452 



NATURE 



March ic, 1898 



and the Northampton Institute has done well to adopt such a 

 means of encouraging earnest work. The Lord Mayor and 

 Sheriffs have consented to pay a State visit to the Institute on 

 .March i8, for the purpose of inspecting it and declaring it 

 formally open. The buildings and equipment have up to the 

 present cost over 80,000/., and the expenditure upon the latter 

 is not yet complete. In addition the land — over one and a 

 quarter acres — generously given by the late Marquis of North- 

 ampton, is estimated to be worth not less than 25,000/. The 

 Institute is a branch of the City Polytechnic, and is situated 

 in one of the busiest parts of the metropolis immediately north 

 of the City boundary. 



From the sixth annual report of the Technical Instruction 

 ■Committee of the City of Liverpool, we gather the following 

 items': — The Committee clearly recognises that-technical educa- 

 'tioH is 'inseparably bound up with general secondary and higher 

 education, and must be organised in vital connection therewith. 

 — After some delay, a commencement has been made with the 

 erection of the new Central Technical Schools. The cost of 

 the erection of the building comprising the new schools and 

 the museum extension will be nearly 90,000/. — The Committee 

 remark that it would be more satisfactory if greater attention 

 , were . paid to mensuration and other • practical applications of 

 elementary mathematics ; since it is a frequent complaint, on 

 the part of teachers of special technical classes, that their 

 students come to them with too little mathematical knowledge 

 and aptitude, and are often unable to grapple with even simple 

 quantitative problems. This, difficulty not only. applies to 

 Liverpool, but to technical classes.in most parts of the country. — 

 The co-operation of the University College with the educational 

 work of the Committee is most satisfactory, and is of great 

 assistance in the construction of an organised scheme of technical 

 instruction. • . . . \ 



The London University Commission Bill was read a second 

 time in the House of Lords on Friday last. In moving the 

 second reading, the Duke of Devonshire pointed out thdt the 

 measure was founded on the recommendations of the' Royal 

 Commission which reported in favour of the two functions of 

 teaching and examining being combined in one University for 

 London. The Bill is substantially the same as that which 

 passed the House of Lords in the last Session of Parliament, 

 but ■ reached the House of Commons too late to be carried 

 through all its stages. To provide against the occurrence of a 

 similar difficulty, the Bill has been' introduced earlier in the year 

 than has hitherto been found possible ; which gives grounds for 

 the hope that it will take its place on the Statute-book before 

 the close of the present Session. A very large part of the 

 formidable opposition against the Bill has been removed by the 

 introduction of certain modifications. These amendments are 

 in the direction of restricting the power of any future Senate to 

 alter the statutes or regulations made by the Statutory Com- 

 mission , in accordance with the provisions contained in the 

 schedule of the present measure. " I cannot even now assert 

 that opposition no longer exists," said the Duke of Devonshire, 

 *' but it is very difficult indeed to understand upon what grounds 

 the measure can be opposed. I have endeavoured to show by 

 what an overwhelming amount of scientific teaching, opinion, 

 tind experience it is supported, and I am utterly unable to dis- 

 cover any weight of opinion on the other side which can for a 

 moment enter into competition with the expressions in its 

 favour." Lord Herschell and Lolrd Reay warmly supported the 

 Bill, which was then read a second time 



At the recent meeting of the Federated Institution of 

 Mining Engineers, Prof. Henry Louis, Durham College of 

 Science, Newcastle, read a paper on " Technical Education in 

 Mining." which should be seen by all Technical Education 

 Committees having mining classes. Prof. Louis made, at the 

 outset, a broad distinction between the training suitable to the 

 working miner or subordinate mine official, and that suitable to 

 mining engineer or general manager. As regards the former he 

 ought to leave his Board school in about the fifth standard, and 

 commence receiving his technical instruction — a very different 

 thing from technical education — underground, whilst continuing 

 his scientific education in evening continuation and science 

 schooKs. It is greatly to the' discredit of the powerful and 

 wealthy miners' unions of this country, that they make no 

 attempt to provide the rising generation with scientific training 

 bearing on their work, especially seeing that such training is the 

 best possible safeguard against accideiit. For both working 



NO. 1480, VOL. 57] 



