April i i, 1901] 



NATURE 



577 



the diversion of a grass driving road which now cuts across the 

 earthwork, without prejudice to any legal question. 



To prevent other stones from falling it is suggested by the 

 societies mentioned that the trilithon which has slewed round 

 and also a leaning-stone be first examined with a view to main- 

 tainini,' them in safety. It is understood that no excavation 

 beyond what is absolutely necessary will be allowed. This 

 examination will show what can be done and ought to be 

 done with all the standing Sarsens. It is advised that the 

 monolith and lintel, which fell three months ago, be replaced, 

 the companion Sarsen being made safe against the effects of the 

 fall. Further, the societies recommend the erection of the 

 great trilithon which fell in 1797, the exact place of which is 

 known. All the rest they would leave as it is, though in some 

 cases the place of fallen stones is known with fair certainty. 

 The questions of how best to fix more firmly in the ground the 

 stones now standing, and how best to re- erect the two trilithons 

 which have fallen in the last 104 years, is left to engineering 

 experts. 



A STUDENTS DRUM RECORDER} 



T^ 



'HIS admirable instrument consists of five parts easily de- 

 tachable, viz. (i.) an adjustable tripod, which carries on 

 one foot (ii.) a steel bracket for the attachment of the appur-" 

 tenances incident to an observation ; and (iii. ) a central adjust- 

 able rod so fashioned as to receive (iv.) the drum, the heads of 

 which are widely perforated for purposes of manipulation ; and 

 (v.) a clockwork driver, which is keyed at two points for inser- 



■A Drum Recorder dismounted to show its parts. 



tion into the head of the rod. The special novelty of the in- 

 strument lies in the driver, which is so constructed that when 

 at work it and the drum are together rotated. The driver is, 

 moreover, set in a metal framework supported upon three 

 feet, upon which it rests when not in use, adequately 

 protected. Its working parts are all exposed, and there 

 are no accessories. . The arbor of the spring-wheel above, 

 and of the main driving-wheel below, are each so keyed 

 as to fit into the head of the rod or axle, the former being 

 intended for slow motion, the latter for quick. For one 

 winding the drum will run at its most rapid rate for 12-13 

 minutes, at its slowest for 16-17, allowance being made for ad- 

 justment of the wings of the "fly," which as a whole can be 

 itself easily removed to ensure the maximum obtainable speed. 

 The instrument is a triumph of ingenuity and good workman- 

 ship, and we have nought but praise to accord it. To produce 

 at little more than one-fourth the price of the conventional 

 drum-recorder a substitute in efficiency its equal, is to deserve 

 well of the scientific public. This drum supplies a want long 

 felt by teachers, and is bound to become popular. We heartily 

 wish it the success it deserves. 



\ By W. E. Pye and Co., " Granta Works," Mill Lane, tCambridge. 

 Price ^os. 



NO. 1 64 1, VOL. 63] 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Mr. Herbert F. Roberts, instructor in botany in Washington 

 University, at St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A., has been elected to 

 the chair of botany in the Kansas State Agricultural College. 



For the last two or three decades the engineering profession 

 of Austria and Hungary spared no efforts to raise the technical 

 institutions throughout those countries to the standard of the 

 universities and to obtain for the former some of the more im- 

 portant academic privileges and powers which the latter have 

 enjoyed since their establishment. The first aim of the lead- 

 ing members of the said profession was that the technical 

 institutions should be authorised by the Government to grant 

 degrees which, from an academic point of view, should be re- 

 garded as equal to those granted by the universities. We now 

 notice, therefore, with satis/action that their endeavours have 

 been finally crowned with the desired success, and that the 

 Minister of Public Instruction in Austria held, on April the 4th, 

 a meeting which was attended by representatives of almost every 

 technical institution in that country, and on this occasion an- 

 nounced the Government's intention of introducing a special 

 statute by means of which the technical high schools should be 

 empowered to confer the degree of Doctor of " Rerum Techni- 

 carum " upon students whose scientific attainments entitle them 

 to that distinction. A special examining body will be appointed 

 for that purpose, and some of the examiners, it is urged, should 

 be at the same time members of the teaching staff in connection 

 with some of the universities ; the examinations, again, will 

 be conducted on the same lines as those prescribed by the philo- 

 sophical faculty of a university for the bestowal of the degree 

 of Ph.D. The acquirement of that degree, however, will not — 

 at least for the present — be made compulsory for all students 

 of the technical academies ; those, on the other hand, who 

 attain it will, of course, be given special precedence in the case 

 of Government appointments, which are usually accessible to 

 all graduates of the recognised technical institutions by open 

 competition. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIAL. 



Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society ^ March. — 

 Prof. T. F. Holgate reports the December meeting of the Chicago 

 section of the Society (December 27 and 28, 1900), and gives 

 abstracts of several of the twenty-two papers which were read. In 

 addition there is printed a paper by Prof. Hathaway on pure 

 mathematics for engineering students, which was followed 

 by an interesting discussion. The subject was treated under 

 the heads (i) its utility; {2) methods of instruction; {3) the 

 course ; and (4) the instructor. — A paper read by Prof. Newson, 

 at the February meeting, on indirect circular transformations 

 and mixed groups, is supplementary to a paper entitled 

 " Continuous Groups of Circular Transformations" (which ap- 

 peared in the Bulletin for December, 1897), and deals with 

 indirect circular transformations and the mixed groups obtained 

 by combining these with the direct transformations. Prof. 

 E. W. Brown reviews, at some length, the scientific papers of 

 J. Couch Adams and the lectures on the Lunar theory, (vol. ii. 

 Parts I and 2), edited by Profs. R. A. Sampson and W. G. 

 Adams. Then follows, in English, the notice on M. Hermite, 

 by M. C. Jordan, an address delivered at the meeting of the 

 Paris Academy of Sciences, January 21, 190 1.— The notes, as 

 usual, cover a wide ground, and there is the usvial portion appro- 

 priated to new publications. '■, 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, March 14.—" On the lonisation of Atmo- 

 spheric Air." By C.,T. R. Wilson, F.R.S., Fellow of Sidney 

 Sussex College, Cambridge. 



In a preliminary note {Camb. Phil. Soc. Proc, November 26, 

 1900) it was stated that a body, charged with electricity and sus- 

 pended within a vessel containing dust-free air, loses its charge 

 by leakage through the air. The same conclusion was arrived at 

 by Geitel in a paper published a few days previously (Physik- 

 alische Zeitschrift, 2jahrgang, No. 8, pp. 11 6- 119). The leakage 



