December 29, 19 10] 



NATURE 



295 



Judging from a speech by Mr. Beeby, the Minister of 

 Public Instruction at Milthorpe, on November 3, a report 

 of which has reached us, education in all its grades is 

 likely to receive generous treatment from the new Labour 

 Government in New South Wales. Among other develop- 

 ments in education which it is proposed to foster is the 

 inauguration of continuation and trade schools, and a 

 large extension of technical schools, with the view of 

 keeping boys and girls who leave school at an early age 

 to enter " blind-alley " employments under observations 

 and under the influence of active and interested minds 

 much older than their own. New regulations as to the 

 high schools are under consideration also. Their main 

 object is to establish a well-defined course of secondary 

 education in certain selected schools, and in that way to 

 abolish the present unsatisfactory position of superior 

 1 public schools in which children get a smattering of educa- 

 tion without any definite result. These regulations provide 

 for the establishment of high schools, the abolition of 

 tuition fees — the periods and character of instruction in 

 high schools and superior public schools differentiating the 

 two types — the institution of certificates of attainments, 

 and the localisation of scholarships within districts, to 

 secure their distribution throughout the States. The 

 Government believes also that reforms in the constitution 

 of the university are necessary before any serious increase 

 in State subsidies is considered, and this matter is under 

 consideration. As regards the question of compulsory 

 attendance at continuation and trade schools, the Govern- 

 ment proposes to face an alteration of industrial laws to 

 provide for the shortening of the working hours of boys 

 and girls up to the age of eighteen, and their attendance 

 at school for a certain number of hours each week. It 

 is satisfactory to find that the new Government of New 

 South Wales believes that the people of this State will 

 support cheerfully any proposal for a large increase in the 

 education vote so long as the money is spent wisely, and 

 will make every effort to carry out the reforms indicated. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Zoological Society, December 13. — Mr. G. A. Boulenger, 

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

 The segmentation of the occipital region of the head in 

 the batrachia Urodela. This paper was based upon the 

 author's studies of the development of the head region of 

 the Axolotl iAmblystoma tigrinum). The head of the 

 Axolotl contained three segments behind the auditory cap- 

 sule. Three metaotic somites were developed in these 

 segments, of which the first soon disappeared, and the 

 second and third contributed to the formation of the 

 temporal muscle. To the first segment belonged the glosso- 

 pharyngeal nerve, to the next two the vagus. The 

 occipital condyles were developed between the third and 

 fourth somites. The two hypoglossal roots corresponded 

 to the fourth and fifth metaotic segments, and passed out 

 in front of the first and second vertebrje. In the Amniota 

 all these segments were included in the head. The skull 

 of an amphibian was thus shorter than that of a mammal, 

 yet the condyles were homologous in the two animals. 

 The shifting backwards or forwards of the condyles was 

 brought about, not by the inter- or ex-calation of segments, 

 but by a transposition from one segment to another. The 

 shifting of the condyles was comparable to the transposition 

 of the limbs on the trunk-segments. — Oldfield Thomas : 

 The mammals of the tenth edition of Linnaus : an attempt 

 to fix the types of the genera and the exact bases and 

 localities of the species. It was shown that by the use 

 of tautonymy the types of nearly all the Linnae'an genera 

 could be definitely fixed, the conclusions arrived at by this 

 means agreeing in most cases with common usage. The 

 type of Simia^ however, would not be S. satyrus, but 

 S. sylvana, and of Dasypus D. novemcinctus instead of 

 D. sexcinctus, the consequences of which changes were 

 pointed out. Pygathrix, as represented by the two species 

 nemaeus and nigripes, was shown to be generically distinct 

 from Presbytis, so that the latter name still remained avail- 

 able for the ordinary Langurs. Changes in specific names, 

 due to a complete examination, were shown to be less 

 numerous than might have been expected, while the 



NO. 2148, VOL. 8sl 



stability of mammalian nomenclature was much increased 

 by avoiding the danger of what such an examination might 

 lead to. Type localities, derived from the original authors 

 quoted by Linnaeus, w^ere defined for a considerable number 

 of the species. — Dr. W. E. Hoyle : Report of the Inter- 

 national Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. A dis- 

 cussion of the report followed on the portion relating to 

 the formation of an official list of most frequently used 

 zoological names. The feeling of the meeting was very 

 strongly in favour of the International Congress giving its 

 authority to the formation of a list of zoological names, 

 the significance of which should not be altered by appli- 

 cation of the rules of the international code. It was 

 unanimously agreed to accept the action of the Congress if 

 it would adopt this course. 



