May 9, 191 8] 



NATURE 



197 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Birmingham. — At the last meeting of the council of 

 the University a communication was received from 

 Dr. R. S. Heath stating that owing to ill-health he 

 desired to retire from his appointments as vice- 

 principal, professor of mathematics, and registrar. 

 Dr. Heath was appointed to his chair in Mason Col- 

 lege in May, 1884— thirty-four years ago. Appointed 

 chairman of the College Academic Board in 1S89 and 

 principal of the college in 1890, he was included in 

 the University charter as the first vice-principal, 

 undertaking in addition the duties of registrar. As a 

 member of council and senate he has rendered splendid 

 service to the University, and ably represented it on 

 many educational bodies. 



Dr. Stacey Wilson is' resigning his lectureship in 

 medicine to dental students in September next, after 

 upwards of twenty-six years' service. 



Dr. Mary Clarke is resigning her post as lecturer 

 in hygiene to students in the Training College for 

 Women owing to a great increase in hospital work. 



Upon the nomination of the Dean of the medical 

 faculty, the council has appointed Dr. Thomas Wilson 

 Sub-Dean of the faculty. 



Miss B. M. Bristol and Miss N. Carter have been 

 appointed honorary demonstrators in botany for the 

 current term. 



The Dr. Edith Pechey Phipson post-graduate 

 scholarship of the London (Royal Free Hospital) 

 School of Medicine for Women is to be awarded in 

 June. It is of the yearly value of 40L for a period 

 not exceeding three years, and is open to all medical 

 women, preferably coming from India or going to 

 work there, for assistance in post-graduate studv. 

 Applications must be received by May 31 by the 

 Warden and Secretary of the School, 8 Hunter Street, 

 Brunswick Square, W.C.i. 



In connection with the Department of x\pplied 

 Statistics and Eugenics of University College, London, 

 the Crewdson Benington studentship in anthropometry 

 and craniology (value lool.) and a Francis Galton 

 studentship in eugenics (value 130L) are to be filled 

 in July next. Candidates must be post-graduates, and 

 have had training in mathematics, physical measure- 

 ments, biology, and computing. Applications should 

 be made to the Director of the Biometric and Galton 

 Laboratories, University College, Gower Street, 

 W.C.I. - S ' 



The report on educational reform adopted by the con- 

 ference of the London Teachers' Association in 

 November last has been issued in pamphlet form. It 

 anticipates in some respects the chief provisions of the 

 Education Bill introduced by Mr. Fisher in February 

 last, which is now under consideration in Committee 

 of the House of Commons. It is highly satisfactory 

 to find so important a body of teachers in whole- 

 hearted support of the measures of educational reform 

 initiated and so convincingly advocated by Mr. Fisher, 

 and it should have a highly beneficial influence in 

 promoting the ultimate passage of the Bill. Where 

 the aims of the conference go beyond the provisions 

 of the Bill, which are, in effect, in the nature of a 

 practical compromise of conflicting demands, and 

 might well await the results of experience, it would be 

 wise for the great body of teachers to give unwavering 

 support to the measure as it stands, which, if it is 

 to have any chance of success in the present Parlia- 

 mentary session, will need all the help the friends of 

 education can bring. There has grown up during 

 these nearly four years of calamitous war a strong 

 NO. 2532, VOL. lOl] 



conviction that the salvation of the nation is to be 

 found in the provision of the means of complete educa- 

 tion for all classes of the people, especially with a 

 view to the extended electorate and the grave' responsi- 

 bilities which it implies; that the children are the 

 nation's greatest asset; and that for the comparatively 

 large number of really capable children to be found 

 in all strata of the nation, even the lowest, there 

 should be brought into existence the fullest facilities 

 for their adequate training, alike physical, intellectual, 

 and moral, so as to fit them for the duties of life and 

 for the highest service, according to their capacities 

 and opportunities. The conference demands the most 

 complete university education and training for all 

 classes of teachers in both subject and method, and 

 an unlimited scope for gifts and experience, with 

 adequate reward during service and due provision on 

 retirement, and insists that in all grades of the inspec- 

 torate there shall be guarantees of high practical skill 

 as teachers and full knowledge of the best educational 

 theory. Only on such terms can the nation be assured 

 of a corps of efficient public servants in the most im- 

 portant of its many various spheres of national service. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Royal Society, April 25.— Sir J. J. Thomson, presi- 

 dent, in the chair. — Sir Charles Parsons : Bakerian 

 lecture : Experiments on the production of diamond. 

 The paper alludes to some of the results of experi- 

 ments described in papers by the author to the Royal 

 Society in 1888 and 1907, particularly to those 

 on the decomposition by heat of carbon compounds 

 under high pressure, and on the effect of applying 

 pressure to iron during rapid cooling. A description is 

 given of experiments designed to melt carbon underpres- 

 sures up to 15,000 atmospheres by resistance heating and 

 by the sudden compression of acetylene oxygen flame, 

 also by the firing of high-velocity steel bullets through 

 incandescent carbon into a cavity in a block of steel. 

 Allusion is made to experiments on chemical reactions 

 under high pressure and their results. The pressures 

 occurring in rapidly cooled ingots of iron, and experi- 

 ments bearing upon this question, are discussed. Ex- 

 periments at atmospheric pressure and also in 

 vacuo are / described. The main conclusions arrived 

 at are : — That graphite cannot be converted into 

 diamond by heat and pressure alone within the limits 

 reached in the experiments ; that there is no distinct 

 evidence that any of the chemical reactions under 

 pressure have yielded diamond ; that the only un- 

 doubted source of diamond is from iron previously 

 heated to high temperature and then cooled ; and that 

 diamond is produced, not by bulk pressure, as pre- 

 viously supposed, but by the action of the gases 

 occluded in the metal and condensed into the centre 

 on quick cooling. 



Geological Society, April i7.--Mr. G. W. Lamplugh, 

 president, in the chair.— .A. E. Trueman : The evolu- 

 tion of the Liparoceratidic. The Ammonites con- 

 sidered include several subpaiallfl -.cri.-,, nf wliidi four 

 genera were indicated 1)\ Mi. S. S. HiKkniaii in 

 "Yorkshire Type Ammonites." The details of onto- 

 geny and the sutures have been employed in constiiu i- 

 ing tables showing both the biological and the strati- 

 graphical relations of the various species ; a revision 

 of the existing classification is proposed. The early 

 members of each series are similar " Capricorn " forms 

 with slender whorls and stout ribs. In somewhat later 

 examples the outer whorl is swollen and has paired 

 tubercles. From this stage the tendency is to shorten 



