December 23, 19 15] 



NATURE 



473 



tory that he so generously gave. It is interesting to 

 note how quickly things aeronautical have progressed 

 since Mr. Alexander's first gift. In the course of an 

 address which he gave on that occasion he said " care- 

 ful demonstrations with kites and gliders" had been 

 made in connection with the laboratory which he had 

 given, while to-day both kites and gliders have almost 

 been forgotten ! But though great changes have 

 occurred, the tribute which he then paid to the Aero- 

 nautical Society of Great Britain is, if possible, truer 

 to-day, while his closing words are peculiarly interest- 

 ing now: — "There never was a time when England 

 held a more dominant sway of mankind, and whether 

 we have to fight on the seas, on land, or in the air, 

 British brains and British boys are as good as they 

 ever were, and the boys going through their training 

 at this college will prove that Old England means to 

 have and keep the supremacy of the air." Mr. Alex- 

 ander has nominated as his co-trustees Mr. A. A. 

 Somerville (head of the Armv Side, Eton College) and 

 Mr. E. G. A. Beckwith. 



The principal of the Northampton Polytechnic In- 

 stitute presented his annual report at the distribution 

 of prizes to the students on December i8. The report 

 refers more particularly to the work of the session 

 1914-15. When the enrolments of students were made 

 up at the end of the session, it was found that the 

 total number of students during the session had been 

 1748, as against 2101 in the preceding session. As 

 usual, the work has received the support of the trades 

 affected. For the eleventh year in succession the prin- 

 cipal has been 'able to place, without payment of any 

 premiums, the whole of the second and third year 

 engineering students in commercial workshops for the 

 summer. In fact, this was easier than usual because 

 by Easter the loss of skilled workers was making itself 

 felt in all engineering trades. A roll of distinction 

 which has been compiled shows that twenty-two mem- 

 bers of the staff, 226 students, and 119 members of 

 the polytechnic, making 367 in all, have joined the 

 colours. Of these more than fifty have obtained com- 

 tnissions in one or other of the Services. The roll of 

 honour shows the names of those who have given 

 their lives for the service of their country or who have 

 been wounded in that service. There are seven in the 

 first category and six in the second. As regards the 

 war work being done at the polytechnic, the report 

 points out that courses for drafts from the artillery 

 divisions of the new armies were organised and have 

 been continued down to the present time. The courses 

 consisted of classes in field telephony, in range finding, 

 and in plane table work and map reading. Altogether 

 897 individual students have passed through these 

 courses, and thanks have been received from White- 

 hall and from the divisional headquarters, as well as 

 from individual brigades. The manufacture of muni- 

 tions, also, has been undertaken. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Royal Meteorological Society, December 15. — Major 

 H. G. Lyons, president, in the chair. — F. J. Brodie : 

 The incidence of bright sunshine over the United 

 Kingdom during the thirty years 1881-1910. The 

 author described the steady increase in the use of sun- 

 shine recorders from the somewhat crude type invented 

 by Mr. J. F. Campbell in the early part of last century 

 to the improved pattern of Sir George Stokes of 1879, 

 which has remained in use with very slight modifica- 

 tion to the present day. The paper is based on figures 

 taken from appendix iv. of the Weekly Weather Report 

 for 1913, published by the Meteorological Office, and 

 the maps which have been constructed differ somewhat 

 NO. 2408, VOL. 96] 



in detail from those appearing in the official volume. 

 The author dealt with the prevalence of sunshine, both 

 by the s^sasons in their usual grouping, and annually. 

 He also referred to the average number of sunny days 

 at Greenwich and Falmouth, and to the loss of sun- 

 shine recorded in London and other large manufactur- 

 ing centres. He showed that the abatement of the 

 smoke evil tended to an increased record of sunshine, 

 and placed the large towns more on a footing of 

 equality with the urban districts.— Dr. W. Galloway : 

 Remarkable cloud phenomena. The author described 

 the curious and rapid changes which took place in a 

 small portion of a thundercloud, witnessed on July 31 

 last year near Ormesby Broad, Norfolk. The pheno- 

 mena pointed to the occurrence of electrical discharges, 

 but neither rain, thunder, or lightning occurred. 



Royal Anthropological Institute, December 14. — 

 Prof. A. Keith, president, in the chair. — J. Reid Moir : 

 The evolution of the earliest Chelles palaeoliths of the 

 pointed type from the rostro-carinate implements. A 

 series of ten flint implements from (a) the detritus-bed 

 below the Red Crag ; (b) the stone-bed below the Nor- 

 wich Crag; (c) the Middle Glacial gravel of Suffolk; 

 and (d) river-gravels in the Thames valley and at 

 Warren Hill in Suffolk are described, and it is shown 

 that the most primitive type of rostro-carinate has 

 j been evolved by gradual stages into the earliest Chelles 

 I pala&olith of the pointed type. These stages are as 

 j follows : — (i) The substitution of a ventral plane 

 I formed partly by blows for the vefitral plane composed 

 j entirely of cortex; (2) the gradual elimination, by flak- 

 I ing, of cortex from the ventral plane, and also the 

 production of a dorsal plane by blows, and devoid of 

 I cortex ; (3) the gradual reduction in width of the 

 ventral plane until a cutting edge is produced, and the 

 prolongation of the "keel" to the posterior region, 

 accompanied by the disappearance of the dorsal plane. 



j Mathematical Society, December 9.— Sir Joseph 

 [ Larmor, president, in the chair. — H, Jeffreys : The 

 I vibrations of a special type of dissipative system. — 

 I F. J. W.. Whipple : Diffraction by a Wedge.— T. L. 

 ! Wren : Some applications of the two-three birational 

 i space transformation. — T. C. Lewis : The circles which 

 I touch the escribed circles of a triangle. — E. B. Stoufler : 



Semivariants of linear homogeneous differential 



equations. ^ 



Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, December 16. — 

 Sir T. K. Rose, president, in the chair. — E. A. 

 Wraight : Influence of heat in cyaniding gold ores. 

 The effect of heat on the dissolution of gold in cyanide 

 solutions is a matter which hitherto has received but 

 scant attention from metallurgists, and the author 

 gives the results of a number of exjjeriments which he 

 conducted with a view to determining whether the 

 application of heat would be beneficial or otherwise. 

 His final deductions are : — (i) That the effect of heat- 

 ing cyanide solutions is of very doubtful benefit ; the 

 extraction may be increased for a short period, but this 

 is more than compensated by the increased cyanide con- 

 sumption and the subsequent decrease in the rate of 

 dissolution of gold ; (2) that oxidising agents (hydrogen 

 peroxide excepted) are apparently of no value, and may 

 even exercise a deleterious effect on the extraction ; 

 and (3) that the addition of oxygen in a more active 

 form, either as hydrogen peroxide or by means of 

 heated air, increases the solvent activity of cyanide 

 solutions in a very pronounced manner. — A. W. Allen : 

 Clay : its relation to ore dressing and cyaniding opera- 

 tions. The presence of clay in so many geological 

 formations, and its invariable association with other 

 metalliferous ores, makes the study of its properties 

 of considerable importance with reference to reduction 



