February ii, 1915J 



NATURE 



66 1 



tongue and their head-form ; thev crossed the North 

 Sea and kept both their tongue and their shape of 

 head. Sea power is also a potent factor in anthro- 

 pology-, and so far such power in Europe has been in 

 the hands of long-headed stocks. What the long- 

 head has lost in Europe he has gained in countries 

 which lie beyond the seas, by virtue of his command 

 of the sea. It is too soon to speculate on what the 

 head-form of these new trans-oceanic settlements is 

 to be— but all the signs point rather to a victory of 

 the long-heads. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



London. — The following advanced courses of lec- 

 tures, to which admission is free, are now being 

 delivered : — A course, with practical work, in 

 dynamical meteorology, at the Meteorological Office, 

 South Kensington, S.W., by Dr. W. N. Shaw; a 

 course on the Protozoa, at the Lister Institute of 

 Preventive Medicine, Chelsea, S.W., by Prof. E. A. 

 Minchin ; a course on metabolism in infanc}-, at 

 Guy's Hospital, Borough, S.E., by Dr. M. S. Pem- 

 brey and Mr. J. H. Ryffel ; a course on certain 

 aspects of British ecology, at L'niversity College, 

 Gower Street, W.C. The remaining lectures of the 

 last-named course are by Prof. R. H. Yapp (fen 

 vegetation). Prof. G. S. West (the occurrence and 

 distribution of fresh-water algae), and Mr. A. D. 

 Cotton (the algal vegetation of the salt-marsh and 

 seashore). 



Manchester. — The Council of the University, with 

 the approval of the Board of Agriculture and 

 Fisheries, has appointed Mr. W. Percy Middleton 

 Stock Officer for the counties of Lancashire and 

 Cheshire. Mr. Middleton will be attached to the 

 Department of Agriculture, and will be given an 

 office in the University buildings as well as an office 

 in a central position in each of the two counties. 



Oxford. — The annual report of the Committee for 

 Geography, just published, gives a full account of the 

 work done in the geographical department during the 

 past year. The number of students working at geo- 

 graphy was forty-one (twenty-three men and eighteen 

 women). Lectures to the number of 124 were de- 

 livered by the professor (Dr. A. J. Herbertson, Wad- 

 ham College) and his assistants, the subjects includ- 

 ing natural regions of the British Empire, economic 

 geography, Central Europe, the geographical distri- 

 bution of man, climate and vegetation regions, topo- 

 graphy of Europe, the Oceans, the British Isles, meteoro- 

 logA, influence of the geography of Greece on its p>oli- 

 tical history, and the art of geographical description. 

 Besides these, special lectures were given by Prof. T. 

 Edgeworth David, Sir Ernest Shackleton, and others. 

 Many field excursions were undertaken, and the report 

 includes a long list of gifts to the library and collec- 

 tions. A successful vacation course was held in 

 August, which was attended by 160 pupils' (54 men 

 and 106 women). 



Sheffield. — Dr. A. J. Hall has been appointed to 



the post of lecturer in medicine. 



The Central Committee for National Patriotic 

 Organisations, 62 Charing Cross, W.C, has issued, 

 at the price of 2d., a list of publications bearing on 

 the war. It comprises the titles of works likely to 

 be useful to those persons anxious to understand the 

 immediate causes Cind remote origins of the war, of 

 volumes dealing with the war itself or with naval and 



NO. 2363, VOL. 94] 



military matters generally, and of pamphlets on these 

 subjects sold at bd. or less. Full particulars nr*.- 

 given as to where the volumes may be procured, and 

 the pamphlets may be purchased throu^ the Central 

 Committee. 



It was announced to the students of Ste\-ens Insti- 

 tute of Technology at their annual dinner in the 

 Hotel Astor on January- 23 that their ten-day cam- 

 paign to raise 272,000/. had yielded 232,854/., and that 

 an extension of time had been granted in which the 

 remainder might be collected. Science says that Dr. 

 A. C. Humphreys, president of the institute, made 

 the confident prediction that the whole amount would 

 be raised by the end of the week. From the same 

 source we learn that the Harvard L'niversity corpora- 

 tion has set aside 20,000/. to pay Belgian professors 

 who have been driven from their land by the war 

 and may give courses at Har\-ard L'niversity next 

 year. Mr. J. R. Magee has left 4000/. and a certain 

 further residuan,- portion of his estate to Haverford 

 College, to be added to the general endowment fund. 



The Association of Teachers of Domestic Subjects 

 has issued its annual report for 1914. During the 

 year important work was accomplished by the associa- 

 tion. Miss Ailsa Yoxall's book on the " Histor>' of 

 the Teaching of Domestic Economy " was compJeted 

 for the association ; it was reviewed in the issue of 

 Nature for November 19 last (vol. xciv., p. 308). A 

 long-considered salary scale received its final form, 

 and suggested a rate of pay which, if adopted by educa- 

 tion authorities, would bring domestic subjects teachers 

 into line financially with those of general subjects. 

 We understand the suggested scale is receiving sym- 

 pathetic consideration by various education authorities. 

 The report contains detailed accounts of the activities 

 of the different branches of the association throughout 

 the countn.% and these provide satisfactor\- evidence 

 of a widespread desire to improve the teaching of the 

 important practical subjects with which the members 

 are particularly concerned. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Royal Society, February 4. — Sir William Crookes, 

 president, in the chair. — Prof. G. H. Bn«B 

 and R. Jones : Discontinuous fluid motion past a bt nt 

 plane, with special reference to aeroplane problems. 

 The present investigation is based on the theon.- of 

 discontinuous fluid motion, and in particular on the 

 recent developments of that subject by Sir G. Green- 

 hill. Its object is to obtain a hydrodynamical esti- 

 mate of the effects of camber on the lift and drift of 

 a lamina mo\'ing through a fluid, the motion 

 being two-dimensional, and regarding the lamina as 

 an aerofoil. Instead of considering continuously 

 •cur\'ed laminae, the investigation deals with laminae 

 the front and rear portions of which are plane, but 

 which meet at a dihedral angle. The method is 

 applicable to surfaces with two or more bends. The 

 general conclusions are in agreement with experi- 

 mental results, that a moderate degree of camber is 

 beneficial in increasing the lift without a correspond- 

 ing increase in drift. — Prof. A. Fowler : A new t\-pe 

 of series in the band spectrum associated with helium. 

 The band spectrum associated with helium, as pre- 

 viously described by Curtis and Goldstein, includes 

 bands with single heads and bands with double heads. 

 A preliminan*' analysis of this spectrum has led to the 

 following conclusions : — (i) The doublets do not 

 follow the ordinary* law of band spectra, but can be 

 arranged in two series of the type hitherto exclusively 



