December 2, 1915] 



NATURE 



I'^l 



should serve in the Royal Army Medical Corps. It 

 may be hoped that students of similar standing, who 

 have qualified themselves in various branches of science 

 and technology, will be found suitable places in other 

 branches of the Services, where their special knowledge 

 will be used to the best national advantage. 



The appeal issued last July from the Office of the 

 Hoard of Education for books to supply the needs of 

 th<,> 4000 or more British civilian prisoners interned in 

 the concentration camp at Ruhleben in Germany met 

 with a hearty response. More than 2000 volumes, 

 mostly standard works, were contributed, and for- 

 warded to Ruhleben. A second appeal has now been 

 received from the camp for more books, and in giving 

 publicity to it the Board of Education desires, to thank 

 all those who responded to the original request, whether 

 for offers of books or of money. Under the auspices 

 of a Camp Education Department a school and a science 

 and art union have been organised at Ruhleben, which 

 now have numerous classes, and some 150 lecturers 

 and teachers, and 1500 students, divided into nine 

 departments, which include two in engineering, and 

 one each in mathematics and science, elementary 

 ])liysics, and navigation. The necessary funds for the 

 t (lucational work carried on at Ruhleben are raised 

 l)v voluntary contributions among the prisoners them- 

 si Ives, and no prisoner is debarred by lack of funds 

 from sharing in the advantages of the camp school. 

 In responding to the appeal for additional books of an 

 educational character it is requested that intending 

 donors will, in the first instance, fill up and return a 

 form which will be supplied on application. A careful 

 selection will then be made, and notified to the donor, 

 of the books suitable for despatch (through the Board 

 of Education) to Germany, so as to comply with the 

 very strict regulations which govern the transmission 

 of literature to the camp. All communications on the 

 subject should be addressed to Mr. Alfred T. Davies, 

 Board of Education, Whitehall, London, S.W. Enve- 

 lopes should have the word " Ruhleben " written in 

 the left-hand corner. 



The confident prediction in our note last week on 

 the articles in recent issues of the Morning Post on 

 British universities and the call to arms, that when 

 particulars of other than English universities were 

 forthcoming it would be found that a similar satis- 

 factory response had been made by Wales, Scotland, 

 and so on, is borne out by the third article published 

 by our contemporary on November 23. Taking the 

 three constituent colleges of the University of Wales, 

 the article shows that Bangor has about 230 students 

 serving, and that five have been killed; that Aberyst- 

 wyth has 284 in the forces, and that eleven have been 

 killed or are among the missing; and that Cardiff 

 has about 285 serving. One of the inevitable effects 

 of the flocking of the students to the Colours has been 

 a decrease in the number of candidates for examina- 

 tions. Thus, while in June, 19 14, the candidates for 

 initial degrees numbered 10 17, the number fell this 

 year to 790. Generally speaking, the decrease in the 

 attendance at the Scottish universities since the out- 

 break of the war, though very marked, has not been 

 as large as in some of the English centres of learning. 

 In the case of the University of Edinburgh, up to 

 July 8, when an edition of the roll of honour was 

 published, 853 students were known to be serving with 

 the Colours, besides 2562 graduates and alumni ; 62 

 had lost their lives, and 87 had been wounded. It was 

 recently estimated that 1500 old students and 600 pre- 

 sent students of the University of Glasgow were serv- 

 ing with the forces. About fifty are believed to have 

 been killed, and many wounded. Apart from these, 

 about 300 are engaged in munitions work. A number 

 of senior medical students who have been invalided 



NO. 2405, VOL. 96] 



are returning to finish their course at the University, 

 having been specially advised to do so. About 280 

 students of Aberdeen University are serving with the 

 forces. The casualties at the end of September num- 

 bered 15 killed and 38 wounded. Of the graduates, 

 alumni, and students of the University, more than 

 1300 are on naval and military service, and about 1 10 

 are under military training. The response from 

 St. Andrews University has also been satisfac- 

 tory. The writer of the article had received insufficient 

 information to enable him to deal in detail with Irish 

 universities. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Royal Society, November 23. — Sir William Crookes, 

 president, in the chair.— M. ilack, O. W. Urifflth, and 

 L. Hill : The measurement of the rate of heat loss 

 at body temperature by convection, radiation, and 

 evaporation. An investigation of the rate of cooling 

 of a surface at body temperature (i) dry, (2) wet, 

 under varying conditions of atmosphere, with the 

 view of elucidating the effects of climate, and of heat- 

 ing and ventilation of rooms on health and comfort. 

 A large-bulbed spirit thermometer is employed of 

 standard pattern — the Kata thermometer; methods of 

 calibrating have been worked out, and a factor deter- 

 mined for each, so that the rate of cooling can be 

 expressed in milli-calories per sq. cm. per sec. Some 

 thousands of observations have been made in still air 

 under varying conditions, and the cooling curves 

 plotted; the theory of cooling detailed is the work of 

 the late O. W. Griffith. Experimental results, in- 

 dependently obtained, agree with theory. — E. W. A. 

 Walker : The growth of the body in man. The rela- 

 tionship between the body-weight and the body-length 

 (stem-length). Observations have been made on in- 

 fants, children, and young persons up to early adult 

 age in order to determine whether any definite rela- 

 tionship could be shown to exist between the body- 

 weight and the body-length. By the term body-length 

 is meant the stem-length measured from the top of 

 the head to the tine joining the ischial tuberosities. 

 This measurement corresponds to the body-length in 

 animals, and was chosen in order that results obtained 

 for man might be brought into comparison with those 

 for other animals. The author finds that throughout 

 the period of growth stem-length in man can correctly 

 be expressed as a functionof body- weight, and con- 

 forms to the formula, l — k.w^; where I is stem-length, 

 w weight, k a constant, and n a power of approxi- 

 mate value l- For the male the value of n (to two 

 places of decimals) is 033, for the female it is 032. 

 If the stem-length differ by as much as 165 per cent, 

 from the value calculated from the body-weight by 

 means of the appropriate formula, the individual may 

 be regarded as abnormal. — Prof. A. J. Brown and F. 

 Tinker : The rate of absorption of various phenolic 

 solutions by seeds of Hordeum vulgare, and the fac- 

 tors governing the rate of diffusion of aqueous solutions 

 across semi-permeable membranes. It has been 

 pointed out previously that the seeds of Hordeum 

 (barley) are enclosed by a membrane which exhibits 

 the exceptional property of differential permeability. 

 When the dry seeds are immersed in aqueous solutions 

 of most inorganic acids and salts, sugars, etc., water 

 alone passes through their containing membrane; 

 with other classes of solutes, however, such as the 

 phenols, fatty acids, and monohydric alcohols, the 

 solute enters the seeds together with water. In order 

 to learn something of the physical properties which 

 presumably govern the exhibition of differential per- 

 meability (only recognised to a marked extent with 



