i8 



NATURE 



[April io, 19 19 



immediate increase in fhe Exchequer grants to uni- 

 versities and university colleges. The financial posi- 

 tion of our universities in comparison with those of 

 the United States and Germany was surveyed in an' 

 article in Nature of August 15, 1918, and is stated 

 in detail in a report published by the British Science 

 Guild on " Industrial Research and the Supply of 

 Trained Scientific Workers." The main facts stated 

 by Mr. Henderson are given in these publications, and 

 are familiar to most of our readers, but they can,not 

 be brought under the notice of the public and our 

 legislators too often. 



Miss Maud Margaret Gibson has placed in the 

 hands of the Royal Society of Medicine a sum of 

 money sufficient to provide a scholarship of the yearly 

 value of about. 250Z. for medical research by women, 

 in memory of her father, the late Mr. William Gibson, 

 of Melbourne, Australia. The scholarship will be 

 awarded from time to time by the society to qualified 

 medical women who are subjects of the British 

 Empire, and is tenable for two years, but may, in 

 special circumstances, be extended to a third year. 

 The scholar will be free to travel at her own will for 

 the purpose of the research undertaken by her. There 

 will be no competitive examination, nor need a thesis 

 or other work be submitted. Applications must be 

 sent in not later than May 3. Particulars may be 

 obtained from Mr. J. Y. W. Macalister, secretary of 

 the Royal Society of Medicine, i Wimpole Street, W.i. 



Scientific workers who are endeavouring to secure 

 professional recognition by Government through a new 

 degree to be granted by our higher technical institu- 

 tions will be much interested in Prof. Camichel's 

 account of what is proposed in this direction in France 

 (Revue genirale des Sciences, January 30, 1919). M. 

 Pottevin has introduced a Bill in the Chambre des 

 D^put^s for the establishment of autonomous technical 

 institutes in connection with existing universities, the 

 rector of the university being president in each case 

 of a council which is to include representatives of the 

 teaching staff, the Ministry, the departments, the 

 municipalities, associated or private benefactors, 

 chambers of commerce, and local workmen's organisa- 

 tions. It is proposed that these institutes should have 

 power to grant degrees in applied science in the name 

 of the State, such degrees, unlike those of the uni- 

 versities, carrying Government sanction for profes- 

 sional practice, as is already the case in the safe- 

 guarded degrees in medicine, advocacy, and pharmacy. 



A Bill has been introduced in the United States 

 Senate to create a Department of Education with a 

 Secretary of Education, and granting money for 

 educational purposes in co-operation with the States. 

 The Bill proposes to distribute money to the States 

 on condition that they raise equal amounts for the 

 same purposes. It authorises an annual appropria- 

 tion of 2o,ooo,oooL, to be apportioned among the 

 States for the following purposes :— (i) To encourage 

 the States in the removal of illiteracy, 1,500,000!. 

 (2) To encourage the States in the Americanisation 

 of foreigners, 300,000!. (3) To encourage the States 

 in the equalisation of educational opportunities, and 

 for the partial payment of teachers' salaries, providing 

 better instruction, extending school terms, and other- 

 wise providing equally good schools for all children, 

 io,ooo,oooI. (4) To encourage the States in the pro- 

 motion of physical and health education and recrea- 

 tion, 4,000,000!. (5) To encourage the States in pro- 

 viding facilities for preparing and supplying better 

 teachers, 3,000,000!. According to the New York 

 Tribune, there are 700,000 illiterate males in the 

 United States between the ages of twenty-one and 

 thirty-one unable either to understand the principles 

 for which they were called upon to fight or to read 



NO. 2580, VOL. 103] 



the Constitution they were expected to defend. There 

 are at the present time in the United States 8,592,000 

 illiterates and persons unable to speak English, of 

 whom 1,006,000 live in New York State and 621,000 

 in Pennsylvania. The Bureau of Education has 

 reported that the average annual salary paid to 

 American teachers in 19 18 was about 126!., which is 

 about 49!. less per annum than the average wage paid 

 to charwomen in the United States Navy Yard. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, April 3. — Sir J. J. Thomson, president, 

 in the chair.— Dr. T. R. Merton and Prof. J. W. 

 Nicholson : Note on the intensity decrement in the 

 Balmer series. Twelve members of the Balmer series 

 of hydrogen have been observed in vacuum tubes con- 

 taining a trace of hydrogen in helium at a pressure of 

 41 millimetres of mercury. In contrast with the diffuse 

 appearance of the last of these members in pure 

 hydrogen, they were observed in the present instance 

 as sharp, though faint, lines. . A quantitative com- 

 parison of the intensity distribution in these tubes with 

 that in tubes containing pure hydrogen, water-vapour, 

 and a mixture of hydrogen and helium at low pres- 

 sure has shown that the visibility of the higher 

 .meml>ers of the series in the high-pressure tubes is 

 most probably due to the fact that the energy under 

 these conditions is concentrated within narrow limits 

 of wave-length, instead of being distributed through a 

 broadened line the energy-content of which is, in fact, 

 greater. The observed results seem to be incompatible 

 with the quantum theory of the hvdrogen spectrum 

 developed bv Bohr.— ProL E. W. Brown : The deter- 

 mination of the secular accelerations of the moon's 

 longitude from modern observations.- — Dr. W. RoseU" 

 hain and S. L. Archbutt : The inter-crystalline fracture 

 of metals under prolonged application of stress. The 

 authors' observations have shown that in a number 

 of metals, including lead, mild steel, and an alloy 

 of aluminium with zinc and copper, the prolonged 

 application of stress will, in certain cases, produce an 

 abnormal tvpe of fracture in which the crystals become 

 separated from one another, instead of being broken 

 or torn across in the normal manner. An exact simi- 

 larity to this tvpe of fracture is found in the " season 

 cracking" of "brass. In the latter case the applied 

 stress is an internal one arising from elastic deforma- 

 tion. The authors base an explanation of this type of 

 fracture on the hypothesis, formerly advanced by one 

 of them and widely accepted among metallurgists, 

 that the constituent crystals of metals are held together 

 by thin layers of an amorphous inter-crvstalline 

 "cement," the properties of which resemble those of 

 a greatly under-cooled liquid. — 'Dr. T. R. Airey : Zonal 

 harmonics of high order in terms of Bessel functions. 



Physical Society, March 14. — Prof. C. H. Lees, 

 president, in the chair.— C. C. Paterson and N. 

 Campbell : Some characteristics of the spark dis- 

 charge and its effect in igniting explosive mix- 

 tures. The obiect of the investigation was to 

 determine the relation between the electrical charac- 

 teristic of a spark discharge and its power of igniting 

 explosive mixtures. The results show that the igniting 

 power of a spark increases with both the capacity 

 discharging and the spark potential, and that the 

 energy required for ignition decreases rapidly as the 

 spark potential increases. Various other properties of 

 sparks are described. 



Manchester. 



Literary and Philosophical Society, March 18. — Mr. W. 

 Thomson, president, in the chair. — Prof. G. Elliot 

 Smith: The bird's brain. It has always been an 



