January 27, 19 16] 



NATURE 



611 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — The number of undergraduates in resi- 

 dence this term is 665, as against 1227 during the 

 corresponding term last year, and about 3600 in a 

 normal term. Amongst the 11,000 members of the 

 University in the land, sea, and air services, 1723 

 casualties have been notified; 697 have been killed and 

 892 wounded. The Victoria Cross has been awarded 

 to three Cambridge men, the D.S.O. to 52, and the 

 itary Cross to 103; the services of 714 members 

 le University have been recognised. Owing to the 

 .,..,;11 number of undergraduates in residence a con- 

 siderable amount of distress prevails amongst the 

 keepers of licensed lodgings, some 1500 in number, 

 and it has been suggested that munition workers 

 might be economically housed in the vacant quarters ; 

 several large empty buildings are available which 

 might be converted into munition factories. The late 

 Rev. Dr. Streame left the sum of 500L to Corpus 

 Christi College, to be used as the master and fellows 

 shall determine. 



London. — Owing to circumstances arising out of 

 the war, Mr. Kilburn Scott's course of lectures on 

 " Electrical Production of Nitrates for Fertilisers and 

 E.xplosives," announced to begin at University College 

 yesterday, January 26, will not be held. 



Sir G. H. Makins has been appointed to deliver the 

 Hunterian oration of the Royal College of Surgeons of 

 England in 1917. 



Dr. F. E. Brasch contributes to Science (vol. xlii., 

 No. 109 1, p. 746) an interesting article on the teaching 

 of the history of science in American universities and 

 technical schools. The nineteenth century was too full 

 of creative work in the various fields of science to give 

 historical studies their full play. The new century, on 

 the other hand, will offer a larger field for historical 

 studies for the reason that the practical value of such 

 work will be more clearly demonstrated. There is a 

 growing tendency to depart from the extreme and 

 powerful method of specialisation, and to teach science 

 from an historical point of view. An interesting statis- 

 tical study is made of the courses in the history of the 

 different sciences offered in universities and technical 

 schools. These courses are on the whole specific to the 

 individual sciences, and general courses of science 

 history are of late origin, and exist only in a few 

 schools. There is, however, no doubt that there is a 

 growing tendency to regard the historical development 

 of the sciences from a broader point of view than was 

 possible or practicable in earlier years. 



A MEETING of delegates from London branches of 

 the Workers' Educational Association and similar 

 organisations in the London County Council area was 

 held on January 22 at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon 

 Street, to discuss the proposal of the L.C.C. Educa- 

 tion Committee to save 300,000^. on the educational 

 expenditure for the year. A resolution was carried 

 declaring that the policy of " educational reaction " 

 adopted by the London County Council was opposed 

 to the true interests of the workers and the nation 

 as a whole, and calling on the Workers' Educational 

 Association to work continually for the improvement 

 of the educational service of the County of London. 

 The Rev. William Temple, president of the associa- 

 tion, in his speech from the chair, said that the meet- 

 ing had been called because of the fear that the 

 example of London might be followed elsewhere. 

 Members of their association were much more con- 

 cerned about this action as a symptom than about 

 the actual fact, and their primary concern must be to 



NO. 2413, VOL. 96] 



convince public authorities that if they desired to 

 represent the people they must put education in the 

 forefront and prevent the war from being used as an 

 occasion for whittling away that small amount of 

 education which years of struggle had secured for 

 children who without it would never be able to take 

 their proper place in the life of the nation. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Mineralogical Society, January 18. — W. Barlow, presi- 

 dent, in the chair.— Prof. G. Cesiro : A simple demon- 

 stration of the law of Miller. In any spherical triangle 

 the arc x joining the apex C to a pole dividing the 

 base c into segments a and /8 is given by the equation 

 cos X cos c = cos a sin /3 + cos & sin a. Taking the apex 

 as the pole of one of the axes and the base as the 

 zone containing the four poles, the usual anharmonic 

 ratio is obtained.— Dr. G. T. Prior : The meteorite of 

 Daniels Kuil. The meteorite consists of nickeliferous 

 iron in large amounts, troilite, oldhamite, felspar, 

 and enstatite, free from iron, and thus belongs to the 

 exceptional Hvittis and Pillistfer group of chondritic 

 stones, to which also must be added the Khairpur 

 meteorite, which contains notable amounts of old- 

 hamite. — Dr. G. T. Prior : The relationship of meteor- 

 ites. Meteorites may be arranged by their chemical 

 and mineral composition into the following six groups : 

 (i) Bustee and Hvittis group; (2) Siderolites ; (3) Cron- 

 stad group, consisting of chondrites, containing more 

 than 10 per cent, of nickeliferous iron; (4) Baroti 

 group, consisting of chondrites containing less than 

 10 per cent, of nickeliferous iron ; (5) Chladnite group, 

 including Chladnites, Angrites, Chassignites, Ampho- 

 terites, some Rodites, and probably some chondrites 

 containing little nickeliferous iron ; (6) Eucrites, Nakh- 

 lites, Shergottites, Howardites, and some Rodites. It 

 is suggested that from the first group the remaining 

 stones have been derived by the interaction between 

 oxidising nickeliferous iron and enstatite with conse- 

 quent production of ferriferous olivine and bronzite, 

 the formation of chondrules, and enrichment in nickel 

 of the residual iron. The nickeliferous iron of the 

 first three groups corresponds with the more common 

 meteoric irons, such as the octahedrites and hexa- 

 hedrites, containing less than 10 per cent, of nickel, 

 and that of the last three to nickel-rich ataxites, 

 containing more than 10 per cent, of nickel. 

 The groups (2) to (6) contain progressively 

 diminishing amounts of nickeliferous iron, which 

 is increasingly rich in nickel, and have increas- 

 ing amounts of ferrous oxide in the ferro- 

 magnesium silicates, in which the ratio of magnesium 

 to iron atoms approximates in the case of group ^2^ 

 to 7, of group (3) to 5, of group (4) to 3^, of group (5) 

 to 2, and of the last group to i or less. — Dr. J. W. 

 Evans : The isolation of the directions-image of a sec- 

 tion of a mineral in a rock-slice. In some optical 

 investigations, e.g., the observation of the interference 

 figures of minerals in thin sections under the micro- 

 scope, the determination of the angle of total reflec- 

 tion, and the measurement of crystal angles, the image 

 studied is not that of the object, but is one in which 

 every part corresponds to a direction in which light is 

 transmitted, or, in other words, it is a directions- 

 image. To prevent the effects of closely adjoining 

 objects being blended, all light except that traversing 

 the object under investigation must be screened by 

 a diaphragm placed near it or in a position conjugate 

 with it. In an ordinary petrological microscope this 

 may often be conveniently effected by placing the 

 diaphragm below the condenser so that the image of 

 the aperture is seen in focus simultaneously with that 



