5^6 



NATURE 



[January 29, 1920 



candidates, proportioned to the total enrolment of 

 students in the institution. In the second place, selec- 

 tion committees have been composed of old Rhodes 

 scholars, acting under a chairman not himself a 

 Rhodes scholar. It is hoped by degrees to extend this 

 principle elsewhere, to the extent at least of securing 

 representation of Rhodes scholars on all electing com- 

 mittees. In the course of the year 1920, scholars will 

 be elected to represent the years 1920 and 192 1, the 

 former coming into residence in January, 192 1, the 

 latter in October, 1921. Revised circulars giving 

 information in reference to the award of the scholar- 

 ships in each of the communities to which they are 

 assigned will be issued shortly. Any further informa- 

 tion may be obtained on application to the offices of 

 the Trust, Seymour House, Waterloo Place, London, 

 S.W.I. In the United States application may be 

 made to Prof. Frank Aydelotte, Massachusetts Insti- 

 tute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. 



We trust that there will be a ready and generous 

 response to the appeal issued by University College, 

 London, with the approval of the Senate of the Uni- 

 versity, for a sum of ioo,oooi. to extend and re-equip 

 the school of engineering, which has played so im- 

 portant a part in engineering education and research. 

 Founded in 1828, this school has ever since enjoyed 

 the inestimable advantage of the guidance of some 

 of the most eminent scientific engineers of their 

 day, and its influence on practice has been very great. 

 The reconstruction and re-equipment of schools of 

 engineering are inevitable at intervals if they are to 

 exert an effective influence, and there has probably 

 never been so vital a need as now to provide the best 

 scientific education possible for. the young men who, 

 in due course, will have to direct our engineering 

 commerce and compete for world markets. The 

 appeal has met with an excellent initial response. 

 Lord Cowdray has given lo.oooJ., and promised 

 a further like sum when 70,000^. has been reached. 

 The members of the family of the late Mr. Charles 

 Hawksley have given 3000Z. towards an extension of 

 the hydraulic laboratory which will be associated with 

 his name, while other substantial amounts bring the 

 sums subscribed and promised to about 30,000?. There 

 is no more vital need at the present time than the 

 highest scientific training for young men who have 

 borne the brunt of war for years, and are now willing 

 to devote further years to preparation for professional 

 careers. It is to be hoped that the remaining 70,000?. 

 will be quickly subscribed in order that the plans now 

 piade can be carried out. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Geological Society, January 7.— Mr. G. W. Lamplugh, 

 president, in the chair. — F. J. North : Syringothyris, 

 Winchell, and certain Carboniferous Brachiopoda re- 

 ferred to Spiriferina, D'Orbigny. This paper is the 

 outcome of a suggestion made in 1913 by Prof. T. F. 

 Sibly, who pointed out the desirability of an attempt 

 to remove the uncertainty which had hitherto existed 

 in the naming of the British species of Syringothyris, 

 and of the Carboniferous Spiriferids possessing a 

 lamellose surface ornament, which it was customary 

 to refer to Spiriferina because there was no other 

 genus for their reception, although it had long been 

 recognised that few, if any, of them really belonged 

 to that genus. .After indicating the exact sense in 

 which certain frequently occurring terms are used, 

 and reviewing the history of previous research, the 

 author discusses the history in Avonian times of the 

 genus Syringothyris, . and s'uggests a classification, of 



NO. 2622, VOL. 104] 



its species. Variations due to time, to environmental 

 conditions, and to distribution in space are recognised, 

 and distinctive names are given to the mutations 

 characteristic of certain horizons. — S. S. Buckman : 

 Jurassic chronology : i.. Lias. Supplement i, West 

 England strata. It is found that the preserved strata 

 of the Gloucestershire-Worcestershire Lias under con- 

 sideration happen in the main to be deposits of dates 

 when the living Ammonites were rather small ; while 

 there is faunal failure, and presumably stratal failure, 

 of the times when large Ammonites flourished. The 

 converse phenomena are mainly illustrated by North 

 Somerset deposits. The times when large and small 

 Ammonites lived appear to follow one another like 

 waves, illustrated even in a short table of Liassic 

 deposits. 



Aristotelian Society, January 19.— Prof. Wildon Carr, 

 vice-president, in the chair. — Prof. J. A. Smith : The 

 philosophy of Giovanni Gentile. The paper began 

 with a general characterisation of the remarkable re- 

 birth of idealistic philosophy in southern Italy. That 

 philosophy, as exemplified in the systems of Croce and 

 Gentile, builds upon the foundation of history, which 

 it conceives of as the content of experience self-created 

 by the mind that seeks the theory of it. The special 

 problem now before philosophy is the understanding 

 of history, and, imprimis, of its own history, -i^n 

 endeavour was made to trace the stages in the forma- 

 tion of Gentile's thought — its gradual enlargement 

 from a theory of education into a universal meta- 

 physics. This development culminates in the assertion 

 of the identity of mind's essence with its existence ; 

 it is the process of its own gradual self-creation. The 

 doctrine that mind is atto puro is taken and employed 

 by Gentile as the guiding principle of a new form of 

 absolute idealism. As compared with Croce, Gentile 

 insists more upon the unity of mind or spirit, while re- 

 cognising certain absolute forms of it as issuing from 

 it and constituting its concrete being or filling. Philo- 

 sophy is the supreme form of self-consciousness, and 

 so finds in itself the clue to all that mind is or has 

 created — itself and its world. This principle, oncfr 

 accepted, applies itself and advances by an immanent: 

 dialectic. No reality outside mind and its activity is 

 needed to account for experience. The paper con- 

 cluded with an attempt to render the central idea of 

 Gentile's philosoohv more familiar, and to meet a iew 

 objections to its apprehension and acceptance. 



Sydney. 

 Royal Society of New South Wales, December 3, 1919. 

 — Prof. C. E. Fawsitt, president, in the chair. — 

 Prof. C. E. Fawsitt : Presidential address : The 

 uniformities of Nature. The principle of continuity 

 was considered in relation to the phenomena of the 

 natural world, and prominence given to the con- 

 tributions of Mr. A. J. Balfour to this subject. The 

 problem of the creation of the atoms of all, or at any 

 rate of some (primary), elements is still unsolved, 

 and Clerk Maxwell's original description of the atoms 

 as having the nature of "manufactured articles " may 

 still be applied. The discontinuity between inanimate 

 matter and living matter remains unbridged, in spite 

 of the hopes and efforts of many to bridge the existing 

 gap. The irregularities noticed from time to time 

 in the periodic classification of the chemical elements 

 have to a very large extent disappeared as a result of 

 the research of recent years, but the difficulty of 

 placing the elements of the rare earth group satis- 

 factorily remains as a blot on what is otherwise still 

 one of the most fascinating regularities known to 

 chemists. The president then gave the periodic 

 arrangement in a form he considered most suit- 

 able at the present time.— J. H. Maiden : Notes 



