April 14, 192 1] 



NATURE 



22r 



The annual report, covering the period February, 

 1920- February, 192 1, of the University College (Lon- 

 don) Committee has just been issued. During the year 

 2S33 whole-time students were enrolled, of whom more 

 than 40 per cent, were jvomen ; for evening and vaca- 

 tion courses there were 389 and 287 enrolments 

 respectively, and in each case there were more than 

 twice as many women as men. The figures quoted 

 for whole-time students include 38? who are engaged 

 F on post-graduate and research work. The report 

 contains a record of the principal activities of the 

 f college during the year, and also the annual financial 

 i statements, according to which the expenditure has 

 been nearly 119,000/. The revenue from fees was 

 45,oooL, and a further sum of about 71,000/. w^as 

 provided by income from endowments, donations, and 

 grants, leaving a deficit for the year of some 2600L 

 The most important benefaction which has been 

 received is the Rockefeller gift for medical education. 

 By the terms of the trust deed the Rockefeller 

 Foundation has offered to give 400,000/. to Univer- 

 sity College Hospital Medical School to assist in build- 

 ing and equipping a clinical unit such as the college 

 authorities may consider desirable, and a further sum 

 of 435,000/. will be given towards the support of 

 clinical facilities and teaching; the Universitv of 

 London, on behalf of L'niversity College, is offered a 

 sum of 190,000/. to assist in extending the anatomv 

 and physiology schools at the college, and a further 

 sum of 180,000/. to form an endowment for laboratorv 

 teaching. In every case the original plans of the 

 college authorities will be the basis of all the changes 

 made. The total sum of money which is being placed 

 at the disposal of the college amounts to no less than 

 1.205,000/. 



A SPECIAL luncheon was held on April 7 at the 

 Royal Hotel, Bristol, in connection with the move- 

 ment to re-establish the West of England in its 

 former position of leadership in the new era of pro- 

 gress upon which the Empire is now entering. The 

 V Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bristol, Sir 

 [ Isambard Owen, after referring to the proud record 

 of the West of England from the fifteenth century 

 until the period following the Napoleonic wars, pointed 

 out that in the present period of reconstruction it still 

 retains its dominant natural advantages, together with 

 a relativeh' much greater increase of population than 

 the rest of the country. In this new era, when exact 

 scientific knowledge and the capacity to use it are 

 "the foundations of progress, the universities are the 

 pivot of the educational system, in that they are 

 ; directly and indirectlv responsible for the training of 

 the teachers in our schools, so that no class can remain 

 : indifferent to the welfare of the universities. The 

 : University of Bristol is fortunate in possessing an un- 

 encumbered site of 13^ acres near the heart of the 

 city, and throug-h the princely generosity of the late 

 Mr. H. O. Wills and his sons, Messrs. G. A. and 

 H. H. Wills, it is being housed in a pile of university 

 buildings unsurpassed in this country outside Oxford 

 and Cambridge. What is now required is money for 

 endowments, for staff, and for working capital, and an 

 appeal is to be made for public support. In common 

 with the other English universities, Bristol is over- 

 crowded with students in every faculty, whilst income 

 has shrunk to less than half its pre-war value. 

 Government support is increasing, the neighbouring 

 counties are promising grants, but private benefactions 

 are urgently required, and they are essential to ensure 

 the freedom and independence of the University and 

 to provide the highest knowledge and intellectual 

 training for all who are capable of profiting bv it! 

 The universities are ready to rise to their privileges 

 if only the peoole who can will aid theni financially. 

 & NO. 2685. VOL. 10;] 



Calendar of Scientific Pioneers. 



April 14, 1895. James Dwight Dana died. — Professor 

 of natural history and geology at Yale, Dana, like 

 Darwin, .laid the foundation of his work during 

 scientific voyages in the southern seas. He had a 

 world-wide reputation as a zoologist, geologist, and 

 mineralogist. 



April 15, 1894. Jean Charles Gailisard de Marignac 

 died. — A native of Switzerland, Marignac was pro- 

 fessor of chemistry at Geneva. To test Prout's hypo- 

 thesis he determined with extreme care the atomic 

 weights of twenty-eight of the elements. He also 

 studied problems in physical chemistry. 



April 16, 1788. George Louis Leclerc, Comte de 

 Buffon, died. — As director of the Jardin des Plante? 

 and as author of the " Histoire Naturclle," Buffon 

 invested science with new dignity and interest. Fer- 

 tile in ideas, he helped to pave the way for the 

 modern theory of evolution. 



April 16, 1888. Sigismund Wroblewski died.— 

 Wroblewski spent six years as an exile in Siberia. 

 Afterwards, when professor of physics at Cracow, he 

 did important work in the condensation of gases at 

 low temperatures. 



Aoril 16, 1901. Henry Augustus Rowland died. — 

 Like Langley, Rowland began life as an engineer. 

 In 1876 he became the first professor of physics in 

 the Johns Hopkins University. He redetermined the 

 value of the ohm and the mechanical equivalent of 

 heat, and made fundamental studies of the solar 

 spectrum. His diffraction grating was described in 

 1882. At his death his remains were cremated and 

 ouried beneath his famous ruling engine. 



April 16, 1914. George William Hill died.— One of 

 the greatest masters of dynamical astronomy. Hill 

 was for thirty vears connected with the American 

 Nautical Almanac. Newcomb was his colleague. 



April 17, 1905. Otto Wilhelm von Struve died.— In 

 t86i Struve succeeded his father as director of Pul- 

 kowa Observatory, adding greatly to the reputation 

 of what Gould called the astronomical capital of the 

 world. 



April 18, 1873. Justus von Liebig died. — Born in 

 1803, Liebig at the age of twentv-three became pro- 

 fessor of chemistry in the small town of Giessen, 

 which by his teaching and discoveries and great per- 

 sonalitv he made the Mecca of young students of 

 chemistry. One of the most illustrious chemists of 

 his age, his work on agricultural chemistry raised 

 him to the rank of a benefactor of mankind. He died 

 at Munich, whither he had removed in 1852. 



April 19. 1882. Charles Robert Darwin died. — 

 Through Henslow, the Cambridge botanist, Darwin 

 became naturalist to H.M.S. Beagle and spent five 

 vears exploring the South Seas. In 1842 he settled 

 at Down, in Kent. His views, with those of Wallace, 

 on natural selection were given to the Linnean Society 

 in julv, i8,8. and the following year he published his 

 "Origin of Soecies." Marking as it does a turning- 

 point in the historv of thought, this work was the 

 first of a series which made Darwin the great inspiring 

 leader of evolutionary biology. 



April 19, 1906. Pierre Curie died. — ^The discoverer 

 svith his brother in 1883 of piezo-electricity. Curie with 

 his wife, Marie Sklodowska, while studying pitch- 

 blende in 1898, announced the existence of polonium 

 and radium. .At the time of his death Curie was 

 professor of phvsics at the Sorborlne. 



Aoril 20, 1786. John Goodricke died. — The son of a 

 Yorkshire gentleman. Goodricke three years before his 

 death, when onlv nineteen vears of age. received the 

 Copley medal for his discovery of the period and cause 

 of the changes in the variable star Algol. E. C. S. 



