2%d> 



NATURE 



[May 17, 19 1 7 



Science is no longer to be merely permitted, tolerated, 

 apologised for ; she must preside at the council board 

 because she already rules the lives of the people. 



The academic precedence of the faculties, in which 

 theology, arts, and law come before medicine and 

 science, may still be tolerated at the old universities 

 as an interesting and significant relic of earlier times ; 

 but in all modern universities (as in the University of 

 Birmingham from its foundation) science is the 

 premier faculty and takes the first place. The world 

 advances, not because of Church history or Homer or 

 Virgil, but because of James Watt and Stephenson 

 and Dalton and Faraday and Harvey and Jenner and 

 Darwin and Kelvin and Lister. Better fifty days of 

 Faraday than a cycle of Aristotle. 



Why is a knowledge of science so useful to the 

 modern community? Apart altogether from the way 

 in which science makes for technical efficiency, it is 

 a means second to none in the training of the intel- 

 lectual powers. It trains us in accuracy of observa- 

 tion, in the power of drawing trustworthy conclu- 

 sions, in habits of precise thinking generally; and 

 these are not small things. 



Science, the true, is the patient, loving interpreta- 

 tion of the world we live in ; it is a striving to attain 

 not merely to an understanding of the laws whereby 

 the world is governed, but to the enjoyment of the 

 beauty and order which are everywhere revealed. And 

 the minds of men capable of attaining to such heights 

 of appreciation, and the evidences arpund us of an all- 

 pervading personality, are only so many additional 

 phenomena to be apprehended as constituent elements 

 of that vast, sublime, age-enduring cosmos which we 

 call the universe. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 

 Liverpool. — The council has appointed Dr. P. G. H. 

 Boswell as first holder of the George Herdman chair 

 of geology. Prof. Boswell graduated with first- 

 class honours in geology in the University of London, 

 and obtained the degree of D.Sc. in 1915. He has 

 for some years past been lecturer in geology at the 

 Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, 

 and has published many ot iginal contributions to geo- 

 logical science. The establishment of a chair of geo- 

 logy in the University has been long delayed, and is 

 now possible owing to the generosity of Prof, and 

 Mrs. Herdman, who have endowed the chair as a 

 memorial to their son, the late Lieut. George Herd- 

 man. Prof. Boswell will enter upon his duties in 

 October next. 



Prof. C. R. Richards, since 1911 professor of 

 mechanical engineering in the University of Illinois, 

 and head of the department, has been appointed dean 

 of the College of Engineering and director of the 

 Engineering Experiment Station of the University, to 

 succeed Dr. W. F. M. Goss, who has resigned to 

 become president of the Railway Car Manufacturers' 

 Association of New York. 



Under the will of the late Mrs. Denning, of South 

 Norwood, property of considerable value has been left 

 to form a " Frank Denning Memorial," with the object 

 of promoting the application of modern scientific know- 

 ledge to the business life of the community. Mrs. 

 Denning survived her husband only twelve months. 

 The late Alderman Frank Denning was Mayor of 

 Croydon at the time of his sudden decease, and was 

 one of the leading directors of Welford's (Surrey) 

 Dairies, Ltd. He was also a director of colliery corn- 

 panies in Gloucestershire. For some time before his 

 death he was a governor of the Stanley Technical 



NO. 2481, VOL. 99] 



Trade Schools at Sjuth Norwood, and his interest had 

 been aroused in the good work being done at thest' 

 schools. It is not known at present how the terms 

 of the trust will be carried out, but in view of the 

 success of these schools. It is -possible that some 

 developments along the lines already .laid down may 

 be looked for. Mr. Denning was a business man 

 before anything else, and the terms of the bequest seem 

 to show that technical education is aimed at, and that 

 pure science as a study had no large place in his 

 mind. 



The report of the V ice-Chancellor on the work of 

 the University of London during the year 19 16-17 

 shows that the total number of commissions granted 

 from the outbreak of the war to December 31, 19 16, 

 io cadets and ex-cadets of the University contingent 

 of the Officers Training Corps, and to other graduates 

 and students of the University recommended for com- 

 missions, was not fewer than 311 1; and the honours 

 and distinctions conferred upon officers and cadets 

 during the same period Included one Companionship 

 of the Bath, two awards of the Victoria Cross, six of 

 the Distinguished Service Order, 157 of the Military 

 Cross, one of the Distinguished Service Cross, and 

 199 mentions in despatches, besides from the French 

 Government three awards of the Croix de Guerre and 

 one of the M6daille Milltaire. It is recorded that 284 

 former officers and cadets of the contingent, and 

 thirty-three other officers recommended for commis- 

 sions by the University, have made the supreme sacri- 

 fice for their country. About 21,000 members of the 

 University are, or have been, serving with H.M. 

 Forces. The research work normally conducted in the 

 laboratories attached to the University has been to an 

 increasing degree directed to the assistance of Govern- 

 ment departments or other agencies concerned with 

 the requirements of the war. In addition to the 

 response made by teachers and qualified students at 

 the medical schools of our hospitals to the demands 

 of the War Office for physicians and surgeons, con- 

 siderable services have been rendered to the Govern- 

 ^ment in the departments of physics, chemistry, physio- 

 logy, pharmacology, bacteriology, metallurgy, and 

 civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Geological Society, May 2. — Dr. Alfred Harker, presi- 

 dent, In the chair. — Jane Longstaff {nde Donald) : Sup- 

 plementary notes on Acllslna, De Koninck, and Acli- 

 soides, Donald, with descriptions of new species. 

 Since the publication of a paper by the Geological 

 Society on Aclislna in 1898, knowledge has been gained 

 of the species there described, and six others new to 

 science have been discovered. The diagnoses of these 

 are given. The total number of species of Aclislna 

 is brought. up to twenty-two.. The genus Is best re- 

 presented In Scotland, where the specimens are gener- 

 ally well preserved. A table is appended giving the 

 range and localities in the British Isles and Belgium. 

 A small variety of Aclisina pulchra, De Koninck, ap- 

 pears to have continued for the greatest length of 

 time. Additional observations are also made on Acli- 

 soides striatula, De Koninck.— T. H. Burton : The 

 microscopic material of the Bunter pebble-beds of 

 Nottinghamshire and Its probable source of origin. 

 As shown by thi distribution of the heavy minerals, 

 combined with (a) tne direction of the dip In the cross- 

 bedding, (b) the evidence adduced by boreholes and 

 shaft-sinkings, a main current from the west is indi- 

 cated. A large quantity of the material is derived 

 from metamorphic areas. The source of the bulk of 

 the material is probably Scotland, and the westward 



