April ii, 1918] 



NATURE 



119 



Mr. George Matthai, of Emmanuel College, Cam- 

 'iridge, who for three years held the MacKinnon 

 -tudentship (on the biological side) of the Royal 

 Society, has been appointed by the Secretary of State 

 lor India to the Indian Educational Service as pro- 

 j fessor of zoology, Lahore, Punjab, India. 



The Markham Skerritt memorial prize of the Uni- 

 versity of Bristol is awarded to the medical member of 

 the University of Bristol who has in the previous three 

 years published the best original work in any branch 

 of medical science. The consideration of this year's 

 award will be given by the medical board of the Uni- 

 versity on May 3. 



Notice is given of the impending award of the Lind- 

 ley studentship in physiology of the University of Lon- 

 don. The studentship is of the value of 100/., and 

 awarded every third year. Statements of the qualifi- 

 cations of intending candidates and particulars of their 

 proposed modes of research must reach the academic 

 registrar of the University by April 30. Applications 

 for grants from the Dixon fund must be received not 

 later than the first post on May 15. 



Among the lectures arranged at University College, 

 Gower Street, W.C.i, for the third term of the cur- 

 rent session, and announced in the London University 

 Gazette, are the following :— A course on " Some Bio- 

 logical Problems of To-day " includes lectures begin- 

 ning at 5 p.m. : on May 13, by Dr. H. M. Vernon, on 

 industrial efficiency and fatigue ; on May 27, by Prof. 

 F. W. Oliver, on substitution of raw materials ; on 

 June 3, by Dr. R. C. McLean, on the anaerobic treat- 

 ment of wounds; and on June 10, by Prof. H. R. 

 Kenwood, on fresh air and efficiency. On May 2, at 

 2.30 p.m., Prof. W. M. Flinders Petrie gives the first 

 lecture of a course on the "Objects of Daily Life." 

 The lectures are open to the public without fee. 



The new South African University of Cape Town 

 was inaugurated on April 2. The Prince of Wales 

 has accepted the Chancellorship, and sent an appro- 

 priate message wishing success to the new venture. 

 As has been recorded in these columns already, three 

 Acts were passed by the Union of South Africa in 

 1916 constituting and establishing three universities 

 in the Union. The University of the Cape of Good 

 Hope, together with certain institutions, was by one of 

 these Acts incorporated in a federal University ; a 

 second Act provides that the Victoria College', Stellen- 

 bosch, in the Cape of Good Hope, shall be incor- 

 porated as a University ; and a third Act similarly 

 incorporates South African College, Cape Town, as a 

 University. As a result of these Acts, the University 

 of the Cape of Good Hope becomes the University of 

 South Africa, with its administrative seat at Pretoria, 

 and it has six constituent colleges. The Victoria Col- 

 lege, Stellenbosch, becomes the University of Stellen- 

 bosch, with its seat in the division of Stellenbosch, in 

 the province of the Cape of Good Hope. The South 

 African College becomes the University of Cape Town, 

 and its seat is to be upon the Groote Schuur estate in 

 the Cape Division of the Cape of Good Hope. The 

 Times correspondent at Cape Town states that at the 

 inauguration of this University stimulating speeches 

 were delivered by Lord Buxton, in his double capacity 

 of Governor-General of the Union and visitor of the 

 new University, Mr. Malan, Minister of Education, 

 and the Principal, Prof. J. C. Beattie. 



Prof. R. Wallace, of the Department of .Agricul- 

 ture in the University of Edinburgh, has addressed a 

 long open letter to the Prime Minister "urging post- 

 pone-ment until after the war, as well as the effective 

 recasting, of the English and Scottish Education Bills 



NO. 2528, VOL. iOl] 



—legislation dangerous to the stability of the Empire 

 and subversive of the soundest canons of education." It 

 would have been a more gracious act had Prof. Wallace 

 addressed himself to the respective heads of the De- 

 partments for Education of England and Scotland, 

 and especially to Mr. Fisher, who has shown his com- 

 plete familiarity with questions of education, and has 

 been at such pains to make clear the principles upon 

 which all sound education should be based and the 

 means whereby they are to be realised. It would be 

 well for Prof. Wallace to turn his attention to the 

 preface written by Mr. Fisher by way of .introduction 

 to his educational reform speeches, wherein he says 

 that "many people have a very limited faith in the 

 value of education. They are prepared to believe that 

 it is good for well-to-do people — for the aristocracy of 

 the human race, upon whom the task of intellectual 

 leadership is devolved. . . . They remember their own 

 schooldays, and . . . reflect that schooling did not 

 help them, so far as they can remember, to earn a 

 single shilling, and so they think and talk against 

 education, and, if they are very silly, write books 

 against it." Prof. Wallace, with all his profession of 

 intimate knowledge of the 85 per cent, of the popula- 

 tion and its real needs, cannot ignore the unanimous 

 resolve of the great Ijody of the elementary-school 

 teachers to give the fullest support to the Education 

 Bill, since they are in the main drawn ffom the same 

 class as their pupils, and must have actual experi- 

 ence of their needs. They are convinced that the true 

 policy is "to put the whole child to school," and its 

 solution is not to be found " in relays of children [who] 

 should follow each other during the working hours of 

 the day to maintain a continuous supply of labour," 

 nor, if the child " is to be a competent attendant on 

 either cattle or sheep," he "must grow up with them 

 and begin to know and understand them before he is 

 ten," as Prof. Wallace demands. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Geological Society, March 20.^ — Mr. G. W. Lamplugh, 

 president, in the chair. — Dr. W. F. Smeeth : The 



geology of Southern India, with particular reference to 

 the Archaean rocks of the Mysore State. The geo- 

 logical formations of Southern India consist largely of 

 a highly folded and foliated complex of Archaean gneisses 

 and schists, followed by patches of pre-Cambrian slates, 

 limestones, and quartzites ; with these are associated 

 basic lava-flows and ferruginous jaspers. The remain- 

 ing formations consist of remnants of the Gondwana 

 Beds (Coal Measures of Permo-Carboniferous age), a 

 few patches of Cretaceous rocks, some Tertiary and 

 Pleistocene deposits, and recent sands and alluvium, 

 all situated along the coastal margins of the Peninsula. 

 The scanty post-Archaean record of Southern India was 

 contrasted with the formations of Northern India 

 which record oft-repeated movements culminating in 

 the rise of the Himalaya in Tertiary times and accom- 

 panied by igneous activity on a gigantic scale. The 

 history oif the various views which have been held con- 

 cerning the Archaean complex were reviewed. In 1913 

 Holland produced a classification of the pre-Cambrian 

 rocks of India which exhibits a remarkable parallelism 

 with that given bv Lawson (1913) for the pre-Cambrian 

 of Canada. The' work of the Mysore Geological Sur- 

 vey eliminated the fundamental gneissic complex, and 

 showed that within the area of the Mysore State the 

 oldest rocks were the Dhdrwdr system, which had 

 been intruded into by at least four successive granite- 

 gneisses. The Mysore Archaean succession is either 

 incomplete, or does not fit in with the classifications 

 of Holland anJ Lawson. Holland's classification dealt 



