December i, 1910] 



NATURE 



159 



technical science and industry becomes year by year more 



manifest, and it is not by chance that the immense advance 



made by our industrial life is contemporaneous with the 



progressive development of the technical university system 



in Ger^nany. The times are past in which a school of 



practice sufficed for the engineer. Whoever wishes to be 



equal to the demands made by technics in our time must 



so into the battle of life equipped with a solid scientific 



d technical education." His Majesty also remarked that 



lesia had gained for itself an eminent position through 



e assiduity and spirit of enterprise which had enabled it 



• develop its coal and iron and its spinning and weaving 

 •:idustries, and he expressed the opinion that the 

 inhabitants were perfectly justified in desiring to have a 

 technical university- in their capital. Dr. von Trott zu 

 Solz, Prussian Minister of Ecclesiastical .Affairs, address- 

 ing the Emperor, recalled the fact that it was King 

 Frederick the Great who laid the foundation of the great- 

 ness of the Silesian industries, in that he encouraged the 

 employment of Silesian coal in other industrial districts 

 and overcame the prejudice against Silesian iron. 



.\ CONFERENCE Organised by the Joint Committee for the 

 Abolition of Half-time Labour was held on November 23 



- the Church House, Westminster, with the Bishop of 

 rmingham in the chair. The meeting was called to 

 nsider the question of the employment of children in 

 lis and factories, and of securing the passage of a Bill 



iiough Parliament raising the age of " half-timers " to 

 thirteen. Prof. Sadler, in a letter expressing inability to 

 attend, said it is a drag upon the economic welfare of 

 the country that more than 200,000 children between twelve 

 and fourteen years of age have left the day school for 

 good, and that more than 40,000 more only attend school 

 half time. There is no reason in the nature of things 

 why the number of boys and girls under fourteen who are 

 wholly or partial!}- exempt from day-school attendance 

 should be proportionately six times as numerous in 

 England and Wales as in Scotland. The chairman insisted 

 that it is a ludicrous waste of energy and money to let 

 education stop at the age of fourteen, thirteen, or twelve. 

 The evil is increased by the system of half-time attend- 

 ance. Two things, he said, are necessary to stop this 

 wastage of education — to abolish the half-time system, 

 except possibly in some very extreme and exceptional 

 circumstances, and to press forward in the matter of con- 

 tinuation schools. If continuation schools are to be made 

 a real force, the hours of work in shops must be restricted. 

 It is physiologically certain that it is impossible to get 

 real good out of education so long as the bodies and minds 



■'• children are in the main occupied in getting a living. 



Aentually the following resolution, which was proposed 



Lord Sheffield, was carried :— " That this meeting 



aoproves of the recommendations of the Departmental 



Crrmmittee on partial exemption, and trusts that legislation. 



- promised by the Board of Education and unanimously 



• proved by resolution bv the House of Lords, may be 

 rried into effect in the first session of the coming Parlia- 



nt." 



Iv consequence of a suggestion of the Chancellor of the 



Exchequer made last March to a large deputation from 



' iglish universities and colleges, a committee of repre- 



itati%e? from these educational institutions was appointed 



place before the Chancellor suggestions as to the prin- 



iles of distribution on which, in its opinion, an additional 



mt to university Colleges might be utilised most 



■ctively. The committee consisted of Mr. \. H. D. 



land. Sir Alfred Hopkinson, F.R.S., Sir Oliver Lodge, 



R.S.. Sir Isambard Owen, and the Rev. Dr. A. C. 



• adlam. Conferences between the Chancellor of the 

 -xchequer and the President of the Board of Educ.ition 



with the committee were held on November 16 and 17. 



