November i, 1917] 



NATURE 



79 



examination will not \n- held, but the candidate must 

 present evidence uf previous educational opportunities 

 and training, and give plans for future work, as well 

 as examples of work already accomplished. ^\pplica- 

 tions for the year beginning September 15, 1918, have 

 to be in the hands of the secretary of the committee, 

 Mrs. Charles S. Hinchman, 3635 Chestnut Street, 

 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on or before April i, 19 18. 

 Ix reply to questions asked in the House of Com- 

 mons on October 29, the Chancellor of the Exchequer 

 said that the Government recognised the urgency of 

 the Education Bill, but the grounds on which he 

 believed it was impossible to proceed with the Bill 

 were substantial — want of time. He had discussed 

 with the Minister of Education the possibility of deal- 

 ing with the non-controversial clauses of the Bill 

 this session. He thought the Minister of Educa- 

 tion agreed with him that if the Bill could not be got 

 through this siession, it was not worth while to 

 attempt to deal with part of it.— It will be 

 remembered that in making his statement on 

 the Education Bill in the House of Commons 

 on August 10, Mr. Fisher said it was proposed : — (i) 

 To improve the administrative organisation of educa- 

 tion ; (2) to secure for every boy and girl in this coun- 

 try an elementary-school life up to the age of fourteen 

 unimpeded by the competing claims of industry ; {-x) to 

 establish part-time day continuation schools which 

 every young person in the country shall be compelled 

 to attend unless he or she is undergoing some suitable 

 form of alternative instruction ; (4) to develop the 

 higher forms of elementary education and irnprove 

 the physical condition of the children and young per- 

 sons under instruction ; (5) to consolidate the elemen- 

 tary-school grants ; (6) to make an effective survey of 

 the whole educational provision in the country and 

 to bring private educational institutions into closer and 

 more convenient relations to the national system. 

 These proposals have been welcomed by all who be- 

 lieve in education as a national asset of sunreme im- 

 portance. At its meeting on October 24, the Education 

 Committee of the London County Council recom- 

 mended : — "That the council do express generally its 

 strong approval of the main educational provisions of 

 the Bill, introduced jpto Parliament by the President 

 of the Board of Education on August 10, 19 17, which, 

 in the opinion of the council, constitute an educational 

 reform of great magnitude and value, not onlv for 

 London, but for the rest of the country." The Essex 

 Education Committee has also resolved to urge the 

 Government ito pass a measure on the lines of the new 

 Education Bill at the earliest possible moment. It 

 was stated^ at the meeting of the committee that 

 a great feeling of dismav was experienced all over the 

 country at the news that the passage of the Bill would 

 be delaved. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Royal Microscopical Society, October 17.— Mr. Heron- 

 Allen, president, in the chair. — H. Sidebottom : Recent 

 Foraminifera dredged by H.M.S. Dart' off the east 

 coast of Australia in 465 fathoms. The localitv lies 

 off the coast of New South Wales, about 250 miles 

 north of Sydney, and more than fifty miles from the 

 coast-line. In this area the coast slopes rapidly down 

 to Thomson Basin, an isolated deeo (maximum 3000 

 fathoms) area between 24° and 52° S. and 149° 'and 

 16.!;° E. Pteropods are found only in tropical and 

 subtropical areas, and are of extremely limited occur- 

 rence in the Pacific. .\ great number of specimens 

 are recorded, but few of more than local interest, the 

 principal feature being a threat variety of rertnin modi- 

 fications of the genus Discorbina.-^F. M. Duncan : 

 Mounting and preserving marine biological specimens. 

