June 24, 1920] 



NATURE 



537 



standard of fitness as regards man, woman, and child 

 may be raised. 



To attain this result we must all work together. 

 In the words of Pope : 



By mutual contidenceand mutual aid 



Great deeds are done and great discoveries made. 



University and Educational Intelligence. 



Cambridge. — Dr. Adrian has been appointed Uni- 

 versity lecturer in physiology, and Mr. F. A. Potts, 

 of Trinity Hall, has been appointed University lecturer 

 in zoology. 



The Harkness scholarship has been awarded to 

 E. W. Ravenshear, of Clare, and the Frank Smart 

 prizes in botany and zoology to R. E. Holthum, of St. 

 John's, and G. T. Henderson, of Gonville and Caius, 

 respectively. 



A second ad interim grant of 30,000!. has been 

 made by the Government to the University pending 

 the result of the inquiries of the Royal Commission. 



An important report has been made by the Local 

 Examinations and Lectures Syndicate, urging an 

 extension of the provision of both money and men 

 for extra-mural teaching. 



The Board of Agricultural Studies has received a 

 donation of loooZ., collected by Sir Arthur Shipley, 

 for the provision of lectures on tropical agriculture 

 for five years. Dr. C. A. Barber, ofChrist's, late of 

 the Imperial Department of Agriculture, West Indies, 

 and of the Indian Agricultural Service, has been 

 appointed lecturer in tropical agriculture for five 

 years. 



Miss B. A. Cloufh has been nopointed principal of 

 Xownham College in succession to Miss K. Stephen. 



Edinburgh. — The University Court has appointed 

 Mr. E. P. Stebbing, lecturer in forestry, to the 

 recently instituted chair of forestry. The Court has 

 also appointed Mr. John Petrie Dunn, a former Bucher 

 scholar of the L'niversity, who at the outbreak of the 

 war was Vice-Principal of the Kiel Conservatoire, as 

 a part-time lecturer in the department of music. 



The late Dr. T. G. Bartholomew has bequeathed to 

 the University the sum of :;coL, to be applied towards 

 the foundation of a chair in geography. 



Leeds. — Dr. W. E. S. Turner has been appointed 

 professor of glass technology, Mr. J. Husband pro- 

 fessor of civil engineering, and Dr. Mellanby professor 

 of ph.nrmacology. Mr. R. E. Pleasance has been 

 appointed demonstrator in pathology. 



Liverpool. — Dr. W. T. Dakin, professor of biolortv 

 in the Universitv of Western Australia, has been 

 appointed to the Derby chair of zoology in succession 

 to the late Prof. Leonard Doncaster. Dr. I. M. 

 Heilbron. professor of organic chemistry at the Royal 

 Technical College, Glasgow, has been appointed to 

 the chair of organic chemistrv. 



Oxford.— Dr. Beniamin Moore, of the Research 

 Staff, Department of Applied Physiology, Medical 

 Research Committee, has been appointed to the new 

 chair of biochemistry. The Halley lecture is to be 

 delivered bv Prof. R. A. Sampson. 



Prof. J. Strong, of the University of Leeds, has 

 been elected president of the .\ssociation of L'niversity 

 Teachers for the ensuing year. 



Dr. W. N. Haworth has been appointed to the 

 chair of organic chemistry at .Armstrong College, 

 Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in succession to Prof. S. 

 Srriiles. 



NO. 2643, VOL. TO5] 



Dr. V. J. H.\RDiNG, associate-professor of biological 

 and physiological chemistry at MpGill. University, has' 

 been appointed professor of pathological chemistry in 

 the University of Toronto. 



Mr. J. W. Scott, lecturer in moral philosophy In ' 

 the University of Glasgow, has been appointed pro- 

 fessor of logic and philosophy in the University Col- 

 lege of South Wales and Monmouthshire. 



.'\ SUMMER school of librarianship is to be held at 

 Bristol from August 30 to September 11, under the 

 auspices of the University of London School of 

 Librarianship. Some twenty-five papers have been 

 promised for delivery. 



The Rep>ort of the Librarian of Congress for the 

 year ending June 30, 19 19, shows that the work of the 

 principal library in the United States was carried 

 on with success during the war in spite of great 

 difficulties. Members of the staff' died in the war and 

 others have not returned, or have resigned on finding 

 more lucrative work elsewhere. The work has also 

 been hindered by a general rise in prices. The 

 number of printed books now in the library is about 

 2,700,000. The Library of Congress prints a card 

 catalogue of its books, which is justly valued for its 

 accuracy. By June 30, 1918, the number of different 

 titles in this card-index was 789,000. The average 

 stock of each card was 75 copies, making the total 

 number of cards in stock 60,000,000. The number of 

 subscribers to these cards is 2693, and the sale of 

 cards for the year produced 73,000 dollars. A large 

 number of Chinese books has recently been purchased. 

 The Chinese section is a unique feature of the 

 library, and now contains no fewer than 887 

 Chinese official geographical gazetteers. These 

 gazetteers are of great value in the study of the 

 industry, art, agriculture, and geography of China. 

 The report invites executors or others who may 

 possess manuscript papers relating to persons of 

 national importance in politics, science, literature, or 

 art to submit these papers for examination. The 

 librarian undertakes to return papers of a strictly per- 

 sonal or family character, and to preserve any valu- 

 able material that might otherwise be lost or 

 destroyed. 



Societies and Academies. 



London. 

 Royal Society, June lo.— Sir J. J. Thomson, presi- 

 dent, in the phair.— A. V. Hill and W. Hartree : 

 The thermo-elastic properties of muscle. The em- 

 ployment of a thermopile in a carefully closed-in 

 chamber, immersed in well-stirred water inside a 

 double-walled vacuum flask, together with photo- 

 graphic registering of the galvanometer response, has 

 made it possible to record the thermal consequences 

 of stretching a muscle (or a piece of indiarubber) or 

 of releasing a muscle already stretched. When a 

 muscle, alive or dead, is stretched, heat is liberated in 

 relatively large amount at first, but at a rapidly 

 diminishing rate. When a stretched muscle is 

 released, there is at first a rapid absorption of heat, 

 followed by a more prolonged evolution of heat. In 

 a complete cycle of lengthening and shortening the 

 net result is a production of heat, which is greater 

 the longer the interval between the two processes. 

 These thermo-elastic effects are large enough to afford 

 a notable complication in the measurement of the 

 heat-production of a live muscle excited to contract. 

 Their explanation is as follows :—(a) The muscle, like 

 a fiddle-string, shortens on being warmed ; conversely, 

 , according to the second law, it will warm on being 



