December 31, 1914] 



NATURE 



497 



light. You may also explain the peculiar medical 

 observation that therapeutic radium effects in parts 

 of the human body not covered, specially in the face, 

 are often not of long duration — for the face is exposed 

 to the counteracting visible rays of daylight. 



We notice here a connection of our subject with a 

 department of great practical importance. For all 

 therapeutic effects of X-rays, radium rays, and mescK 

 thorium rays would, according to this view, be effects 

 only of ultra-violet light produced by the stopping of 

 these rays in the human body, and the special char- 

 acter of the radium- and mesothorium- and X-ray 

 treatment would consist mainly in the carriage into 

 the interior of the body, by the rays, of the ultra- 

 violet light, which is not confined to the surface of 

 the body, but is produced at every place where any 

 of the entering rays are stopped. You may notice 

 further that this view of the medical ray-effects pre- 

 sents a heuristic method for the treatment itself, 

 which up to the present followed quite fortuitous and 

 merely empirical paths. For it may be hoped that 

 treatment by radio-active substances will be useful in 

 every disease in which ultra-violet light has been 

 proved to be efficient in some degree; you will avoid 

 such treatment in the well-known cases in which light 

 of short wave-lengths is noxious, and j-ou may be 

 justified in substituting an ultra-violet light treatment 

 where radium or mesothorium is not obtainable. At the 

 same time it becomes evident why the treatment of 

 certain diseases by the /8 rays has effects verv similar 

 to those produced by fulguration — that is, by the light 

 of very strong sparks ; the efficient agent is in both 

 cases the ultra-violet light. 



But it cannot be a physicist's task to enter too far 

 in medical questions : it was only my intention to 

 show how interesting are some of the problems which 

 are connected with the salts coloured bv kathode ravs. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



By the will of the late Dr. T. Bell, head of the firm 

 of Messrs. P\man', Bell, and Co., coal exporters and 

 shipowners, of Newcastle, the sum of 3000/. is be- 

 queathed to the Armstrong College, Newcastle. 



The report of the proceedings of the general com- 

 mittee for promoting the establishment of an Imperial 

 College of Tropical Agriculture is referred to in the 

 Pioneer Mail of December 4. It is stated that Mr. 

 R. N. Lyne, Director of Agriculture, Ceylon, says 

 he thinks that the West Indies will now support 

 Ceylon's claims to be the home of the college. The 

 committee resolved to take steps to raise 40,000/. for 

 building and endowing the college, of which 2o,oooZ. 

 should be asked from the Governments concerned, 

 including India, and the remainder be raised by public 

 subscriptions, provided Government contribute the 

 share stated. It was also resolved to collect 5000Z. 

 for the erection of a hotel for European students. 

 The committee has not committed Ceylon for the 

 site ; at the same time it favoured that countrv. 



Several bequests for higher education in the 

 United States are announced in the issue of Science 

 for December 18 last. Two gifts of 20,000/. each 

 have been made for the development of a graduate 

 course in preparation for business and business ad- 

 ministration at the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale 

 University. The two donors are graduates of the 

 University. 2000/. has been given to Smith College 

 by Mr. and Mrs. A. J. White, of Brooklyn. Half of 

 the money is to be applied toward payment for recent 

 improvements on the Lyman Plant House. A be- 



NO. 2357, VOL. 94] 



quest of 2000/. to St. Lawrence University at Canton, 

 N.Y., is made under the will of Mrs. Kate A. L. 

 Chapin, of Meriden, Conn. Prof, and Mrs. Frederic 

 S. Lee have given to Columbia University the sum 

 of 4000/. to establish a fund for the use of the depart- 

 ment of physiology. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Royal Meteorological Society, December 16. — W. F. 

 Stacey : The distribution of relative humidity in Eng- 

 land and Wales. The author has prepared mean 

 monthly and annual maps of relative humidity based 

 on the 9 a.m. observations made at more than ninety 

 stations during the ten years 1901-1910. An examina- 

 tion of these maps shows that in winter the air 

 over the interior of the country is more moist than 

 that over the coastal regions ; that the minimum 

 relative humidity occurs earlier in the year in the 

 western parts of the country than in the eastern ; 

 that in summer the air over the interior of the 

 countr\- is drier than that over the coastal regions ; 

 and that the smallest range of humidity is found in 

 the west and the greatest in the interior towards the 

 east. The distribution of temperature is the chief 

 determining factor in the distribution of relative 

 humidity; while sea influence, the direction and char- 

 acter of prevailing winds, the configuration of the 

 country all have important effects on temperature, 

 and therefore on relative humidity. 



Geological Society, December 16. — Dr. A. Smith 

 Woodward, president, in the chair. — Prof. W. M. 

 Flinders Petrie : The Palaeolithic age and its climate 

 in Egypt. The classes of worked flints peculiar in 

 Egypt are : — (i) Irregular, with broad unregulated 

 fractures. (2) Rounders, flaked in all directions to an 

 edged disc. (3) Hoofs, ver>- thick, rudely domed with 

 an obtuse edge. (4) Lunes, with obtuse edges. (5) 

 Crescent scrapers. Irregular flints, similar to those 

 from St. Acheul, are found in high Nile gravels. The 

 regular European types occur exactly like those classed 

 as Chellean and Acheulian. The Mousterian forms 

 are so often found in various periods, that they cannot 

 be assigned without evidence of age. The Aurig- 

 nacian survive into the early civilisation. The large 

 class of flints from the Fayum desert comprises all 

 the Solutrean types, and also Robenhausian forms. 

 The flakes of the early civilisation (8000 to 6000 B.C.) 

 are identical with Ma^dalenian. Views of the Nile 

 cliffs show the general nature of the country and 

 conditions. Successive changes of level are indicated 

 bv (i) the collapse of immense drainage-caverns far 

 below present level; (2) the filling of valleys with 

 debris up to 650 ft. above the present sea-level ; (3) 

 the gouging-out of fresh drainage-lines through the 

 filling; and (4) rolled gravels on the top of cliffs 

 800 ft. above sea-level, since when there has been no 

 perceptible denudation by rain. The great extent of 

 these elevations and depressions is likely to be con- 

 nected with similar movements at Gibraltar, which 

 are believed to synchronise with the movements of 

 glacial periods in northern Europe. The evidence of 

 the flint ages agrees with this connection. 



P.^RIS. 



Academy of Sciences, December 14. — M. P Appell in 

 the chair. — E. Branly : Intermittent conductivity of 

 thin dielectric plates. A study of the conductivity of 

 a thin plate of dielectric induced by the passage of a 

 rapidly alternating current. — ^P. Duhem : The hydro- 

 dynamical paradox of M. Brillouin. — M. C. Jordan 

 was elected vice-president for the year 1915. — M. 

 Bazy : Statistical note on tetanus. A study of 129 