 NO. 2505, VOL. IO0I 



The author described the methods adopted and standard- 

 ised by him tor the microscopical investigation of marine 

 Alga;, Protozoa, general Plankton, Hydromedusae, 

 Ecninodermala, larval and adult Crustaceans, 

 Ascidians, etc. The importance of standard percentage 

 solutions of formaldehyde, value of meninol as a 

 general narcotic, advantages of turpineol as a clearing 

 media for Crustacea, ana the disadvantages of fixing 

 with chromic acid or bichromic salts were also fully 

 discussed. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, October 15. — M. Camille Jordan 

 in the chair.— A. Lacroix : The leucitic lavas of the 

 Somma. A comparison of six complete analyses 

 of these Vesuvian leucitic rocks leads the author to 

 classify them under the name of vesuvites. Their 

 characteristic is their richness in leucite and in the 

 value of the ratio of the alkalis to the felspathic lime. 

 The leucitic rocks of the Somma are of a different 

 type; nine complete analyses of the latter are given. 

 — G. Bigourdan : Observations of nebulae made at the 

 Observatory of Paris. A summary of the last volume 

 published in 1913.— H. Le Cliatelier and B. Bogitch : 

 The refractory properties of magnesia. A comparison 

 of magnesia bricks either made in the laboratory from 

 pure magnesia or commercial specimens. The resist- 

 ance to crushing was measured at 15°, 1000°, 

 1300°, 1500°, and 1600° C. for two bricks, and at 

 15°, 1500°, and 1600° C. for the remainder. All the 

 magnesia bricks show a sudden fall of resistance to 

 crushing at a temperature depending on their degree 

 of purity, and this explains why in practice it has 

 been found that magnesia bricks stand less well in 

 furnaces than silica bricks, although their fusing points, 

 observed in the ordinary way without regard to resist- 

 ance to crushing, are higher than the silica bricks. — ^Ch. 

 Richet and H. Cardot : Regular and irregular anti- 

 septics. The variation of effect from the mean of a 

 large number of observations is taken as a measure 

 of the regularity of action of antiseptics. Data are 

 given for sixteen antiseptics, and the results sum- 

 marised in four classes, very regular, fairly regular, 

 irregular, and very irregular antiseptics. Types of 

 each of these classes in the above order are fluoride 

 of sodium, creosote, phenol, and mercury salts. — G. 

 Scorza : Abelian functions.— N. Lusin and W. Sier- 

 pinslii : A property of the continu. — E. Belot : The ex- 

 change of solid material between stellar systems by 

 meteorites with hyperbolic trajectory.- — Mile. A. Hure 

 and M. G. F. Dollfus : The discovery of Lutecian 

 millstone debris to the east of Sens (Yonne). — L. 

 Gentil and L. Joleaud : The discovery of a small coal 

 deposit in Tunis. This occurs in the neighbourhood 

 of Medjez and Bab. The analyses given show it to 

 be of high purity (average ash'under one per cent.). 

 Its stratigraphical surroundings are not those of the 

 Coal Measures.— E. Saillard : The seeds of the sugar- 

 beet. Before the war about four-fifths of the beet 

 seed came from abroad, mainly from Germany. The 

 sugar-beets of 1916 and 1917 have been practically 

 as rich in sugar as in the ten years which preceded 

 the war, although the production of sugar per hectare 

 has been slightly less ; the conditions of culture, how- 

 ever, have been less favourable. Without having 

 recourse to German seed, results with the sugar-beet 

 have heen kept nearly the same as in the years preced- 

 ing the war. — G. Foucher : The appearance of 

 Carausius morosus c? and its longevity. — W. Kopac- 

 zewski : ■ The poison of Muraena Helena. .\ dose of 

 15 milligrams" of this venom is fatal to a guinea-pig 

 weighing 400 to ."^oo grams. It is remarkably thermo- 

 stable, ^reserving its toxic properties after fifteen 

 minutes' heating to 7'?° C— Ch. DWrd, L. Baudoux, 

 and .\. Schneider: The crvstallisation of the acid 

 hj©mochromogen.— MM. Heitz-Boyer and Scheikevitch : 

 The process of osseous regeneration in the adult. 



