234 



NATURE 



\_yuly 3, 1879 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE 



Mr. and Mrs. Henry Sidgwick contribute each 500/. to 

 the building fund (11,000/. being required) for the new hall to be 

 built at Newnham, Cambridge, for women students, under 

 the " Newnham College Association " for the advancement of 

 education and learning among women in Cambridge. Miss 

 Clough, the principal of Newnham Hall, whose unpaid services 

 are of incalculable value, also gives 500/. to this new building, 

 which will include lecture-rooms, &c., as well as residence for 

 thirty. Prof, and Mrs. J. C. Adams, Dr. and Mrs. Bateson, 

 Mr. and Mrs. Peile, &c., are among the large donors, and the 

 Rev. Coutts Trotter, of Trinity College, is a donor of 100/. 



The Chemical Laboratory of Newnham Hall, which has cost 

 over 1,000/., is now complete, and will be available for all the 

 students of the Newnham Association. So also will be the" 

 Gymnasium and Garden. The Old Newnham Hall company is 

 now merged in the new association, differing from the former in 

 the contributors not being permitted to receive any profits. It 

 is needless to add that the old association did not actually receive 

 any profits, though registered as an ordinary " limited " liability 

 company. 



The main purpose of the Irish University Bill, introduced to 

 the House of Lords on Monday by Government, seems to be the 

 creation of an institution similar to that of London University, 

 prepared to grant degrees to all comers. In order to do this 

 Government propose to establish a new University, to consist of 

 a Chancellor and Senate to be appointed by the Crown, and not 

 to exceed thirty-six in number. But though nominated in the 

 first instance by the Crown, arrangements would be made to fill 

 up a certain number of the vacancies afterwards, so that Convo- 

 cation might have the election of six members of the Senate. 

 The Government proposed, vnth regard to the Convocation, that 

 it should consist of the graduates who had obtained their degrees 

 in this University, or any one who might be transferred to or 

 become graduates from the other University. The Government 

 proposed that the Senate should elect the Vice-Chancellor, and 

 also that the new University thus constituted should appoint 

 examiners and conduct examinations for matriculation ■ and 

 degrees, and that it should confer degrees in all faculties except 

 theology. They proposed that those degrees should be granted 

 without regard to residence in any particular college, that the 

 examinations for those degrees should be with regard to the 

 standard of efficiency only, and that the degrees should be con- 

 ferred on all who came up to the standard, and they proposed 

 that there should not be any professors or lecturers connected 

 with the University, thus following the example of the University 

 of London. The Government are of opinion that steps should 

 be taken for the dissolution of Queen's University, and that 

 graduates of Queen's should become graduates of the new Uni- 

 versity, and those who were matriculated students of one should 

 be so of the other, and possess all the same privileges and ad- 

 vantages in the new University as they did in Queen's. 



Five years ago, when the late Lord Lawrence publicly presented 

 the first Mortimer Scholarship Prize, Prof. Huxley made a speech 

 which has proved prophetic. It was to the effect that the ladder 

 of Board School education planted in the gutter might land such 

 lads as Baker in the highest universities. That lad enjoyed his 

 Mortimer Scholarship (worth 30/.) one year. He then obtained 

 a scholarship in the City of London School. In four years more 

 he obtains an open scholarship in Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 at seventeen years of age. An immediate result of this success 

 of the Elementary Education Act is that the Brewers' Company 

 have since presented two scholarships to the London School 

 Board. 



It was stated in Parliament on Monday that a petition having 

 been presented to the Queen in Council, praying Her Majesty 

 to grant a charter for a new Northern University, to be called 

 the Victoria University, Her Majesty had been advised to grant 

 the petition. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 



Annalen der Physik und Chemie, No. 5. — From experiments, 

 here described, on magnetisation of steel during the hardening 

 process, Herr Holtz concludes that the method offers no advan- 

 tages in practice. Magnets can, indeed, be thus made six times 



as strong as by the ordinary method, but this holds good only 

 for extremely weak magnetising force ; as you increase the force 

 the difference rapidly decreases, and ere long becomes in favour 

 of the ordinary method. — Herr Schellbach and Herr Boehn 

 describe some instructive effects got on plates covered with 

 carbon-dust placed under a discharger of a Leyden jar. Various 

 devices were introduced for reflection, &c., of the sound-waves, 

 whose mechanical action is indicated by the resultant figures on 

 the plates. — Herr Wroblewski finds that a tenfold increase of 

 the viscosity of water (by dissolving a crystalloid or colloid in it) 

