January 15, 1920] 



NATURE 



52J 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



In connection with the London County Council 

 addresses to teachers on recent developments in 

 science, Dr. W. Bateson will give a lecture on biology 

 at King's College, Strand, W.C.2, on Saturday, 

 January 24, at 11 a.m. The chair will be taken by 

 Dr. S. Russell Wells, Vice-Chancellor of the Univer- 

 sity of London. 



A White Paper {Cd. 221, 1919) just issued sets forth 

 the proposed text of the Order in Council by which, 

 subject to the approval of Parliament, certain powers 

 and duties in relation to public libraries, museums, 

 and gymnasiums, formerly" exercised by the Local 

 Government Board and latterly by the Ministry of 

 Health, are to be transferred to the Board of Educa- 

 tion. This forms part of the proposal made by the Re- 

 construction Committee on Adult Education, to which, 

 as we have previously recorded (Nature, October 9, 

 1919), exception was taken by the museum officials 

 and librarians. On the face of it, however, the pro- 

 posed Order seems unobjectionable and, indeed, 

 natural. The powers in question relate to the making 

 of various by-laws and to the sales of buildings or 

 land, and there can be no ground for supposing that 

 they will be exercised in other than a liberal spirit 

 conducive to the best ends of the institutions con- 

 cerne<l. The questions of financial control, apportion- 

 ment of rates, and general management do not seem 

 to falK within the scope of this Order, and nothing 

 is said in it about bringing museums and libraries 

 under the control of the local education authorities. 

 At the same time, the present step may be regarded 

 as only the first of a contemplated series, and as, in 

 any case, the necessary preliminary to those more 

 fundamental changes concerning which opinions differ. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Faraday Society, December 15, 1919. — Prof. A. W. 

 Porter, vice-president, in the chair. — .\. G. Tarrant : 

 The measurement of physical properties at high tem- 

 Tieratures. .An account is given of experiments made 

 upon refractory materials with the view of measuring 

 certain physical properties at high temperatures, par- 

 ticular attention being paid to thermal expansion, 

 tensile strength, and thermal conductivitv. — Lieut. 

 W. .\. Macladyen : An aspect of electrolytic iron 



'. deposition. The experiments detailed were carried out 

 in seeking the best conditions for obtaining thick, 

 hard, adherent deposits of iron on steel-mechanism 

 parts which had been machined too much or worn 

 down in a few places, and thus rendered useless, so 

 as to enable the scrapped parts to be replaced in use 

 after treatment. — J. G. Williams : The electrolytic 

 formation of perrhlorate. It is pointed out that 

 present practice in electrolytic preparation of per- 

 rhlorate uses much higher temperature of liquor and 

 current density than is given in text-books. — Prof. 

 A. W. Porter : The vapour pressure of binarv m'ix- 

 tures. In order to remove difficulties in connection 

 with the proof of the Duhcm-Margules formula for 

 the vapour pressures of binary mixtures, a simplified 

 proof is given which makes clear the extent of the 



; usual approximations in each step of the proof. — 

 Prof. E. D. Campbell : The solution theory of steel 

 and the influence of changes in carbide concentration 

 on the electrical resistivity. Baly's force-field theory 

 is applied to the case of the solid solution of the non- 



I ferrous elements in steel. The experimental portion 



i of the paper describes a research on the influence of 

 the decarburisation by means of hvdrogen of a series 

 of allov steels on the electrical resistivity, when the 



t NO 2620. VOT.. TO4I 



metal is in both the annealed and hardened condition. 

 — S. Horiba : Some relations between the solubilities 

 of solutes and their molecular volumes. — Dr. E. J. 

 Hartung -. (i) An accurate method for the determina- 

 tion of vapour pressure. (2) Some properties of 

 copper ferrocyanide. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, December 15, 1919.— M. L6on 

 Guignard in the chair. — H. Douvilli : The annular 

 Foraminiferai (Cyclostegnes) of Orbigny. The annular 

 development taken by Orbigny as a basis of classifica- 

 tion is the result of a particular mode of growth, and 

 is a secondary character. — G. Bonnier : Comparative 

 culture of seedlings at high altitudes and in the plain. 

 .\fter experiments, lasting thirty or thirty-five years, 

 low-level plants grown on the same soil at different 

 altitudes acquire completely the form and structure of 

 plants of the same species growing naturally at the 

 higher altitude. Detailed examples are given. — 

 E. Aries : A new improvement of the equation of 

 state of fluids. — V. Grignard, G. Rivat, and Ed. 

 Urbain : The chloro-derivatives of methyl formate and 

 carbonate. — ^G. Friedel : The calculation of the inten- 

 sity of X-rays diffracted by crystals. — M. Louis 

 Lumiere was elected a member of the division of the 

 applications of science to industry. — M. Plancherel : 

 The method of integration of.Ritz. — J. Drach : Deter- 

 mination of the first integrals of the differential equa- 

 tion of geodesic lines, rational with respect to the 

 first differential of the unknown function. — Ed. 

 Fouche : A characteristic equation for atmospheric air. 

 — P. Jolibois ; A new method of physico-chemical 

 analysis of precipitates. .Application to the study of 

 the calcium phosphates. — .\. Recoura : A new complex 

 form of chromic sulphate.— -A. Kling, D. Florentin, 

 A. Lassieur, and E. Schmutz : The properties of the 

 chloromethyl chloroformates. — M. Godchot and F. 

 Taboury : Some new bicyclic ketones. Further applica- 

 tions of the reaction between ketones and calcium 

 hydride. — L. Bertrand and .\. Lanquine : The relations 

 between chemical composition, microscopic structure, 

 and the ceramic qualities of clays. The usual method 

 of calculating the proportion of mica in clay from the 

 chemical analyses can be shown by microscopic 

 examination to be erroneous. The chemical composi- 

 tion of a clay is an insufficient guide to its ceramic 

 properties. — R. Anthony : The determination of the 

 lobulation of the kidney in mammals. — A. Pezard : 

 Alimentary castration in cocks submitted to an ex- 

 clusivelv carnivorous diet. .\ strictly carnivorous diet 

 sets up a slow intoxication to which the genital glands 

 are peculiarly sensitive. The latter are either atrophied 

 or do not develop. — R. Bayeux : The urinary toxicity 

 and its modifications by hypodermic injections of 

 oxvgen during a prolonged stay at the Mont Blanc Ob- 

 servatory. — F. Bordas : Milk contamination. Remarks 

 on the importance of reducing infant mortality, with 

 especial reference to tuberculosis produced by dirty 

 milk. — P. Achalme and Mme. Phisalix : The preserva- 

 tion of vaccine. 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 



The Child's Unconscious Mind. By Dr. W. Lay. 

 Pp. vii-l-329. (London : Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd.) 

 105. net. 



The Elements of -Analytical Conies. By Dr. C. 

 Davison. Pp. vii + 238. (London: At the Cambridge 

 University Press.) jos. net. 



A Geographical Bibliography of British Ornithology 

 from the Earliest Times to the End of 1918. By 

 W. H. Mullens, H. Kirke Swann, and Rev. F. C. R. 

 Jourdain. Part ii. Pp. 97-192. (London : Witherby 

 and Co.) 6s. net. 



