September 29, 1898] 



NATURE 



539 



new departure has been made by the establishment of a school 

 for carriage builders. — The opening of the new session at the 

 Northampton Institute is marked by several important develop- 

 ments. Rooms have been specially fitted up for the teaching of 

 electro-chemistry in special relation to the trades of the district, 

 and valuable courses in electrolysis, electro-plating and electro- 

 typing have been arranged. A metallurgical department has 

 also been established, and a special laboratory has been fitted 

 up in connection with it. Special classes for opticians have 

 been arranged in conjunction with the Spectaclemakers' Com- 

 pany, a laboratory has been equipped for the practical teaching 

 of optics, and a graded series of examinations has been 

 drawn up. 



The work of the two London polytechnics which are inde- 

 pendent of the Board's Technical Education aid, the East 

 London Technical College and the Goldsmiths' Institute, con- 

 tinues to show increased activity. In the chemical department 

 at the Goldsmiths' Institute a special course has been organised 

 for brewers and sugar refiners ; while the art department con- 

 tinues to take a leading position among the art schools of the 

 country. At the East London Technical College (People's 

 Palace) last year's work has been marked by conspicuous 

 success, the college having secured an open science scholarship 

 at Merton College, Oxford, two Whitworth exhibitions of 

 50/., and two National scholarships, besides numerous other 

 distinctions. 



A SERIES of articles upon Dr. John Radcliffe, the generous 

 benefactor of Oxford University, has recently appeared in the 

 Pharmaceutical Journal. Dr. Radcliffe was born in 1650, the 

 year after the execution of Charles I. He went to London in 

 1684, and rapidly became a most successful, though eccentric, 

 physician. He died in the year 17 14, leaving the great bulk of 

 his large fortune, consisting of money and of lands and houses 

 in Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, Bucks, and Surrey to Oxford 

 University. He bequeathed 40,cxx)/. to build a library in 

 Oxford, with 150/. a year for the salary of the librarian, and 

 another yearly icxd/. for the purchase of books. The Radcliffe 

 Library, one of the finest buildings in Oxford, was opened in 

 1749, and furnished mainly with medical and scientific books. 

 The building has since been annexed to the Bodleian as a read- 

 ing room, when the contents of the library, greatly increased in 

 the course of years, were transferred to a building specially 

 affected to them in the new University Museum. It is now a 

 magnificent collection of books on medical, physical, natural, 

 biological and general science, kept up to date, easily accessible, 

 and has given a considerable impulse to scientific study at 

 Oxford. In order to make provision for select Oxford alumni 

 studying medicine, to learn what was doing in medical science 

 abroad, Radcliffe made over for ever to his own first and favourite 

 Oxford College— University— his Yorkshire estates, for the 

 foundation of two travelling fellowships of 300/. a year each and 

 tenable for ten years, to be given to carefully selected alumni 

 studying medicine at Oxford. At present there are three such 

 Radcliffe travelling fellowships, with an annual income of 200/. 

 each and tenable for only three years instead of the original ten. 

 Besides this he left 5000/. to enlarge the buildings of University 

 College. Any surplus accruing from the Yorkshire estates after 

 the foregoing objects were effected was to be applied to the 

 purchase of advowsons to be given to members of University 

 College. Finally, mention of minor benefactions to Oxford 

 and to individuals being omitted, he left, after payment of his 

 specified bequests, all his estates in the various counties already 

 enumerated to trustees to be applied to such useful purposes as 

 they in their discretion should think best. And well have the 

 Radcliffe trustees fulfilled their duty, remembering the claims 

 both of philanthropy and science. With the funds at their 

 disposal was built the Oxford Public Infirmary, opened for the 

 reception of patients in 1779, and the Radcliffe Observatory at 

 Oxford, supplied with all the instruments and appliances of 

 modem ajstronomy, and a dwelling house for the Observer. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



American Journal of Science, September. — Transition tem 

 perature of sodic sulphate, a new fixed point in thermometry, 

 by T. W. Richards. Sodium sulphate, Na^SO^-f loIIaO, 

 "melts" at almost exactly 3248° according to the mean mer- 

 cury thermometer, and this temperature is so easily obtained 

 by means of that salt and so constant as to be of great use 



NO, 1509, VOL. 58] 



in the future for thermometric and thermostatic purposes. — 

 Distribution and quantitative occurrence of vanadium and 

 molybdenum in rocks of the United States, by W. F. Hille- 

 brand. Vanadium occurs in quite appreciable amounts in the 

 more basic, igneous and metamorphic rocks, up to O'oS per 

 cent, or more of VjOj, but seems to be absent, or nearly so, 

 from the highly siliceous ones. The heavy ferric aluminous 

 silicates like biotite and amphibole are indicated as sources. 

