December 30, rgaoj 



NATURE 



58: 



up in which for a certain number of hours a day they 

 will learn the rudiments of the many branches of the 

 industry. During; the remaining portion of the day 

 thev will be employed in makinf< themselves useful in 

 one or other of the many departments of the firm. 

 The speed at which they will learn their business will 

 depend upon their own efforts, aided by all the assist- 

 ance that can be given to them in the way of 

 instruction. 



.\n interesting pamphlet has been published by the 

 Lniversities Bureau of the British Empire, 50 Russell 

 Square, London, W.C.i, containing lists of the 

 students and teachers from our Colonies and from 

 foreign countries who are studying in or attached to 

 the universities of Great Britain. It is a record of 

 the large-scale hospitality which is extended by our 

 centres of learning to students of all nationalities. 

 India sends us by far the largest number of 

 students; including those from Burma and Ceylon, 

 there are as many as 665 Indian students at 

 present being educated in this country, of whom 

 2t)2 are at London University and 125 and 67 respec- 

 tively at Cambridge and O.^ford. South .\frica sends 

 a large contingent, which is divided among the same 

 universities roughly in equal numbers. Canada and 

 .\ustralia also have students in Great Britain, 

 of whom the greater number are at Oxford ; the 

 totals for these Dominions are 123 and 121 respec- 

 tivelv. Of foreign countries the United States is the 

 largest contributor; 320 students in all are over here, 

 of which 193 are at Oxford, 68 at London, and the 

 remainder are distributed between Cambridge and the 

 provincial universities. The subjects which have the 

 greatest attraction for both Colonial and foreign 

 stutlents appear to be economics and medicine. It is 

 also interesting to note that there are 56 Serbian 

 and 66 Russian students studying in our universities 

 at the present time. 



.\t a recent meeting of the trustees of the General 

 Education Board of the Rockefeller Foundation 

 grants amounting to 20,251,000 dollars were made 

 to ninety-eight colleges and universities for general 

 education and for the development of medical schools. 

 Of this sum 12,851,666 dollars will be given as fn 

 endowment to provide increases in teachers' salaries, 

 provided that the institutions themselves succeed in 

 raising for the same purpose n sum of 30,613,^334 

 dollars. Nfedical schools will benefit to the followmg 

 extent : — 1,250,000 dollars for endowment and 70,000 

 <lollars for ad<lilion.Tl laboratory facilities to Washing- 

 ton Universitv Medical School, St. Louis; i.noo.ooo 

 dollars for the endowment funds of Yale Medical 

 .School ; 300,000 dollars for improving the facilities 

 in obstetrics and 3^0,000 dollars for the development 

 of the teaching of psychiatry in Harvard Medical 

 School ; and 400,000 dollars for the development of 

 a new department of pathology in the Johns Hopkins 

 Medical School. For the furtherance of general 

 medical research r.ono.ooo dollars has been nlloted to 

 the Medical Research Foundation of F-'lizabeth, Qu^en 

 of the Belgians, Brussels. Other grants were made 

 for a number of educational purposes, 287.350 dollars 

 for rn.,operation between Stale universities and State 

 Departments of Education in the Southern States of 

 .America in the fiekls of secondary and rural educa- 

 tion, and 500,000 dollars for endowment and 443,500 

 dollar*! for current expenses and equipment of negro 

 schooU. A grant of i!,noo dollars has also f)een 

 made to the .Amfrirnn Conference on Hospital Ser- 

 vice for the purpose of establishing a library and a 

 jiervirr l)ureau, and one of 25,000 dollars to the 

 National Committee for Mental Hvgiene fl'.S.) to 

 enable if to carrv out surveys on the care and 

 treatment of mental dinrnses during the year loin. 



NO. 2670, VOL. 106] 



Calendar of Scientific Pioneers. 



