January 28, 19 15] 



NATURE 



607 



Museum, Forest Hill, S.E., at 3.30 p.m. on Saturday 

 afternoons, commencing on January- 30, upon the 

 following subjects : — Lightning and the thunderbolt 

 in folk-lore, Mr. E. Lovett ; From the ancient 

 herbalist to the modern botanist, Dr. E. Marion 

 Delf;- The history and associations of the art of 

 spinning by hand, Mr. W. Dale; The histor\- of 

 writing, Mr. A. R. Wright; Children's toys: their 

 origin and folk-lore, Mr. E. Lovett. Particulars of 

 further lectures will be announced later. 



At the end of last month the Merchant Venturers' 

 Technical College, Bristol, published a preliminary 

 list of present and former members of the College 

 who are at present serving with the Army or Xa\y, 

 and who have volunteered for service ; 362 names were 

 included, but since the list was printed additional 

 names have been received daily, and the total now 

 amounts to 416. Among those whose names apf>ear 

 in the list, there are 26 naval officers and 36 officers 

 holding commissions in the Arm)". Perhaps the best 

 known name amongst the former students who appear 

 in the list is that of Squadron Commander E. F. 

 Briggs, who received his engineering training in the 

 College, commanded the aerial raid on the Zeppelin 

 factor}" at Friedrichshafen, and was wounded and 

 captured there in November last. 



We have received a copy of the first issue of a new 

 American educational periodical entitled School and 

 Socieiy. It is to be a weekly magazine, and will 

 follow the general lines that are familiar to us in 

 this country in our contemporary Science. The paper 

 will be conducted bv the editor of Science, Prof. J. 

 McKeen Cattell, professor of psycho|ogy in Columbia 

 University, and is intended chiefly~ for teachers in 

 the lower and higher schools of the L nited States. 

 Among the contributors to the first issue are Dr. 

 Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard Lniversity, and 

 Prof. G. Stanley Hall. We commend the new pub- 

 lication to students of education as likely to provide 

 authoritative information about educational elTort in 

 the United States in an interesting and attractive 

 form. The magfazine is published by the Science 

 Press of New York City, and each number costs 

 10 cents. 



A BEQUEST of 600,000/. to Oberlin « College by Dr. 

 C. M. Hall, the distinguished electrochemist and 

 manufacturer of aluminium, is announced in the issue 

 of Science for January 15. The bequest is in the form 

 of 400,000/. endowment to be used for any purpose, 

 100,000/. to be used to build an auditorium, 20,000/. 

 for the auditorium's maintenance, and 4o,(xki/. to be 

 spent for improvements to the grounds. The college 

 receives in addition all property in Oberlin owned by 

 Dr. Hall, and a valuable art collection. From the 

 same source we learn that by the will of Miss Grace 

 H. Dodge, for many years known for her educational 

 and philanthropic activities in New York City, con- 

 tains bequests of 280,000/. for educational and charit- 

 able purposes, as well as a number of deferred be- 

 quests of the same character. The sum of 100,000/. 

 is bequeathed to Teachers College, Columbia L'niver- 

 sitv, in the founding and conduct of which she took 

 an active part. The college will receive two deferred 

 bequests, one of which may be large. 



The fifth report of the Royal Commission on the 

 Civil Service (Cd. 7748) is concerned with the Diplo- 

 matic Service (including the Foreign Office) and the 

 Consular Service. Among the recommendations of 

 the Commissioners made in connection with the Diplo- 

 matic Corps and the Foreign Office, are the follow- 

 ing : — The existing property qualification for. admis- 

 sion to the Dip'omatic Corps {i.e. the possession of a 

 private income of at least 400/. a year) should be 



NO. 2361, VOL. 94] 



abolished. The Board of Selection, which interviews 

 applicants for the diplomatic establishment of the 

 Foreign Office and for the Diplomatic Corps, and 

 upon the reports of which nominations to sit at the 

 examination are granted by the Secretary of State, 

 should be reconstructed on a broader basis, and should 

 include a non-official member. The existing require- 

 ment that applicants for the diplomatic establishment 

 of the Foreign Office and for the Diplomatic Corps 

 should first obtain the permission of the Secretary of 

 State to appear before the Board of Selection should 

 be removed. All applications should be laid directly 

 before the Board of Selection. The entrance exam- 

 ination for the Foreign Service {i.e. the diplomatic 

 establishment of the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic 

 Corps) should be the combined examination for the 

 administrative grades of the General Civil Service 

 (Class L) A small Departmental Committee should be 

 appointed with a view of providintj for the better 

 training of junior members of the Diplomatic Corps, 

 the reduction of its numbers, the devolution of routine 

 work, and the improvement of office methods abroad. 

 In connection with the Consular Ser\'ice, it is recom- 

 mended that recruitment should be by open competi- 

 tion in all branches of the Consular Ser\ice. The 

 principle should be adopted of taking young men at 

 an age corresponding to a definite stage in the educa- 

 tional svstem of the country", and then training them 

 for their work. On passing out of training, pro- 

 bationers should be appointed to the grade of Consular 

 Assistant, and placed under the charge of a selected 

 Consul at an important station to learn practical work. 



SOCIETIES AXD ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Royal Society, January 21. — Sir William Crookes, 

 president, in the chair. — Dr. C. Chree : Atmospheric 

 electricitv potential gradient at Kew Obsenatory, 

 1898-1912. .\ previous paper discussed results ob- 

 tained from the Kelvin water-dropping electrograph 

 at Kew Observatory for the period 1898-1904. The 

 present paper discusses the data from the fifteen years 

 1898-19 1 2. Particular attention is given to the char- 

 acter of the diurnal variation, as to how it varies 

 throughout the year, and as to the nature of the 

 differences apparent between different years. The 

 predominance of the 12-hour term over the 24-hour 

 term in the diurnal variation, which is especially 

 conspicuous in summer, is found to vary greatly from 

 vear to vear. The 12-hour term shows less fluctua- 

 tions either in amplitude. or phase than the 24-hour 

 term. — Prof. A. E. H. Love : The transmission of 

 electric waves over the surface of the earth. — An 

 analvtical solution of the general equations of electro- 

 dynamics is obtained for the case of waves generated 

 bv a vibrating doublet in presence of a conducting 

 sphere, and is adapted to obtain the known solution 

 for perfect conduction, and the correction for moderate 

 resistance, such as that of sea-water. The known 

 solution is expressed by the sum of a series involving 

 zonal harmonics, and the correction by a similar 

 series. Different results have been obtained by 

 different writers who have investigated the numerical 

 value of the former sum. In the paper a new method 

 of summing the series is explained, and worked out 

 in detail for the wave-length 5 km. In the case of 

 perfect conduction the result confirms that found by 

 H. M. Macdonald (Proc. Roy. Soc., .Ser. .\, vol xc, 

 1914, p. 50). The effect of resistance is found to be 

 a slight increase of the strength of the signals at 



1 considerable distances, counteracting to some small 

 extent the enfeebling effect of the curvature of the 



j surface. — L. Silberstein : Electromagnetic waves in a 



