44 



NA TURE 



[May 13, 1897 



announces courses on Mammalian Morphology and Palseon- 

 tology. The usual courses are being given in the departments 

 of Physics, Chemistry, Mineralogy and Botany and Physiology. 



In the Faculty of Medicine, Dr. Ritchie, Lecturer on Pathology, 

 will give a course of practical instruction on Bacteriology. 

 Lectures will also be given on Medicine, Surgery, and Materia 

 Medica. Prof. Arthur Thomson is lecturing on the Uro-genital 

 system. 



April 13 being the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Zoological 

 Station at Naples, Dr. Anton Dohrn sent a telegraphic message 

 to the Chancellor, acknowledging the assistance rendered by the 

 University to the Station. 



Prof. Burdon Sanderson has been re-elected Chairman of the 

 Board of Faculty of Medicine. 



The large and valuable collection of butterflies offered to the 

 Hope Department of the University by Mr. F. Ducane Godman, 

 F.R.S., and Mr. Osbert Salvin, F.R S., was accepted by 

 Convocation on Tuesday, and the thanks of the University were 

 voted to the donors. The collection has already been briefly 

 described in Nature (vol. Iv. p. 524, April i). 



Cambridge. — A memorial, signed by 2100 resident under- 

 graduates and bachelors of arts, has been presented to the Vice- 

 Chancellor, protesting against the proposal to grant titles oi 

 degrees to women, on the ground that this would injure the 

 position and efficiency of the University as a University for men. 

 A counter memorial, signed by only 298 of the junior members 

 of the University, has also been received. It states that in the 

 opinion of the signatories the proposal would not injure the 

 University. Meanwhile the notice of non-placet by the resident 

 graduates has been ' circulated, and bears the names of 

 about 280 members of the Senate, out of about 450 in 

 actual residence. The list includes eighteen professors and 

 no past or present tutors and lecturers. If, therefore, the de- 

 cision lay with the resident body of teachers and officers, the 

 result would be a decided negative ; and there is no doubt that 

 among the students the feeling against the contemplated change 

 is overwhelmingly strong. The latter fact gives some colour to 

 the assertion that the admission of women would probably be 

 followed by a serious falling off" in the number of men desirous 

 of entering the University. 



The proposal of the Special Board for Physics and Chemistry, 

 that candidates for either part of the Natural Sciences Tripos 

 should be required to submit to the Examiners their laboratory 

 note-books, duly attested by the signatures of their teachers, has 

 been adversely criticised in the Senate. It was feared that it 

 might interfere with the good relations at present existing 

 between teachers and students, and encourage the special pre- 

 paration of note-books for the Examiners' inspection. The 

 Report was referred back to the Board for reconsideration. 



The dates of the next ensuing College Examinations for 

 Scholarships and Exhibitions in Natural Science are announced 

 as follows :--November 2 : St. John's and Trinity, Pembroke, 

 Cams, Kmg's, Jesus, Christ's, and Emmanuel. November 30 : 

 Peterhouse and Sidney Sussex. December 7 : Clare and Trinity 

 Hall. April 1898 : Downing. Information as to the value and 

 conditions of tenure of the several emoluments may be obtained 

 from the respective College Tutors. 



We understand that the late Prof. Edward D. Cope left an 

 estate valued at over one hundred thousand dollars. Most of 

 the amount is bequeathed to the University of Pennsylvania, 

 and to establish a chair of Vertebrate Palceontology in the 

 Philadelphia Academy of Natural History. 



Among the grants just authorised by the legislature of the 

 State of New York are : 2,500,000 dols. for the new public 

 library in New York City ; 500,000 dols. for an extension of 

 the Museum of Natural History; 150,000 dols. for the new 

 Zoological Park in New York City ; and 10,000 dols. for the 

 proposed public library in Brooklyn. 



In a brief note (p. 21) on the application of the Hartley In- 

 stitution for a share of the increased grant which it is proposed 

 to give to the University Colleges of Great Britain, the term 

 "professorial" staff" was misprinted " professional" staff". Dr. 

 R. W. Stewart, the Principal of the Institution, calls our atten- 

 tion to the fact that the Committee appointed to consider the 

 distribution of the Government grant gave, in 1889, what almost 

 amounted to a pledge that if certain defects in the Institution 

 were remedied, a luture application for a share of the grant 

 mjght receive favourable consideration. The work and manage- 

 NO. 1437, VOL. 56] 



ment of the Institution have since then been entirely re- 

 organised, and it is on these grounds that the application has 

 been renewed. 



