May io, 191 7] 



NATURE 



217 



according' to the directions and discretions of the 

 council. The residue of the estate will probably 

 amount to something' approaching the sum of 20,oooi. 



An exhibition of official photographs illustrating 

 various types of work on which women are employed 

 in engineering and other industries on munitions of 

 war is to be held at the South-Westem Polytechnic 

 Institute, Manresa Road, Chelsea, S.W.3, from Mon- 

 day, May 14, until Saturday, May 26, between the 

 hours of 10 a.m. 'and 7 p.m. The photographs, which 

 have been lent by the Ministry of Munitions, illus- 

 trate the employment of women, and include work in 

 general engineering, foundry, machine tools, optical 

 munitions, aircraft, aeroplane engines, woodwork, 

 shells, guns and gun components, machine-guns, fuses, 

 and cartridges. All who are interested to see these 

 photographs are invited. Admission is free. The 

 Ministr\^ of Munitions has recently held a similar ex- 

 hibition at the Roval Colonial Institute, and also at 

 one or two towns in England. 



Most of the museums in this country have long 

 recognised the desirability of interesting school chil- 

 dren, and have had various schemes of lectures and 

 demonstrations for the pupils. Owing to exigencies 

 of the curricula of elementary schools, how ever, it has 

 not often been possible to arrange for an extended 

 course of museum lectures for any particular school or 

 schools. At Liverpool, where manv schools have been 

 taken over for other purposes, an opportunity has 

 recently occurred of giving systematic lectuies on an 

 extended scale, and a report by Dr. J. A. Clubb, Prof. 

 W. A. Herdman, and Mr. E. B. Turner- (the Senior 

 Inspector of Schools) has been published. From this 

 it seems that the lecturers and inspectors alike are 

 astonished at the way in which the children can 

 sketch and describe what they have' seen, and in the 

 opinion of the inspectors the experiment has proved 

 "an unqualified success." The Liverpool pupils were 

 fortunate in having lessons from Prof. Herdman, Prof. 

 Newstead, Mr. R. D. Laurie, and Mirs Bamber. 



A NATio\.\L conference on the subject of educational 

 reconstruction was held on Thursday, May 3, at the 

 Central Hall, Westminster, under the rhairmanship of 

 the Rev. W. Temple president of the Workers' Educa- 

 tional Association. The resolutions submitted to the 

 conference, and carried with some amendments, 

 covered the whole educational ground from the pro- 

 vision of nurser}' schools for children between the ages 

 of two and six up to entrance to the university, for it 

 was unanimouslv affirmed that the object of educa- 

 tional reform will not be attained until a broad high- 

 way is established from the elementary school to the 

 university. One of the most pressing and important 

 series of resolutions agreed to was that dealing w4th 

 the educational needs of boys and girls who at present 

 enter on some form of occupation on leaving the 

 •elementary school, and it was emphatically laid down 

 that this education should not be confined to the 

 development of the minds, but must be also directed 

 towards that of the bodies and characters of such 

 pupils. As passed by the conference the resolutions 

 in this connection read as follows : — i. (b) -All forms 

 of exemption under the age of fourteen to be abolished ; 

 the leaving age to be raised to fifteen (without exemp- 

 tion) within a period of five years, and to sixteen 

 w'ithin a further period of three years ; maintenance 

 allowances to be provided to children above the age 

 of fourteen ; and child labour for profit or wages to be 

 abolished during the period of compulsory full-time 

 attendance at school. 2. (i) Compulsory part-time edu- 

 cation of not fewer than twenty hours per week (includ- 

 ing time spent in organised p^ames and school meals) 



NO. 2480, VOL. 99] 



to be provided free for all such young persons, up to 

 eighteen years of age, as are not receiving full-time 

 education; such education to be given in the daytime. 

 2. (ii) The hours of labour for all young persons under 

 the age of eighteen to be limited to a maximum of 

 twenty-five per week. If, moreover, statutory approval 

 be given to the demand of the conference that " the 

 size of all classes in elementary- schools be immediately 

 reduced to forty as a maximum with a view to a 

 further reduction to thirty," not only will a better 

 foundation be laid for the further education of part- 

 time artisan pupils, but the superstructure in the 

 secondary schools will be considerably strengthened. 

 The conference resolved that its resolutions shall be 

 pressed forward in every possible direction without 

 delay. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Royal Society, April 26. — Sir J. J. Thomson, president, 

 in the chair. — G. W. Walker : The effective inertia of 

 electrified systems moving with high speed. If it is 

 assumed that an electron moving with speed KC 

 (where C is velocity of light) becomes deformed so 

 that the surface is of the form (i — k-)-^x' + y' + 2' = a', 

 Lorentz has shown by the " quasi-stationary " assump- 

 tion that the inertia for longitudinal inertia is 

 m„(i — fe^)-i, and for transverse inertia tn„(i — fe-)-i. 

 The same results follow from Einstein's "relativity" 

 theory. In the paper the inertia is determined by a 

 method developed in a former pap>er (P/ii7. Trans., A, 

 vol. ccx. , p. 145), which depends directly on the 

 primary- equations, and is free from the error that the 

 quasi-stationary method may introduce. The results 

 are that for a "contracted ' electron the longitudinal 

 inertia is — 



and the transverse ine;tia is — 



;//o(i+i^>&-)(i-m 



— Dr. G. W. C. Kave : The composition of the X-rays 

 from various metals. The X-rays from a bulb excited 

 bv low voltages (10,000 to 50,000 volts) are rich in the 

 characteristic radiation of the anticathode. In the 

 case of iron, nickel, and cojjper the amount of K- 

 radiation lies between 80 and 90 per cent. In the 

 case of platinum the proportion of L-radiation is from 

 40 to 60 per oe'nt. Evidence of characteristic radia- 

 tions softer than the K- and L-radiations has been 

 obtained.— Dr. C. H. Browning and Eh-. S. Rnss : The 

 germicidal action of ultra-violet radiation and its 

 correlation with selective absorption. (i) A new 

 method is described which renders it possible to deter- 

 mine what portion of the ultra-violet spectrum is most 

 effective in germicidal action, and, further, to specify 

 the wave-length of the radiation at which such action 

 practically ceases. (2) The method has been applied 

 to test the range of susceptibilitv of a number of 

 different pathogenic organisms. By the process de- 

 scribed it is possible to expose cultures of two different 

 organisms simultaneouslv to the same intensity' and 

 character of radiation. The ranges of susceptibilitv of 

 B. typhosus and B. colt are closelv similar and prac- 

 tically the same as those of organisms such as 

 staphylococcus pyogenes aureus and the meningo- 

 coccus. (3) A striking feature of the germicidal action 

 of the radiation in question is its abrupt termination 

 at a wave-length of about 2960 A.L^. (4) It has been 



