the last Saturdays of October, February and April, and 

 an annual meeting in the last week of December, a meeting was 

 held on October 30. The object of the change is to secure 

 greater prominence and interest for each meeting, and to afford 

 the members of the Society a better opportunity for scientific 

 and social intercourse. Each meeting now extends through two 

 sessions, held in the morning and afternoon. Forty-one persons 

 (thirty-seven members) were present, and this after the recent 

 successful meeting at Toronto. Nine papers were read, of 

 which abstracts are given here. Some of the papers are printed 

 in the present number, and others will be published in journals 

 whose titles are given. — Note on hyper-elliptic integrals, by 

 Prof. A. S. Chessin, is one of the papers. If X^ is a polynomial 

 in X of degree r ; and V,n(x), Q„(.r)i . . . polynomials in x of 

 degrees ;//, ;/,..., we know that the integration of 



where 



Jyix, >Jx;)dx, 



f{x, six,.] 



is a rational function oi x and Vx,-, is reduced to the integra- 

 tion of 



['R(x)dx 



J \/x; ^^^' 



where R(x) is a rational function of x. Prof. Chessin gives a 

 practical rule for the integration of (/). — Certain classes ot point 

 transformations in the plane, by Dr. E. O. Lovett, was read at 

 the May meeting. It is proposed to apply the transformations 

 to plane curves (spirals) in a subsequent note. The properties 

 discussed and the points of view differ sufficiently (in the 

 author's opinion) from the forms discussed by Laisant {Nonvelles 

 Annates, 1868, p. 318) to warrant its publication. — Prof. H. B. 

 Newson in a paper, read at the April meeting, entitled " Con- 

 tinuous groups of circular transformations," has for his object the 

 presentation of the outlines of a fairly complete theory of the 

 continuous groups of linear fractional transformations of one 

 variable. His method differs from the methods of Lie. — Dr. C. 

 A. Scott, in her review of " Julius Plucker's Gesammelte Mathe- 

 matische Abhandlungen " (edited by A. Schoenflies, 1895), gives 

 a very interesting sketch of this first volume, which contains 

 thirty-nine memoirs by Pliicker and Clebsch's " Gedacht- 

 nissrede " from the sixteenth volume of the Gottitigett Abhand- 

 lungen. From the " Notes" we learn that Prof. Newcomb, the 

 President of the Society, had chosen the philosophy of hyper- 

 space as the subject of his address at the annual meeting 

 (December 29, 1897). — The valuable list of new publications 

 covers a wide field of mathematical work, 



Bulleii?i de VAcaddmie des Sciences de St. PHersbourg, 1896, 

 Tome V. No. 3. — Report of the work of the Russian Archaeo- 

 logical Institute at Constantinople, byTh. Ouspensky. The chief 

 work of the Institute is the collection and the study of antiquities ; 

 excursions to Trebizonde, Samsun, Sinope and Athens were 

 organised for this purpose. A library and a small museum have 

 been opened. — The declinations of fourteen stars which were 

 observed at Pulkova for the study of the variations of latitude 

 at Kazan, byA. Ivanof. — On vinil-trimethylene and ethylidene- 