 produces only a five or six-fold diminution of the value of the 

 constant for diffusion of carbonic acid in pure water. — The 

 lowering of tone undergone by a sounded tuning-fork when 

 immersed in liquids having been attributed by Herr Auerbach to 

 the circumstance that kinetic energy is dispersed in incom- 

 pressible liquids in another way than in gases (the changes of 

 state in liquids being supposed to occur isothermally, in gases 

 isentropically), H;rr Kolacek offers another explanation based 

 on mechanical principles. — In an inaugural dissertation Herr 

 Freund writes on some galvanic properties of aqueous metal-salt 

 solutions, his experiments having been made by Paalzow's 

 method ; and the results for sulphate of copper solution differing 

 about 5 per cent, from those formerly obtained by Herr Beetz, 

 he offers an explanation of this ; which, however, Herr Beetz 

 rejects, adhering to his own numbers. — Herr Ketteler contributes 

 a paper on the theory of double refraction, and Herr Raijmels- 

 berg writes on some topics in mineralogical chemistry. 



Morphologisches Jahrbuch, vol. 5, part I. — This number con- 

 tains no fewer than thirteen lithographic plates. Three of these 

 illustrate Oscar Hertwig's second part of his memoir on the 

 piscine dermal skeleton. He deals now with the ganoids 

 (Lepidosteus and Polypterus). — R. S. Bergh, on the early deve- 

 lopment of the ovum of Gonothyraa loveni (AUman), 3 plates, 

 40 pages.— G. Born, the nasal cavities and passages of the am- 

 niotic vertebrata (3 plates, and about So pages). — O. Kling on 

 Craterolophus tethys, a contribution to the anatomy and histology 

 of the Lucernaridie (3 plates, 26 pages). — A. Rauber, on the 

 occurrence of budding among the vertebrata (2 plates). 



Zdtschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Zoologie, vol. 32, part 2. — J. E. 

 Boas, the teeth of the Saroids (25 pages). — R. Wiedersheim, the 

 anatomy of Amblystoma ■weismanni, with two large coloured 

 plates. — R. Greef, the pelagic annelids of the Canary Islands 

 (45 pages, 3 plates) ; with discussions on the comparative anatomy 

 of the Tomopteridae, and figures and defcriptions of Pontodora, 

 &c., and several new species of Tomopteris. — H. Simroth, on 

 the locomotion of Limax ; two plates figuring L. civereoniger. — 

 J. Ciamician, on the histology and embryology of Tuhularia 

 mesenibryanthcmum (25 pages, 2 plates). 



Kosmos, vol. 3, part I, April, 1879. — The '''■»' article, 

 " Natural Science in the Middle Ages," by Fritz Schultze, refers 

 especially to Roger Bacon.— The controversy about Planorbis 

 multiformis (1st art.), by F. Hilgendorf, is, among other figures, 

 illustrated by a series of outlines of the different varieties of P. 

 mtUtiformis, as seen in section, &c., and referring to Sandberger's 

 views. — Hermann Miiller contributes an article of 16 pages, on 

 Samuel Butler's " Life and Habit." 



RtaU Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere, Rendiconti, vol. 

 xii. fasc. X. — We note here the following: — Researches on the 

 electric conductivity of carbon (continued), by Prof. Ferrini. — 

 On a surface of capillarity, by Dr. Poloni. — Influence of climate 

 and soil on the combustibility of tobaccos, by S. Cantoni. 



Journal de Physique, June. — Spectroscope for observation of 

 ultra-violet radiations, by M. Cornu. — Spectrometric measure- 

 ment of high temperatures, by M. Crova. — Magnetic rotatory 

 power of gases, by M. H. Becquerel. — Magnetic rotatory power 

 of liquids and their vapours, by M. Bichat. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 

 London 



Royal Society, June 19. — " Researches in Chemical Equiv«- 

 lence. Part III. — Nickelous and Cobaltous Sulphates." By 

 Edmund J. Mills, D.Sc, F.R.S., and J. J. Smith. 



Although the chemistry of nickel and cobalt is interesting 

 from many points of view, it is more especially attractive from 

 the probable isomerism of these metals. Their combining pro 

 portions, in fact, according to the most valuable evidence we 

 possess, appear to be entirely the same. The authors, therefore. 