 Molybdenum is probably confined to the more siliceous rocks, 

 where it occurs in very minute quantities. — Electrosynthesis, 

 by W. G. Mixter (second paper). Gaseous mixtures are sub- 

 jected to a glow discharge in a eudiometer. Concentration of 

 the discharge does not affect the total amount of compound 

 formed. Thus, a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen will give 

 the same amount of water vapour whatever the form of the 

 glow discharge. The combination increases with the pressure, 

 but not in proportion to it. A mixture of oxygen and ammonia 

 forms ammonium nitrite, which is deposited as a white coating. 

 — Notes on species of Ichthyodectes, including the new species 

 /. cruentus, and on the related and herein established genus 

 Gillicus, by O. P. Hay. The supposed new species is primarily 

 founded on a somewhat imperfect left maxilla from Butte Creek 

 Canyon in Western Kansas. It differs from Cope's /. anaides 

 in having larger teeth. For Cope's /. arcuatus and Crook's 

 /. polymicrodus the author proposes the new generic name 

 Gillicus, being a saurocephalid with maxilla falciform, relatively 

 short. Gape of mouth smaller than in Ichthyodectes. — Origin 

 and significance of spines, by C. E. Beecher (continued). 

 Natural selection could not originate a spine, but after a 

 spine had appeared this agency would tend to preserve and 

 allow the spine to develop along certain lines. The simple 

 antlers of the Tertiary deer may have reached the highest 

 degree of efficiency as weapons by ordinary natural selection. 

 The subsequent increasing complexity of the antlers cannot 

 have improved their usefulness, and probably arose according 

 to the law of multiplication of effects, aided by a process of 

 sexual selection. 



Symons's Monthly Meteorological Magazine, September. — 

 British local meteorological publications. Some important 

 additions have been made to the list given in the last number 

 of this journal, among which we may mention (i) an annual re- 

 port of about thirty pages, by Mr. Chandler, Borough Meteor- 

 ologist of Torquay, and a separate report on the climate of 

 Devon ; (2) a valuable summary of all Manx meteorological 

 observations, by Mr. A. W. Moore : and (3) some remarks on 

 the climate of Oban, with averages for the ten years 1887-96, 

 by the Medical Officer of Health.— Evaporation and temper- 

 ature, by Prof. Carpenter. This is an abridgment of a paper in 

 the U.S. Monthly Weather Review of May 1898, showing the 

 difficulty of determining from ordinary observations of the 

 vaporimeter the quantity of water added to the atmosphere 

 daily by evaporation from the oceans, lakes and continents. 

 The principal elements of uncertainty in determining the 

 quantity of evaporation from a surface of water are the temper- 

 ature of the water and the velocity of the wind at the surface. — 

 Rockall. The August number of the Scottish Geographical 

 Magazine contains an excellent account of this rocky islet, by 

 Mr. M. Christy. The possibility of building a lighthouse and 

 observatory, and connection by a telegraphic cable, is dis- 

 cussed. The value of the latter would be very great for the 

 purpose of weather telegraphy, but at present the difficulty of 

 expense is insurmountable. — Results of meteorological observ- 

 ations at Camden Square, London, in August, for forty years, 

 1858-97. The mean of all the highest maxima was 84°-o, and 

 the mean rainfall 2 39 inches ; in this year the maximum tem- 

 perature reading was 87°-9, and the rainfall i-i8 inches. 



The nineteenth volume of the Memoirs of the Caucasian 

 branch of the Russian Geographical Society is perhaps even 

 better than its remarkably good predecessor. Its chief feature 

 is a map, on the scale of 13 miles to an inch, of Trans- 

 caucasia, upon which all the divisions into provinces, districts, 

 cantons and villages are given, and the religions of the inhabit- 

 ants of each village are shown in different colours. The map 

 is accompanied by full ethnographical-statistical lists of the 

 whole population. The next map of great interest is one of 

 Kurdistan, upon which the distribution of the Kurd population 

 (the Sunnites, the Kizilbashs, and the Yezids separately) is 

 shown, together with the Armenian and Nestorian population 

 and the percentage of Christians in each separate district. This 

 map accompanies a paper, by Colonel Kartseff, on the Kurds, 