Royal Meteorological Society, Decembtr 21. — Mr. H. 

 Mellish, president, in the chair. — Captain C. H. Ley : 

 Report on balloon experiments carried out at Blackpool 

 in the early part of the year. The proposal was to employ 

 balanced pilot balloons, which, floating in a current with 

 no upward or downward hydrogen velocity, would repre- 

 sent the motion of a particle travelling in that current. 

 Difficulties, however, arose which prevented the scheme 

 being carried out as originally planned. Ultimately, a 

 hydrogen balloon, or twin-system of hydrogen balloon and 

 heavy satellite, was so valved as to have a large lift at 

 first, but to continuously lose gas under the action of a 

 leak until a certain point is reached, when the valve 

 closes, when in accordance with previous adjustment it is 

 nearly in equilibrium. The vertical motion of a fresh 

 wind blowing over a flat country is very slight as a whole, 

 but subject to marked variation on special occasions. In 

 the lowest stratum in the late afternoon there is frequently 

 a large descending current. The apparent effect of a river 

 is to check the wind velocity and cause a downward move- 

 ment of air over the whole area of the river valley. — 

 Captain C. H. Ley : The meteorological significance of 

 small wind and pressure variations. In this paper the 

 author compared the " ya wings " of the wind at Black- 

 pool with the small variations of atmospheric pressure as 

 recorded by the microbarograph. — Dr. Wilhelm Schmidt : 

 Atmospheric waves of short period. 



Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, December 21. — 

 Mr. Edgar Taylor, president, in the chair. — F. Gillman : 

 Malaga magnetites. In a previous paper the author sug- 

 gested that the magnetites of Malaga, Spain, were 

 originated by segregation from the peridotite magma, and 

 the present paper was written to confirm this suggestion 

 after a detailed examination of one characteristic deposit 

 at Estepona. This deposit is intimately related to the 

 serpentinised peridotite which constitutes the entire mass 

 of the adjacent mountains, and is about half a mile 

 distant from the nearest metamorphic or sedimentary- 

 rocks, and the results of work executed on the ore body 

 serve to show that the deposit consists of serpentine, 

 which is sterile above a certain line, and more or less 

 ore-bearing below. — R. W. Hannam : A method of 

 raising bore-casings from a pontoon. This brief note 

 describes a simple method of withdrawing bore-casings 

 from a river bed by means of the surplus buoyancy of 

 native pontoons. A crowd of natives was employed to 

 weigh down the pontoon, and the bore-casing was secured 

 to it when thus depressed. At a given moment the natives 

 sprang overboard, and the buoyancy of the pontoon was 

 sufficient to withdraw the bore-casing. — H. C. Bayldon : 

 Notes on Chilian mills in Russia. The author provides a 

 useful and instructive treatise on the slow-running Chilian 

 or " edge-runner " mill invariably used in Russia for 

 crushing gold ores as a preliminary to amalgamation, &c. 

 After a brief historical summary the paper deals with a 

 description of the standard type of Chilian mills now in 

 use, and of the milling methods adopted in Russia, and 

 this is followed by notes on an improved type of Chilian 

 mill and milling plant recently introduced. The descrip- 

 tions are suitably illustrated, and there are ample statistics 

 relating to mills and their efficiency. The author is of 

 opinion that, if the same amount of thought and attention 

 were devoted to the development of this type of mill as 

 has been given to the heavy stamp-tube mill combination 

 in South Africa, it would prove a serious rival and give 

 a product nearer to the ideal aimed at on that goldfield. 