The following are among recent appointments :— Dr. C. II. 

 Draper to be head-master of the Municipal Technical School at 

 Brighton ; Miss M. Maclean to be demonstrator of anatomy, 

 and Miss D. Clark demonstrator in the botanical laboratory, in 

 (^)ueen Margaret College, Glasgow; Mr. W. H. Lang to be 

 lecturer on botany in the same college ; Dr. Freeh to be pro- 

 fessor of geology and pala-ontology at Breslau ; Dr. Walter 

 Kruse to be professor of hygiene at Bonn ; Dr. W. Ule to be 

 professor of geography at Halle; Dr. Gustavjiiger, privat-docent 

 in theoretical physics at Vienna, to be a professor ; Prof. W. F. 

 Edwards to be president of the Washington University, Seattle; 

 Dr. Andr. Lipp to be professor of analytical chemistry in the 

 Polytechnic Institute at Munich. Prof. Sissingle, of the Poly- 

 technic Institute of Delft, has been called to the chair of Physics 

 in the University of Amsterdam. 



The Technical Education Board of the London County 

 Council will proceed shortly to award not less than five Senior 

 County Scholarships, which are of the value of 60/. a year, 

 together with payment of tuition fees up to 30/. a year, and 

 are tenable for three years at university colleges and ad- 

 vanced technical institutes. These scholarships are confined 

 to residents within the administrative county of London, and 

 are only open to those whose parents are in receipt of not more 

 than 400/. a year. Candidates should, as a rule, be under 

 twenty-two years of age, though the Board reserves the right to 

 give preference to candidates who are under nineteen years of 

 age. The scholarships are intended to encourage more 

 especially the teaching of science, and to enable those students 

 who cannot afford a university training to pursue advanced 

 studies for a period of three years in the highest university 

 institutions in the country. Candidates must apply before 

 Monday, May 17, to tTie Secretary of the Technical Education 

 Board, St. Martin's Place, W.C. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



American Journal of Mathematics, vol. xix. No. 2 (April 

 1897).— On the most perfect forms of magic squares, with 

 methods for their production, is an interesting paper on these 

 squares by Dr. E. McClintock, which treats the subject in a 

 somewhat novel manner. As it was read before the American 

 Mathematical Society so long ago as April 25, 1896, the 

 references to the Rev. A. H. P'rost's work on similar lines make 

 no allusion to the recent memoir by this gentleman (the con- 

 struction of Nasik squares of any order), which was read before 

 the London Mathematical Society, June 11, 1896, and, in its 

 printed form, occupied pp. 487-518 of vol. xxvii. of the 

 Society's Proceedings. Dr. McClintock refers to' the earlier 

 papers in the Quarterly lournal of Mathematics (vol. vii. 

 and XV.). — Dr. Chree contributes a complementary paper to his 

 article in vol. xvi. Its title is " Isotropic elastic solids of nearly 

 spherical form." The method of the two papers is practically 

 the same, but the author states the differences in detail to be 

 considerable. His principal object is to find what may be 

 regarded as the change in pitch due to a small change in the 

 shape of the surface ; the result shows what effect an absence of 

 perfect sphericity has on the frequency of vibrations.— Non- 

 uniform convergence and the integration of series, term by term, 

 by W. F. Osgood, is a paper which was read at the August 

 (1896) meeting of the American Mathematical Society. The 

 geometrical method for the study of uniform convergence, set 

 forth in the present article, was treated at some length in a paper 

 by the same writer, which we have noted in our abstract of 

 the Society's Bulletin (vol. iii. pp. 59-86) for November 1896.^ 

 Two notelets close the number : viz. a note on the factors of 

 composition of a group, by Ellery W. Davis, and simple proof of 

 a fundamental theorem in the theory of functions, by R. D. 

 Bohannan.^A loose sheet gives a very brief outline of Sylvester's 

 career and work. Prof. Sylvester was the principal founder of 

 the American Journal of Mathematics (in 1877), and he was the 

 principal editor until his departure from America in December 

 1883. He contributed to its pages some fifty papers in all. 



Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, vol. iii. No. 

 7 (April 1897). — On Cayley's theory of the absolute, is a paper 

 by Prof. C. A. Scott, which was read at the January (1897) 



