500 



NATURE 



[December 30, 1915 



emergency, and are now showing a production of 

 gauges, gun parts, etc., which many engineers un- 

 acquainted with the capabilities of college workshops 

 and staffs have found difficult to credit. Colleges not 

 making munitions are training workers for the new 

 munition factories, and many have undertaken re- 

 searches of various kinds. Some information regard- 

 ing the work in progress will be found in a paper by 

 Dr. Walmsley and Mr. Larard, read at the Institution 

 of Mechanical Engineers on December 17. It is to be 

 hoped that the closer connection which exists at the 

 present time between colleges and engineering works 

 will not be broken when the war is over. Each side 

 has much to learn from the other, and it promises 

 well for the future that old prejudices on both sides 

 are fast disappearing. 



It is announced in the issue of Science for December 

 10 that Mrs. Russell Sage has given Syracuse Univer- 

 city a fund to build a college of agriculture as a memo- 

 rial to her father. The building is to cost several 

 hundred thousand dollars, the exact sum to be decided 

 later. Our contemporary also states that a new build- 

 ing will be constructed for the University of Illinois 

 Medical School in Chicago for the clinical courses. 

 The initial cost is to be about 20,oooZ., which will pay 

 for one wing. This will be added to later as the 

 demand for room increases. From the same source we 

 learn that the trustees of Delaware College have made 

 plans for the expenditure of a gift of ioo,oooZ. to the 

 college by an unnamed donor. A report submitted by 

 the chairman of the Plans and Development Com- 

 mittee, which has been approved bv the board, shows 

 that 50,000/. will be used for a science hall to house 

 the agricultural and chemical departments, 15,000/. 

 to remodel the old dormitory building and turn it into 

 a commons for the students, and 40,000?. will be set 

 aside for maintenance. 



Among the resolutions passed by the Headmasters 

 Conference last week was one moved by Mr. A. L. 

 Francis, headmaster of Blundell's School, Tiverton, 

 "That in the opinion of this conference ver)' grave 

 loss to the country is caused by the employment of 

 young students of exceptional mathematical and scien- 

 tific ability as subalterns in Line battalions." Several 

 important questions are raised by this resolution, but 

 the chief point put forward by Mr. Francis was that 

 the_ country should not permit itself to be deprived 

 of its most ingenious and inventive brains in the grim 

 struggles of the battlefield. "The place for the young 

 man who has a special gift for science, mathematics, 

 or mechanics is in the laboratory." Everyone will 

 agree with this in principle, but the practical difficulty 

 in deciding what students are sufficiently endowed with 

 a "special gift" to be husbanded for national work in 

 science and invention is another matter. The young 

 students to whom Mr. Francis seemed to refer were 

 those of Public School age, but it may be doubted 

 whether at such an early stage it is possible to dis- 

 tinguish the few original minds which are destined 

 to create new knowledge. Success in examinations 

 certainly does not provide a true standard by which 

 this genius for productiveness in science and invention 

 may be measured. What we all deplore, and think 

 should be avoided, is the sacrifice of men like Capt. 

 J. W. Jenkinson and Lieut. Moseley, who had shown 

 exceptional ability as original investigators. Apparently 

 the Headmasters Conference does not object to the 

 young students embraced by the resolution becoming 

 subalterns in corps of engineers and artillery, where 

 there are opportunities of applying a knovvledge of 

 science and mathematics, or even in the guards or the 

 cavalry, where there may be no such need. Hundreds 

 of ^ able students of mathematics and science from 

 university colleges and technical schools are at present 



NO. 2409, VOL. 96] 



j serving as privates and non-commissioned officers in 

 the Army, and the rank offered by the War Office to 

 exceptional men in such subjects as chemistry and 

 mining is not usually that of a subaltern but of a 

 corporal. 



The annual report of the Royal Technical College, 

 Glasgow, for the session 1914-15, has reached us. 

 The "Roll of Members, Students, and Past Students 

 on the King's Service " forms an appendix of a 

 hundred pages. The roll comprises eight members of 

 the governing body and of committees, 37 members 

 of the staff, 1152 students of 1914 and 1915, and 622 

 students of previous sessions. These are serving in 

 the following capacities : — Officers, 490 ; non-commis- 

 sioned officers, 351 ; men, 966; nurse, i ; and on special 

 service, 11. The appointment of 114 naval officers 

 from the School of Navigation is specially noteworthy. 

 The report records the deaths of ninety-one whose 

 names appear on the roll. The reduction in the 

 normal work of the college is indicated by the follow- 

 ing comparative table of the number of students who 

 enrolled: — 



Day Eyening Total 



students students individuitts 



1914-15 445 2583 3028 



1913-14 669 4342 sou 



These enrolments necessarily include the large number 

 of students who offered themselves during the session 

 for active service, or who received appointments under 

 firms manufacturing munitions. Many former mem- 

 bers of the staff and students of the department of 

 chemistry are now engaged in this work, and this 

 department has made a contribution of about 

 150 men to the corps of chemists attached to the Royal 

 Engineers. There are usually about 150 day students 

 at work in the chemical laboratory during the session, 

 but in the last week this number had dwindled to four, 

 while of ten assistants on the staff only two were left. 

 The plans for the increase of the new endowment fund 

 initiated to extend the facilities available for higher 

 studies and for research work have necessarily been 

 postponed, but a grant of 5200Z. from the Bellahouston 

 Trustees towards this object is acknowledged in the 

 reoort. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Geological Society, December i.— Dr. A. Smith Wood- 

 ward, president, in the chair. — Dr. J. W. Evans : 



Petrological methods. The different methods of ob- 

 taining the directions-image ("interference figures") 

 of a small mineral in a rock-slice, unaffected by the 

 light from neighbouring minerals, were discussed. The 

 author prefers the use of a diaphragm in the focus of 

 the eyepiece, in conjunction with a Becke lens ; he also 

 described the inferences that might be drawn from the 

 form, position, and movement on the rotation of the 

 stage of the isogyres (dark bars or bushes) in the 

 directions-images, both of chance sections and of those 

 cut parallel to planes of optical symmetry or at right- 

 angles to optical axes. He showed how the character 

 or sign of the crystal and its approximate optic axial 

 angle might be determined. 



Linnean Society, December 16.— Prof. E. B. Poulton, 

 president, in the chair. — E. S. Goodrich : The repro- 

 duction of Protodrilus. The author criticised the 

 account given by Prof. U. Pierantoni, according to 

 whom there are in most species of the genus male 

 and hermaphrodite individuals. Dr. Orton having re- 

 cently discovered Protodrilus flavocapitatus at PI3'- 

 mouth, the author has been able to study large num- 

 bers at the Marine Biological Laboratory. The appar- 