The committee expressed the view that the Treasury- Com- 



'ttee, on the advice of which grants are distributed, 



ould take into consideration : — (1) Output. — ^That is, the 



xrent and character of the work being done, including 



number of students, the nature of the instruction 



ven. and research and other work undertaken. (2) Needs 



order to carry on the work efficiently : (a) staff, and the 



Tiuneration of its members : (b) accommodation and 



iiipment. (3) Development. — The development of work 



NO. 2144. VOL. 85] 



which the several universities and colleges desire, and 

 would be in a position to undertake effectively with further 

 financial assistance, and having regard to provision already 

 made from private benefactions, or other local support, 

 or which may be obtained for such objects. The com- 

 mittee also pointed out it is essential for the universities 

 and colleges to have freedom as to the mode of expendi- 

 ture of grants to secure the greatest return from them 

 and to meet constantly varying conditions. Great import- 

 ance was attached to the grants being certain, and not 

 liable to diminution, so long as the extent and character 

 of the work are maintained. The Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer expressed himself willing to grant an additional 

 sum to the colleges to be allocated on the lines laid down 

 by the committee, but subject to the condition that 

 sufficient additional local support is forthcoming in each 

 case, not only to maintain tiie existing activities of the 

 college in conjunction with its existing Treasur}" grant 

 and to place it on a secure footing in regard to its capital 

 liabilities and requirements, but to meet a suitable propor- 

 tion of the cost of maintenance of the new developments 

 adopted. He w-as prepared to increase the total grant 

 by 50,000/., and promised (subject, of course, to com- 

 pliance with the minimum conditions as to character, 

 efficiency, &c., which any college is already required to 

 fulfil in order to participate in the grant at all) not to 

 reduce the existing grants to the several colleges. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Geological Society, November 9. — Prof. W. W. Watts, 

 I F.R.S., president, in the chair. — L. Richardson : The 

 I Rhaetic and contiguous deposits of west, mid, and part 

 I of east Somerset. This paper contains an account of the 

 i Rhaetic strata of Somerset. The sections at Blue Anchor 

 ! and Lilstock are described and correlated with those on 

 i the Glamorgan coast. The record by Prof. Boyd Dawkins 

 of Rhaetic mollusca in the top portion of the Grey Marls 

 is confirmed, and their recognition as Rhaetic is sub- 

 stantiated. The deposit between the top of the fossiliferous 

 I Grev Marls or " Sully beds " and the main bone-bed at 

 Blue Anchor measures 22 feet, and teems with Rhaetic 

 ! fossils. The beds above the bone-bed agree well with 

 ^ those occupying the same stratigraphical position in 

 Glamorgan. The now obscured sections, that were 

 to be seen in the railway-cuttings at Langport and 

 Charlton Mackrell, noticed by Mr. H. B. Woodward, are 

 described. Huge boulder-like masses of rock were noted 

 at the top of the Black Shales, and the White Lias proper, 

 with a well-marked coral-bed, totalled 25 feet in thick- 

 ness. The classic sections of Snake Lane, Dunball 

 (Puriton), Sparkford Hill (Queen Camel). Shepton Mallet, 

 and Milton (Wells), have been reinvestigated, and the 

 thin Rhaetic deposits in Vallis Vale, at Upper Vobster. 

 and sections in the Radstock district, and on the Nemp- 

 nett and neighbouring outliers, are described. This 

 investigation has shown that the Microlestes Marls are 

 equivalent to the Sully beds ; that the W^edmore Stone 

 occurs well below the bone-bed ; that Moore's " flinty 

 bed " at Beer Crowcombe is probably on the horizon of 

 the Pleurophorus bed (No. 13) : that the Upper Rhaetic 

 is as persistent as usual ; that the W'hite Lias proper is of 

 restricted gec^raphical extent ; and that on the Bristol 

 Channel littoral are marls, " Watchet beds," above the 

 White Lias, .\round Queen Camel. Moore's " insect and 

 crustacean beds " appear to come in at a horizon which 

 lies between the Watchet beds and the Ostrea Limestone. 

 .\ classification of the Rhaetic series is suggested. The 

 fauna of the Rhaetian is Swabian in facies. and the con- 

 clusion to be derived from the study of the beds is in 

 agreement with Suess's view, that while the dominant 

 movement was one of subsidence and not local but ex- 

 tended, it was, nevertheless, "oscillatory and slow." — 

 Rev. G. J. Lane : Jurassic plants from the Marske 

 quarrv. The Marske quarn,- is situated on the northern 

 side of the Upleatham outlier in the Cleveland district of 

 Yorkshire. In the quarn.' several varieties of rock are 