January 1, 1748. John Bernoulli died.- Born at 

 Basle in i<)07, he shares with his brother James the 

 credit of developing the infinitesimal calculus, their 

 mastery of which was acknowledged by Leibniz. 



January 1, 1817. Martin Heinrich Kiaproth died.-^ 

 The first chemist in German\ to .adopt L.ivoisier s 

 views, he became in iJvx) the first professor of 

 chemistry in the newly created University of Berlui. 



January 1, 1894. Heinrich Rudolf Hertz died.— 

 Hertz, who was born in Hamburg, February 22, 1857, 

 w.nt 10 Berlin in 1878, and later became an assistant 

 to Helmholtz. .\t Kiel in 1883 he studit>d Maxwell's 

 work, and afterwards at Karlsruhe gave the first 

 exp«>rimental verification of Maxwell's electromagnetic 

 theory of light. The Hertzian waves used in wireless 

 communication are of the same nature as those of 

 light, but of much greater wave-length and with a 

 wider range. Hertz died at the age of thirty-seven, 

 soon after he had discovered how to produce .-ind 

 detect these waves, but the later development of wire- 

 less signalling is based upon his fundamental work. 



January 2, 1816. Louis Bernard Guyton de Morveau 

 died. Hv profession a l;n\>.r. Miirvcau devoted his 

 leisure to chemistry, and in 1787. with Fourcroy, 

 Berthollet, and Lavoisier, published the important 

 work "Methode de Nomenclature Chimiuuc." 



January 3, 1640741. Jeremiah Horrocks died.— 

 While a curate at H«)le, in Lancashire, llorriKks 

 at the age of twenty-two calculated and observed for 

 the first time a tr.i'nsit of Venus. This he saw on 

 November 24, 1639. Within fourteen months of his 

 great achievement he died suddenly at Toxteth. The 

 interest .aroused by the transit of 1874 U-d to a 

 memorial to Horrocks being plac<\I in Westminster 

 .■\bbcv in 1879. 



January 3, 1908. Charles Augustus Young died.— 

 One of the most energetic of American astronomers, 

 especially in spectroscopic work. 



January 4, 18H2. John William Draper died. 

 Chemist, physiologist, and historical .md philo- 

 sophical writer, Draper obtained in 1839 the first por- 

 trait by the daguerreotype process, and in 1840 the 

 first photograph of the" moon. Born near Liverpool 

 on May 5, 1811, he emigrated to .America, and .assisted 

 to found, and served as president of, the New York 

 Medi.al School. His " History of the Intellectual 

 Development of Europe " appeared in 1862. Henrj- 

 Dr.-iper (1837-82). the astronomer, was his son. 



January 4, 1906. Charles Jasoer Joly died.— Born 

 at Tullamore in i8()4. Joly in iS<)7 h.canie .Astro- 

 nomer-Royal of Irelan<l. 



January 6, 1904. Karl Alfred won Zittel died.— 

 Educated at Heidelberg, Paris, and \ ienna, 111 

 1863, when twenty-four, Zittel became professor of 

 mineralogy at Karlsruhe, and three years later si>c- 

 ceed.-d Oppel at Munich. Widely known for his 

 writings, such as his "Handbook of Paleontology 

 and his "History of fJeologv and Pal.contology to the 

 End of the Nineteenth Century," he was president of 

 the Roval Bavarian Ac.Hlemv of Sciences and a Wol- 

 laston medallist of the Grologicnl Society. 



January 6, 1913. Louis Paul Cailletet died. A 

 student at the Paris School of Mines, Cailleiel's first 

 researches related to metallurgy. Later work led 

 him to study gases under pressure, and in 1877 he 

 surcee<led in liquefying oxygen. A like result Was 

 obtnine<l at about the same time bv Pirtet at Geneva. 

 Cnillelet, who was a member of the Paris Acnd«>my 

 of Sciences, was in iqlo. at his academic jubilee, 

 referred to as "the father of modern cryog«>nirs." 



E. C. S. 



