September 23, 1915] 



NATURE 



109 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



London. — Mr. H. G. Plimnur, F.R.S., has been 

 appointed professor of comparative pathology in the 

 Royal College of Science, South Kensington. 



Four lectures will be delivered at Gresham College, 

 E.C., on "Typhus Fever and Cerebrospinal Menin- 

 gitis," on October 5-8, by Dr. F. M. Sandwith, 

 Gresham Professor of Physic. The lectures are free 

 to the public, and will begin each evening at six 

 o'clock. 



A SERIES of lectures on "The Wonder-workers of 

 the Soil" will be given in the fellows' rooms of the 

 Royal Botanic Society of London, Regent's Park, 

 \.W., on October 4,^ 11, and 18, by Prof, W. B. 

 liottomley. The lectures will deal with : — (i) soil 

 bacteria in relation to soil fertility ; ^2) the story of 

 soil inoculation ; (3) the discovery of auximones 

 (accessory food substances). 



By the will of Mr. W. Jackson, engineer, of Aber- 

 deen, who left, in addition to real estate, personal 

 estate in the United Kingdom valued at 77,052/., one- 

 half of the ultimate residue of his property, which is 

 subject to his wife's life interest, is left for the estab- 

 lishment of a chair of engineering in the University 

 of Aberdeen, any balance being then applied for 

 charitable or benevolent objects in Aberdeen. 



The Manchester Municipal School of Technology 

 publishes separate prospectuses of its part-time 

 courses, and those in chemistry and chemical tech- 

 nology and in mathematics, physics and natural 

 science, have been received. The part-time courses 

 include : — apprentices' day courses for engineers' and 

 other apprentices whose employers allow them to 

 devote one whole day per week to study ; evening 

 courses, involving attendance on three evenings a 

 week for five years, and leading to the Associateship 

 of the School of Technology; and other evening and 

 part-time day classes for advanced study and research, 

 in preparation for the external degrees of the Uni- 

 versity of London, in technological or trade subjects, 

 in various branches of natural science, and in other 

 subjects. Further particulars of the work of the 

 college were given in Nature for August 12 last (vol. 

 xcv., p. 664). 



The new session of the Sir John Cass Technical 

 Institute, Aldgate, E.C., which is especially devoted 

 to technical training in chemistry, metallurgy, and 

 physics, and in the artistic crafts, will commence on 

 September 27th. The instruction in experimental 

 science provides systematic courses for London Univer- 

 sity examinations in addition to the courses on higher 

 technological instruction, which form a special feature 

 of the work of the Institute. The curriculum in con- 

 nection with the fermentation industries includes 

 courses of instruction on " Brewing and Malting " and 

 on the " Micro-Biology of the Fermentation Indus- 

 tries." A series of lectures dealing with the supply 

 and control of power has been arranged. These will 

 comprise lectures on "The Supply and Control of 

 Liquid, Gaseous, and Solid Fuel," '" Electrical Supply 

 and Control," and "The Transmission of Power." In 

 the department of physics a special course will be 

 given on "Colloids," which will deal with the methods 

 employed in their investigation and their relation to 

 technical problems; also special lectures on "The In- 

 fluence of Surface Tension on Chemical Phenomena." 

 In the metallurgy department special advanced courses 

 are provided on gold, silver, and allied m.etals, 

 iron and steel, metallography and pyrometry, heat 

 treatment of metals and alloys, and mechanical testing 

 of metals and alloys. 



NO. 2395, VOL. 96] 



The calendar f6r the current session has reached us 

 from the Merchant Venturers' Technical College, 

 Bristol, in which the Faculty of Engineering of the 

 University of Bristol is provided and maintained. The 

 college aims at providing a sound, continuous, and 

 complete preparation for an industrial career, and its 

 work is carried out in a secondary school, in day 

 classes, and in evening classes. The calendar gives 

 much evidence of the success of the governors of the 

 college in securing the co-operation and support of the 

 employers of the district. Many engineering firms 

 have expressed willingness, other things being equal, 

 to give preference to students who have completed the 

 full college course, and some arc prepared to take 

 students at reduced premiums, while others will waive 

 premiums altogether. Many local employers exempt 

 from overtime, on not more than three days a week, 

 persons in their employ who attend the college evening 

 classes. A list of such persons is sent to each firm at 

 the beginning of the session, with a list of the nights 

 on which they ought to attend the classes ; and a 

 monthly return of the attendances of the evening 

 students belonging to each firm is also forwarded. 

 The Board of Trade accepts attendance at the evening 

 classes in engineering in lieu of a portion of the work- 

 shop service required from candidates for the Board's 

 certificate of competency as engineer. In other ways, 

 too, such as by gifts and loans of books and plant, the 

 employers of labour are showing a growing interest in 

 the useful and varied work of this important technical 

 colleere. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Geological Society, June 23. — Dr. A. Smith Wood- 

 ward, F.R.S., president, in the chair. — Prof. Xavier 

 Stainier : A new eurypterid from the Belgian Coal 

 Measures. The discovery is recorded of a specimen 

 of a new Eurypterus in the cores of a trial-boring for 

 coal in Belgium. The fossil, which is in a satisfac- 

 tory state of preservation, is described. A short de- 

 scription of the eleven Carboniferous species known 

 up to the present is appended. The nearest form to 

 the Belgian fossil seems to be a Pennsylvanian 

 Eurypterus, which, nevertheless, is not identical with 

 the former. The geological range and the evolution 

 in time of the twelve Carboniferous eurypterids is 

 discussed. — R. B. Newton : A fossiliferous limestone 

 from the North Sea. The material was trawled from 

 the floor of the North Sea. It presents no appearance 

 of glaciation, so that its occurrence in situ seems to 

 be highly probable. There is no record of a similar 

 limestone from either England or Scotland. It is of 

 highly siliceous character and full of marine shells, 

 of which the Pelecypoda are the more prominent ; 

 there are fragments of wood in contact with the lime- 

 stone which appear to show coniferous characters. 

 Some twenty-three species of mollusca have been 

 determined, all of which exhibit a southern facies, in- 

 cluding a new dosiniform shell belonging to the genus 

 Sinodia, the relationships of which are confined to 

 the Indian Ocean regions of Southern Asia. Eighteen 

 of the species trace their origin from the. Vindobonian 

 stage of the Miocene, ten may be regarJed as extinct, 

 whereas twelve still exist in recent seas. The 

 majority of the species are fairly evenly distributed in 

 both the Coralline and the Red Crag formations of 

 East Anglia, although it is thought that the rock must 

 be of older age than Red Crag. .Additional support 

 is given to this view, because such shells as Arcoperna 

 sericea, Tcllina betiedeni, and Panopaea menardi are 

 not known of later age in this country than the 

 Coralline Crig. The occurrence also of extinct 



