3^0. 



NATURE 



[July 28, 1898 



Dynamics and Hydrostatics, with practical work. Candidates 

 must send their names, with testimonials of good conduct and 

 certificate of birth, on or before Tuesday, October 25, to one of 

 the tutors, the Rev. E. S. Roberts or Dr. J. S. Reid. 



The Anderson travelling scholarship at Aberdeen University, 

 value 170/., tenable for two years, has been awarded to Mr. J. 

 J. R. Macleod. 



Dr. Wm. Duane has been appointed professor of physics 

 in the University of Colorado. He takes the place of Prof. 

 W. J. Waggener, who has resigned owing to failing health. 



The building of a new museum of archeology for the 

 University of Pennsylvania was begun in January last. Its cost 

 will be about 100,000/., and it will he completed, it is hoped, 

 early next year. 



Science states that the sum of 21,000 dollars has been given 

 by Mr. George A. Fowler, of Kansas City, to cover the cost of 

 re-building the agricultural department buildings of the University 

 of Kansas, recently destroyed by fire. 



The following appointments have been made at the Johns 

 Hopkins University :— Associate Prof. J. S. Ames to be pro- 

 fessor of physics ; Drs. T. C. Gilchrist and J. W. Lord to be 

 clinical professors of dermatology. 



Dr. a. M. Stalker has been appointed professor of 

 medicine, and Dr. S. MacEwan professor of surgery at Dundee 

 University College. Lectureships in the same college in 

 forensic medicine and public health, and physiology have, 

 respectively, been conferred upon Dr. C. Templeman and Dr. 

 F. Harris. 



University of London.— The following have passed in 

 the recent D.Sc. examination :— In Experimental Physics- 

 Robert Alfred Lehfeldt, Alfred Stansfield, Joseph Herbert 

 Vincent. In Chemistry — Samuel Barnett Schryver, Morris 

 William Travers. In Botany— Arthur Harry Church, Reginald 

 William Phillips, Alfred Barton Rendle. In Zoology— Marion 

 Isabel Newbigin, Ernest Warren. In Physiology— Jn. Le 

 Mare Bunch, Otto Fritz Frankau Griinbaum. In Geology and 

 Physical Geography— Catherine Alice Raisin. In Mental and 

 Moral Science — Jessie Charles. 



A petition is about to be presented to the House of Commons 

 -.by the Association of School Boards, acting for a large number 

 of School Boards in England and Wales, with reference to the 

 action of the Science and Art Department in the appointment 

 of local authorities for secondary education. The petition 

 represents that School Boards have hitherto been recognised by 

 the Science and Art Department as local committees eligible to 

 receive grants from the Department, but recently, in appointing 

 local authorities for the distribution of the grants within certain 

 areas, a large number of the Technical Instruction Committees of 



- 'County and County Borough Councils have been recognised by the 

 Department as being responsible for the science and art instruc- 

 tion within the areas of such Committees, and to these local 

 authorities will be entrusted the distribution of money voted by 

 Parliament for science and art instruction. These local authori- 



- ties are thus being invested with many of the important 

 administrative powers of local authorities for secondary educa- 

 tion, and the Science and Art Department, it is urged, are 

 carrying into effect without legislation an arrangement that was 

 proposed in the case of the Education Department and of the 



.Science and Art Department by the Education Bill of 1896, 

 which was successfully opposed and withdrawn. In the opinion 

 • of the Association the action of the Science and Art Depart- 

 ..ment is a serious interference with the powers of School 

 Boards and of managers of voluntary schools ; it forestalls 

 imminent legislation, since a Government measure for secondary 

 education is shortly to be introduced into Parliament ; and it 

 <Jisregards the absolute necessity which is universally felt for 

 correlating all educational machinery, and is in direct opposition 

 to the recommendations of the recent Royal Commission on 

 Secondary Education. The petitioners request that steps be 

 taken to secure that the Science and Art Department in making 

 the appointment of local authorities dealing with science and 

 art grants under Clause 7 of the Science and Art Directory, if 

 permitted at all, shall act in accordance with the Association's 

 recommendations, which are stated to be almost identical with 

 those of the Royal Commission. 