miners and engineers, the present legislation, that takes rto ac- 

 count of time spent in learning the sciences underlying the art 

 of mining, is most pernicious. Mining students ought to enter 

 some mining college at the age of seventeen, and devote at least 

 three years to learning first the pure and then the applied sciences 

 that they will require in their profession, but none of the pure 

 .sciences need to be studied very profoundly. The systematic 

 neglect of the study of dressing of minerals in this country has 

 already had serious commercial results, e.g. at Nenthead, and 

 its cultivation is urged. Prof. Louis suggests the introduction 

 of the American system of "Summer Mining Schools" as a 

 method worthy of trial for giving college students an insight 

 into practical work, but points out that college work alone with- 

 out practical experience is insufficient. On the very open 

 question as to whether college work should precede or follow 

 practical training. Prof. Louis holds the former to be probably 

 the better plan. He concludes with the following recommenda- 

 tions, (i) Every manager of a mine, whether coal or metal- 

 liferous, to hold a certificate. (2) Examinations for certificates 

 to be controlled by a central Board, and made uniform in con- 

 ditions and character for the whole of Great Britain (and if 

 possible for the Colonies also). (3) Residence in a recognised 

 science college to count as part of term of apprenticeship, 

 whilst not less than three years underground should also be in- 

 sisted, on. . (4) Every mine surveyor to hold a certificate of 

 proficiency. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, January 27. — " Mathematical Contributions 

 to the Theory of Evolution. On the Law of Ancestral Heredity." 

 By Karl Pearson, F. R.S., University College, London. 

 . The Darwinian theory has for its main factor the perpetuation 

 of favourable variations by natural selection under the law of 

 heredity. Hence any complete quantitative treatment of evolu- 

 tion must deal (i) with the nature and distribution of variation ; 

 (2) with the nature and influence of selection, and this not only 

 upon the selected but upon all correlated characters or organs ; 

 and (3) with the law of heredity. Earlier published and other 

 written but unpublished papers of the present writer cover to 

 some extent the ground of (i) and (2). Although the mathe- 

 matical theory of variation and selection is yet very far from 

 completion, the general lines on which it will proceed seem 

 fairly clear. With the law of heredity, however, the case has 

 hitherto been different. Much has been written on the subject, 

 much has been attributed to inheritance, but the quantitative 

 measurements and facts have formed such a .small and slender 

 proportion of the whole, that it has been extremely difficult to 

 base a rounded mathematical theory on what is really known. 



The very suggestive theory of heredity developed in Mr. 

 Galton's " Natural Inheritance" has two main features: (a) a 

 theory of regression, which states the average proportion of any 

 character which will be inherited under any degree of relation- 

 ship. This theory is very simple : if the average of the sons of 

 any parent has w of the parent's deviation from the average 

 parent, then the average grandson would have w- of the devia- 

 tion, and so on. Collateral heredity is also determined, and for 

 two brothers was found equal to 2w. Mr. Gallon's value of w 

 was i. 



[b] A law of ancestral heredity. According to this law the 

 two parents contribute \, the four grandparents 4. the eight great 

 grandparents ^, and so on, of the total heritage of the average 

 offspring. 



These two parts of the theory, however, are not in entire 

 agreement. 



The recent publication of Mr. Galton's remarkable paper on 

 ancestral heredity in Bassett hounds has, however, led the writer 

 to reconsider [b). If that law be true, then for every organ and 

 for every grade of kinship the amount of heredity is numerically 

 determinable. The solution of the problem of heredity is thrown 

 back upon the solution of an infinite series of linear equations. 

 Their solution gives results which seem to the writer in good 

 agreement with all we at present know about the influence of 

 heredity in various degrees of kinship. For example, fraternal 

 is no longer twice filial regression, but has a value {o'4000) well 

 in accordance with calculations of English stature and Indian 

 cephalic index. In short, if we discard Mr. G.ilton's relations 

 between the regressions for various grades of kinship, and start 



