March 20, 19 19] 



NATURE 



iiroughout his long period of service in the L ni- 

 rsity Prof. Herdman's interest in marine biology 

 >ind oceanography has -made the department a verv 

 notable one, and established a tradition for it which 

 scientific men will hope to see maintained. In 1885 

 he brought together the local biologists and started the 

 Liverpool Marine Biology Committee, and a year 

 later the Liverpool Biological Society. The com- 

 mittee established itself in its first biological station 

 at Puffin Island, in Anglesey, and fiv« years later at 

 Port Erin, in the Isle of Man, in a laboratory which 

 has grown continuously since its foundation, and has 

 now become very well known". In 1892 Prof. Herd- 

 man became honorary scientific adviser to the Lanca- 

 shire Sea Fishery Committee, which established the 

 present fisheries laboratory at the then University Col- 

 lege, and some years later the Biological Station and 

 Hatchery at Piel, in Barrow. As the result of all 

 these activities the general and fishery biology of the 

 sea off Lancashire. Wales, and the Isle of Man has 

 now become better known than any other similar area 

 off these islands. Two years ago Prof, and Mrs. 

 Herdman endowed a chair of geology at Liverpool in 

 memory of their son George, who was killed in the 

 war, and the chair of oceanography recently estab- 

 lished by them will be a most suitable means of main- 

 taining and extending those investigations which Prof. 

 Herdman began and has done so much to stimulate 

 and promote. 



57 



At the recent commemoration day exercises of the 

 Johns Hopkins University, it was' announced, says 

 Science, that a sum of approximately 8o,oooZ. had 

 been given anonymously for the erection of a build- 

 ing to serve as a woman's clinic at the Johns Hopkins 

 Hospital. 



The committee appointed by the British Association 

 comprised of Mr. C. A. Buckmaster (chairman), Mr. 

 D. Berridfire (secretary), Mr. C. H. Bothamlev, Dr. 

 Lilian J. Clarke, Prof. Barbara Foxley, Dr. VV. Gar- 

 nett, Prof. R. A. Gregory, Prof. H. B. Smith, Dr. 

 H. L. Snape, and Miss C. M. Waters, to consider the 

 policy and results of the " free place system " in 

 secondary schools in England and Wales, under which 

 largely increased ^frants are g^iven to such schools con- 

 ditional upon their admitting- 25 per cent, of pupils 

 from elementary schools or such lower percentage 

 approved by the Board of Education, has issued an 

 instructive and suggestive report after exhaustive in- 

 quiry into the working of the system in various classes 

 of schools, both urban and county. The results of the 

 committee's investigations go to show that the system 

 is on the whole bearing^ satisfactory fruit, enabling a 

 considerable number of children attending public ele- 

 mentary schools, who in ordinary circumstances would 

 cease their education at or below fourteen years of 

 age, to continue it to their great advantage up to and 

 beyond sixteen, and in some cases to pass into the uni- 

 versities. The committee makes certain specific re- 

 commendations for the improvement of the system, 

 such as : free places should not be awarded to 

 children above twelve years of age ; the necessity 

 for a good mid-day me^l is enforced ; in many cases 

 maintenance grants should also be given ; greater 

 facilities should be offered for the effective support of 

 secondary-school children of exceptional ability to enter 

 the universities and technical high schools ; power 

 should be given for the removal of children from the 

 free place list who are reported for habitual laziness ; 

 the award of free places should depend upon an oral 

 35 well as upon a written examination ; and finally, 

 tho free place system should be made available for all 



NO. 2577, VOL. 103] 



classes of the conmiunity, say, under the condition thai 

 the candidates must have been educated for two years 

 in a school classed by the Board of Education as 

 "efficient." The report is accompanied by interesting 

 tabular statements illustrating the results of the in- 

 quiries made. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Royal Society, March 6.-Sir J. J. Thomson, presi- 

 dent, m the chair.— L. F. Richardson : (i) Atmospheric 

 stirring measured by precipitation. The equation for 

 diffusion is investigated in the general case in which 

 atmospheric density and degree of turbulence must 

 both be regarded as varying with height, and it is 

 found that the stirring is best measured by the 

 coefficient $ in the equation 



l';-|(«|)-"p-f— '"t^4; 



Here p is pressure, h height, and /x either entropy 

 per unit mass, or mass of water per unit mass, or 

 horizontal momentum per unit mass in a fixed 

 azimuth. In place of entropy per mass we may, with 

 advantage, take potential temperature. Frotri esti- 

 mates of precipitation and vertical gradient of water 

 per mass of atmosphere, as means over the whole 

 globe, it is found that $ has the following mean 

 values : — 



Height f 



8500 metres ... 3 to 180 cm."^ gnn.^ sec."'* 

 500 I „ ... 140,000 „ „ 



o'5 „ ... possibly as low as 1000 or even less. 



The value at 500 metres is in fair agreement with | 

 as deduced from k, calculated by Akerblom, by Hessel- 

 berg, and by Taylor, for heights of a few" hundred 

 metres. The values of ^ at other levels are remark- 

 ably smaller. (2) Measurement of water in clouds. 

 Photometric methods enable an estimate to be made 

 of the amount of water in clouds in terms of the 

 diameter of the cloud droplets For thin cloud, 

 through which the sun can be seen, it is the contrast 

 of brightness between the sky and the sun which is 

 measured. For thick, uniform stratus it is the total 

 light transmitted to earth which is measured as a 

 fraction of the incident sunlight. If the cloud were 

 compressed into a homogeneous horizontal lamina, 

 of water or of ice according to its temf>erature, the 

 thickness of this lamina would appear to have the 

 following values when expressed as a multiple of the 

 diameter of the cloud droplets : — For cirrus, cirro- 

 stratus, and cirro-cumulus, on the average about 0-5 ; 

 for stratus which only just permitted the sun to be 

 seen, 41, the sun's zenith distance being 49°; for a 

 strato-nimbus of ordinary appearance, 24. 



Aristotelian Society, March 3. - Prof. Wildon Carr in 

 the chair. — Mrs. N. A. Duddi'ngton : Our knowledge of 

 other minds. On the basis of a realistic theory of 

 knowledge, our knowledge of other minds must be 

 pronounced to be as direct and immediate as our 

 knowledge of physical things. Mental states "lived 

 through " by one person may be discerned or dis- 

 criminated by another. Thus if we see someone 

 weep we become aware of his grief simultaneously 

 with his sobs, dejected attitude, etc. : the grief is 

 revealed to our contemplation in precisely the same 

 sense as the bodily changes are. We may sometimes 

 infer people's emotions from their bodily attitude, 

 but if there were no direct acquaintance with other 

 mental lives we should have no clue for the inter- 

 pretation of th^'ir e\-t)rf"^^i\-.» lw>h;(vioiir, nnrl i^ u'ould 



