March i8, 1926] 



NATURE 



39 



The .Se9retary. of the Royal Commission on Oxford 

 and Ca'nfbridge Universities gives notice that all 

 members .of the University who desire to submit repre- 

 sentations on mattersi falling within the terms of refer- 

 ence of the Commission should forward written 

 memoranda in triplicate to him at 22 Carlisle Place, 

 S.W'.i, if possible by the middle of April. 



Fresh regulations for the diplomas in agriculture 

 and forestry have been drafted. It is proposed to 

 establish a diploma in horticulture, and, further, to 

 include horticulture in the subjects to be examined 

 upon for the degree of B.A. in agriculture, estate 

 management, and forestry. 



The Senate of the University of Dublin has decided 

 to grant the following honorary degrees : — D.Litt. : 

 Dr. William Crooke. LL.D.: Lord Bryce and Sir 

 Donald MacAlister. M.D.: Sir Archibald E. Garrod, 

 Regius professor of medicine in the University 

 of Oxford. D.Sc: Prof. W. H. Bragg, Quain 

 jMofossor of physics in the University of London, and 

 Prof. R. A. ISIillikan, professor of physics in the 

 I niversity of Chicago. 



.\ Royal Commission has been appointed to inquire 

 into the financial resources and working of the Uni- 

 \crsity of Dublin and of Trinity College, Dublin, and 

 10 consider the application which has been made by 

 the University for State financial help. The members 

 of the Commission are : — Sir Archibald Geikie, Sir 

 John Ross, Dr. A. E. Shipley, Prof. J. S. E. 

 Townsend, and Prof. J. Joly. Prof. G. Waterhouse 

 ;> to be the secretary to the Commission. 



The governing body of the Imperial College of 

 Science and Technology has made arrangements for 

 the provision, partly from its own funds and partly 

 from the gifts of donors for this special purpose, of 

 -ix post-graduate scholarships for advanced work and 

 research to be held in the coming year at American 

 universities. It is hoped that arrangements mav be 

 made for interchange by the reception at the Imperial 

 College of a corresponding number of university 

 students from America. Lord Crewe, chairman of 

 the governing body, has t;eceived the following letter 

 from Viscount Grey : — " It is most desirable that 

 young men of the rising generation, who will do 

 much of the public work here and in America in the 

 coming years, should get to know each other's uni- 

 versities. It will help both countries to realise how 

 much the British and American peoples have in 

 common, not merely in language, but in thought and 

 in political views and aspirations. I am sure the 

 interchange of students between British and Ameri- 

 can universities' is most valuable both to individual 

 students therhselves and generally in promoting friend- 

 ^liip based upon true understanding." 



.\ WELL-ATTENDED meeting of teachers of the Incor- 

 porated Colleg^es and Schools of the University of 

 London w-as held at King's College on Friday, 

 March 12, under the chairmanship of Prof. W. A. 

 Bone, of the Imperial College of Science and 

 Technology, to consider the position of universitv 

 teachers in relation to the Teacheirs (Superannuation) 

 Act. The chairman pointed out that, as the .Act :s 

 framed, university teachers are expressly excluded 

 from its benefits. This exclusion will inevitably set 

 up a barrier between the schools and the universities, 

 and prevent the free tt^ansition of teachers from 

 the 'ohe' to the other, especially as the salaries 

 of ^niv^rsity lecturers compare most unfavourably 



'""'"' t1\ose in the better secondarV school's. Finari- 



cialfy,'! 



ly, 'me benefits under the Teachers Act are much 

 greater in almost all respects than under the existing 

 contributory scheme for universitv teachers, which 

 NO. 2629, VOL. 105] 



makes no provision in respect of the years of service 

 of a teacher prior to his joining the «chemc,' whereas 

 the Act is retrospective and takes account of all yeLiifs 

 of recognised service. .'\s the scheme was only insti- 

 tuted in 1913 this is a matter oT serious conc^rrf to 

 the older university teachers, for whom the provision 

 on retirement is totally inadequate. The new scales 

 of salaries and the Teachers Sujx^rannuation Act haVe 

 made the school-teaching profession much more jltfrac- 

 tive than in the past, and unless the universities are 

 placed in a position to offer salaries and retiring allow- 

 ances at least comparable with those offered to 

 teachers in secondary schools, they cannot maintain 

 their efficiency and attract the abler graduates to their 

 service. After discussion the following resolution was 

 passed with only five dissentients :—" That this meet- 

 ing- of whole-time teachers in the Incorporated Col- 

 leges and Schools of the University of London hereby 

 requests the Government to extend to university 

 teachers and administrative officers all the benefits of 

 the School Teachers (Superannuation) .\tt, 1918. "' 

 A committee was appointed to take further action in 

 conjunction with the Association of University 

 Teachers. 



Societies and Academies. 

 London. 

 Royal Society, March 4.— Sir J. J. Thomson, presi- 

 dent, in the chair.— Dr. F. F. Blackman : The proto- 

 plasmic factor in photo-synthesis. The centre of 

 interest in problems of the photo-reduction of CO, in 

 green photo-synthesising cells is shifting from the 

 chlorophyll to the protoplasm. The quantitative con- 

 trol of photo-synthesis in the normal green cell is 

 determined protoplasmically. This is illustrate*d by 

 the temperature relations, which are not those of a 

 photo-chemical reaction, but of a dark reaction. The 

 photo-synthetic activities of leaves of different varie- 

 ties (green v. golden leaves) and at different stages of 

 development show no relation to the amount of chloro- 

 phyll that they contain, as is brought Out by the 

 "assimilation numbers" of Willstatter. The relation 

 between chlorophyll development and photO-syrtthtsis 

 development, described in the next communicati6n, 

 furnishes another instance of the dominance of factors 

 other than the pigment. In many lower organisms 

 we find the power of reducing COj to forni organic 

 matter by chemical energy in the absence of pigment 

 or light. This, chemo-synthesis may be the sole or 

 only an alternative source of the carbon for the living 

 cell. The process involves, of course, no cosmic gain 

 of energy. In these cases the efficiency 6f energy 

 transference from the oxidation of various substances 

 to the reduction of CO, seems to be as gre^at &s or 

 greater than in the utilisation of light energy for 

 photo-reduction of CO^.— G. E. Brlgga : The be- 

 ginning of photo-synthesis in the green leaf. In 

 voung leaves development of the power of photo- 

 svnthesis is found to lag behind development of chloro- 

 phyll, so that a green leaf when young may exhibit 

 very slight or zero photo-svnthetic power. This means 

 that photo-synthetic activity demands development cf 

 some other internal factor than chlorophyll. , The 

 potentiality of this other factor rapidly increases with 

 ^ge day by day, even when the leaf is k;ept in dark- 

 ness continuously. By keeping a. leaf in a very low 

 partial pressure of oxygen, further development, of 

 chlorophyll can, be completely arrested, even in con- 

 tinuous light. , Here ^so, starting with a IjeAf of 

 feeble green tint, there is similar dav-bv-day increase 

 in photo-synthetic. power, in , spite of there bejn^ no 

 further greening. Experiments were carried out by 



