293 



NATURE 



[October 27, 192 1 



Cambridge and Women. 



T T is well to place on record here the nature of the 

 coricession to the cause of the education of women 

 for which the Senate of the University of Cambridge 

 voted on October 20 : — 



"The University shall have power to confer by 

 diploma Titles of Degrees in anv faculty upon students 

 of a recognised institution for the higher education of 

 women, who have done all that is required of them 

 by the Statutes and Ordinances of the University. . . . 

 The University may also admit members of such 

 recognised institutions to instruction in the Univer- 

 sity as well as to the use of its libraries, laboratories, 

 and museums, and it shall have power to determine 

 the numbers to whom and the conditions on which 

 any or all of these privileges shall be granted." 



The granting of titular degrees to past and present 

 students of Girton and Newnham Colleges does re- 

 move one real grievance from which these students 

 have suffered in the educational world. The Old 

 Guard at Cambridge, with their numerous supporters 

 outside, have at last reached the position held by 

 more enlightened members of the University four- 

 and-twenty years ago. In that there is some hope. 

 Possibly in another twenty-four years some such 

 scheme as the compromise recently worked out in 

 the University may pass the Senate' in its turn. Or 

 perhaps ere that government of the University by the 

 University for the University will have ' become 

 possible. 



. The women's colleges have announced their inten- 

 tion of renewing their appeal (suspended until the 

 recent vote had been taken) to the Roval Commission 

 at present sitting on Oxford and Cambridge Universi- 

 ties. They will, of course, be heard, and not much 

 doubt is entertained as to the result. The women 

 stand to gain a better position in the University from 

 Parliament than the Cambridge Senate is prepar^ed to 

 grant them. Like the Nonconformists in the last 

 century, they will have to be forced upon the Uni- 

 versity, as they rightly refuse to accept the suggestion 

 that they can go elsewhere. Once they are inside, 

 Cambridge will assimilate them as she has absorbed 

 new constituent members in the past, and Cambridge 

 will gain strength by them as she has gained from 

 her other late-comers. The pity of it is that Cam- 

 bridge should hold out so obstinately against this 

 development, and that her successful resistance 

 should have been marked by an outburst of disgrace- 

 ful behaviour on the part of some of her voung and 

 thoughtless sons. 



T 



Aerial Photography. 



HE annual Traill-Taylor lecture was delivered at 

 the Royal Photographic Society's house on 

 October 11, by M. L.-P. Clerc, who chose "Aerial 

 Photography and Photo-topography " for his subject. 

 M. Clerc is an acknowledged authority on this topic, 

 since for practically the whole period of the war he 

 was one of the moving spirits in connection with 

 photography in the French Army, and for many years 

 before this he was a recognised authority on both 

 practical and scientific photography. The lectursr 

 sought to avoid dealing with such subjects as have 

 already been treated of by others, but spoke of many 

 matters that are of prime importance in such work, 

 and interesting, though affecting to a less degree, per- 

 haps, photography of the more usual kinds. 



Sufficient attention has not, so far, been paid to the 

 effects of such low temperatures as are likely to be 



NO. 2713, VOL. 108] 



experienced at convenient heights for topographical 

 work. A fall from 75° F. to zero increased the focal 

 length of a lens of 21-in. focal length by one-half 

 per cent. The effect of this is aggravated by the 

 contraction of the camera body, which if of metal 

 might be as much as half a millimetre, and so an 

 appreciable error is introduced. 



Although the importance of light-filters to reduce or 

 eliminate the effect of atmospheric haze was recognised 

 by the German army from the beginning of the war, 

 M. Clerc spent more than three years without fully 

 convincing the staff of the French Air Force of the 

 necessity for them. Nor was the Force supplied with 

 panchromatic plates, which, of course, are necessar\' 

 when a deeply coloured filter is employed. 



Practically all the cameras used by the various 

 armies had focal plane shutters, but these suffered 

 from grave defects. The blind was generally too far 

 from the plate, and the ordinary motion of a high- 

 speed aeroplane would cause elongation, compression, 

 or torsion of the image during the tenth of a second 

 usually necessary for the blind aperture to pass over 

 the plate (whole-plate size), and the error of location 

 of a point on the ground might be more than 15 ft. 

 A between-lens shutter to give three or four thou- 

 sandths of a second at 60 per cent, efficiency with a 

 lens of 3-in. diameter, would require a movement of the 

 leaves at the rate of about 140 ft. a second, which is 

 practically impossible. It was therefore necessary to 

 improve the performance of the focal-plane shutter, 

 and many devices which were more or less successful 

 are described. 



The lecturer dealt also with the relative advantages 

 of plates and roll-films (cut films being out of the 

 question as embodying the disadvantages of both), the 

 construction of cameras, their suspension from the 

 aeroplane, and the orientation of the image. The 

 use of metal sheaths for plates is condemned because 

 of the uncertainty of the position of the sensitive 

 surface. It is insisted that the mechanism for plate 

 changing must be as automatic as possible, but with- 

 out intricate and delicate parts which will not stand 

 rough treatment. JNL. Clerc is a strong advocate of 

 the desensitisation of the plates before development bv 

 Liippo-Cramer's process, as it greatly facilitates visual 

 control, and this is very desirable in order to balance 

 duly the getting of density and the avoidance of too 

 much fog from the effect of the atmospheric haze. 

 This process was actually adopted bv the French and 

 Japanese armies. In due time the lecture will be 

 published in full in the society's journal. 



University and Educational Intelligence. 



Cambridge. — Dr. T. S. Hele, Emmanuel College, 

 and Dr. R. A. Peters, Gonville and Caius College, 

 have been appointed University lecturers in bio- 

 chemistry; and Mr. A. Berry, King's College, has 

 been re-appointed University lecturer in mathe- 

 matics. 



The Ra^-mond Horton-Smith prize has been awarded 

 to Mr. A. G. Evans, Trinity College. 



The regulations for the examination for the diploma 

 in psychological medicine have been published. 



London. — At a meeting held on October 19 the 

 Senate considered a communication from the London 

 County Council inviting the Senate to explore the 

 possibilities of the Holland Park Estate as a site for 

 London University before further action is taken in 

 the Bloomsbury proposal. 



In the reply which was e\entually adopted, it was 

 stated that with the degree of approval of the 