NO. 1500, VOL. 58] 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, June 1898. — 

 The regular meeting, held on April 30, was largely attended. 

 In addition to the presentation of some thirteen papers, a slight 

 amendment was made in the by-laws to provide for life- 

 membership. — The following five papers were read at the meet- 

 ing : — Example of a single-valued function with a natural 

 boundary, whose inverse is also single-valued, by Prof. Osgood. 

 It is first shown that functions exist which are analytic within 

 the unit circle, which have the unit circle as a natural boundary, 

 and which take on no value more than once. Then an explicit 

 example is taken, viz. the series 



J\z) = Z f + ^^ + . . . 



(a+i)(a-f2) (a2+ i)(a2-f2) 



where a denotes an integer greater than unity. This example 

 is discussed and illustrated.— Note on Poisson's integral, by 

 Prof. Bocher. A non-artificial proof is given, and the theorem 

 generalised by inversion, whence results the theorem, If {x, y) 

 is any point within the circle C, 



V(. 



2TJo 



(A) where ^ is the angle measured from a fixed circle through 

 {x, y) which cuts C orthogonally to a variable circle of the same 

 sort. Hence is derived the further theorem, given a con- 

 tinuous function Vc upon the circumference of the circle C, the 

 function V(x, y) defined by (A) throughout the interior of C is 

 harmonic throughout C, and joins on continuously to the values 

 Vc on the circumference. [From a theorem of Gauss the value 

 of V at the centre (xo, y^) of C is the arithmetic mean of its 

 values on the circumference. If ,Ve denotes the values of V on 

 the circumference, and <^ is the angle at the centre, we have 



V(x„, 



2^J 



Vcd<l>]. 



—On the polynomials of Stieltjes, by Prof, van Vleck. Such 

 a polynomial is defined to be one which satisfies the regular 

 differential equation of the second order. 



dx' 



\x - e^ x - er /ax 



, <p(x)[ = Aox'-s + A^x" 



+ A.,,] 



{X - e,) 



[x - er) 



— Note on Stokes's theorem in curvilinear coordinates, by Prof. 

 A. G. Webster. ^Is continuity of space necessary to Euclid's 

 geometry, by W. M. Strong. The space is thus defined : Let 

 a real number which can be obtained from the integers by a 

 finite number of rational operations and extractions of square 

 roots be called a quadratic number. A, B, C are any three 

 points not in a straight line. Such that AC and BC are 

 quadratic in ternis of AB. The points whose distances from 

 each of the three points A, B, C, are quadratic in AB, constitute 

 the space (i.e. quadratic space). In such a space it is shown 

 that figures may be moved about without change of size or 

 shape. Two other striking peculiarities are — two circumferences 

 may intersect in a single point, and a circumference may have 

 no centre.- A short note on the Steiner points of Pascal's 

 hexagon, by Dr. Snyder, gives a short and simple proof of the 

 conjugate rtature of M, N with regard to the conic for which 

 M, N are associated Steiner points (cf. Von Staudt, " Ueber 

 die Steiner'schen Gegenpunkte," Crelle, vol. Ixii.). In this 

 proof the author claims that it is clearly shown which of Steiner's 

 points are associated as "Gegenpunkte." — There are two 

 reviews, viz. of the " Cours de Geometric Analytique of Niewen- 

 glowski," by Prof. Bocher, and of Goursat's " Partial Differential 

 Equations," by Prof. E. O. Lovett (thirty-five pages).— The 

 notes give the mathematical courses for the summer semester at 

 the Universities of Berlin, Gottingen, Leipsig, Munich, 

 Columbia, Chicago, and Harvard.— At the end is given the 

 usual list of new publications. 



Symons's Monthly Meteorological Magazine, July. — The 

 principal article contains some account, by Mr. Rotch, of the 

 recent International Aeronautical Conference at Strassburg, 

 which was well attended. The methods discussed for obtaining 

 observations were manned and unmanned balloons, the captive 

 kite-balloon, and kites. — M. Cailletet described his apparatus 

 for photographing automatically at fixed invervals a barometer 

 in the balloon and the ground vertically below, so that the 



