386 



NATURE 



[December ii, 1919 



G^orgina McRobert lecturer in pathology in the 

 I'niversity of Aberdeen. 



The College Hoard of the i^ondon Hospital is offer- 

 ing the Liddle triennial prize (value 120I.) for an e»;say 

 on "The Etiology of Epidemic Influenza." The com- 

 peting essays must reach the Dean of the London 

 Hospital Medical College on or before June 30 next. 



The New Yorl< correspondent of the Times an- 

 nounces that by the will of the late Henry Clay Frick 

 all his estate, estimated at 29,000,000/., except 

 5,000,000/., is bequeathed to public educational and 

 philanthropic objects. The benefactions include the 

 following : — Princeton I'niversity. 3,000,000/. ; Har- 

 vard University, 1,000,000/.; and Massachusetts In- 

 stitute of Technology, 1,000,000/. 



The council of the Institution of Naval Architects 

 offers for competition a scholarship (value 100/. per 

 annum, for three years) to be awarded on the results 

 of the Board of Education examinations in naval 

 architecture and other subjects. Candidates must be 

 between eighteen and twenty-one years of age. Full 

 particulars and application forms are obtainable from 

 the Secretary, Institution of Naval Architects, 

 5 .Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C.2. Entries will 

 close on January 15, 1920. 



The annual meeting of ihe Mathematical! Associa- 

 tion will be held at the London Day Training College. 

 .Southampton Row, London, W.C.i, on January 7 

 and 8, 1920. The address of the president. Prof. 

 E. T. WhittaUer, will be on "Some Mathematical 

 Problems Awaiting .Solution " ; and the papers to be 

 presented are: "A Survey of the Numerical Methods 

 for Solving Equations," the president; "The Use .if 

 Symmetry in the Teaching of Geometry," C. Godfrev ; 

 " Convention and Duplexity in Elementary Mathe- 

 matics," Prof. E. H. Neville; "The Place of Common 

 Logarithms in Mathematical Training," Miss H. M. 

 Cook; and "The Teaching of Mechanics to 

 Beginners," Mr. R. C. Fawdry. 



An interesting departure in commercial scientific 

 education has been inaugurated by the directors of the 

 Anglo-Mexican Petroleum Co., who have invited Mr. 

 C. R. Darling, lecturer in ph\sics at Finsbury 

 Technical College, to deliver a course of ten lectures 

 to the .senior staff on the commercial applications of 

 physics. TTiese lectures are intended to form a broad 

 basis of information which will lead to a fuller 

 appreciation of the specialised lectures to be given by 

 experts connected with the firm. A lecture-room has 

 been provided on the company's premises at 16 Fins- 

 bury Circus, and has been equipped with facilities for 

 experimental illustraticns. This recognition of the 

 value of science in commerce is a hopeful, sign of the 

 times, and .in educational scheme of this character 

 cannot fail to lead to increased efficiency in the staff 

 of an industrial firm. 



A SPECIAL committee of the Anglo-.\merican Society 

 suggested in the programme for the tercentenary cele- 

 bration of the Mayflower and the Pilgrim fathers 

 (1620-1920) the foundation and endowment of a chair 

 in American history, literature, and institutions. The 

 sum of 20,000/. was required for the endowment of 

 this chair, and this has now been provided by Sir 

 George Watson. It is not proposed that the chair 

 should be exclusively attached to one university, but 

 that it shall be used for the general purpose of stimu- 

 lating interest and study of America in all the British 

 universities. Neither will the chair be held per- 

 manently by one scholar of a single nationality. The 

 scheme provides that it .shall be held, for a period of 

 one or two vears, alternately by an American and a 

 British scholar or public man, thus drawing upon the 

 NO. 2615, VOL. 104] 



best intellectual resources of the two countries, an 

 securing a variety of treatment of the subjects dealt 

 with. .The committee points out that as a permaneni 

 memorial of .America's loyal partnership with Great 

 Britain in the war, as well as of the historic ties of 

 kinship which unite the two peoples and of which the 

 Mayflou<er celebration is a reminder, nothing could be 

 more fitting than the establishment of this educational 

 foundation. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Anthropological Institute, October 14. Sir 



Everard im Thurn, president, in the chair. — Lieut. 

 E. W. P. Chinnery : " Dengora baiari " is the cere- 

 mony of initiation of young men and women of the 

 Binandere tribe, Memba River, British New Guinea. 

 Pigs are killed, and each candidate stands on the pig 

 contributed by his parents and receives a loin-cloth, 

 gonga, various ornaments, and instruction in social 

 conduct. Dramatic plays of a special instructional 

 character, iavelo, are performed by the village people 

 and visitors. .Ancestral ghosts are said to reside 

 during these ceremonies in the posts, gusi, of the 

 men's house, oro, and in the jijima, properties of the 

 iaveto. The ^ii.^i during such time are .said tc be 

 kotembo-kotcmbo, but their connection with the dead 

 ends with the completion of the ceremony. Some lime 

 afterwards the jijima are smeared with pig-grease^ 

 decorated with feathers, cast into the river, and im- 

 plored in the names of decea.sed ancestors to change 

 into crocodiles and devour the enemies of the tribe. 

 .\fter "dengora baiari " follows a period of seclusion 

 in a house known as wawa ; this condition, iawa da 

 vitari, is removed after some months bv a purification 

 ceremony known as tuna. The candidates then 

 bathe in the river and enter the normal life of the 

 tribe. 



Zoological Society, November iS. — Prof. E. W. 

 MacBridc, vice-president, in the chair. — Major J. S. 

 Hamilton : Field-notes on some mammals in the Elahr 

 el Gebel, Southern Sudan.— Prof. J. F. Gemmill : 

 (i) The development of the mesenteries in Urtirina 

 cras.iicornis (.Actinozoa), and (2) the Leptomedusan 

 Melicertidiuvi ociocosiatum. — Rev. .A. H. Cooke : The 

 radula of the Mitridae.— Dr. C. F. Sonntag : The 

 variations in the digastric muscle of the Rhesus 

 macaque and the common macaque. — E. S. Russell : 

 The righting reaction in Asterina gibbosa. Penn. — } 

 Lt.-Col. S» M. Copeman : Experiments on sex. 4«-ter- < 

 mination. — M. Turner : The Nematode parasites of a ^ 

 Chapman's zebra. j. 



Geological Society, November 19. — Mr. G. W. 

 Lamplugh, president, in the chair. — Prof. J. E. 

 Marr : The Pleistocene deposits around Cambridge. 

 This paper deals with the deposits in the immediate 

 vicinity of Cambridge, and contains new records of 

 sections, fossils, and implements. It is pointed out 

 that, owing to alternating periods of erosion and 

 aggradation, relative height above sea-level is not a 

 trustworthy index of antiquity, and modifications of 

 the classification proposed by W. Penning and A. J. 

 Jukes-Browne are indicated. 



Cambridge. 

 Philosophical Society, November 24. — Prof. Eddington 

 and E. T. Coltingham : (i) Photographs of a solar 

 prominence taken during the eclipse of 1919 May 2q. 

 (2) The theory of relativity and recent eclipse observa- j 

 tions. — W. J.' Harrison : (i) The hydrodynamical theory 

 of the lubrication of a cylindrical bearing under vari- 



