78 



NATURE 



[May I, 19 19 



of sun-spots, and also that of solar prominences, 

 during the period in question have been decreasing. 

 For a few stations records of longer period are dealt 

 with, giving indications that the results obtained are 

 due to a periodicity of upwards of fifty years. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Oxford.— Prof. F. Soddy, F.R.S., professor of 

 chemistry in the University of Aberdeen, has been 

 elected to the second chair of chemistry recently estab- 

 lished in the University. 



Dr. F. A. Lindemann has been appointed to 

 succeed Prof. Clifton in the chair of experimental 

 philosophy. Dr. Lindemann graduated Ph.D. in the 

 University of Berlin in 191 1 by a thesis on specific 

 heats at very low temperatures, such as become pos- 

 sible by the use of liquid air, and much of his early 

 work was connected with that subject. Afterwards in 

 Paris he collaborated with the Due de Broglie and 

 other French physicists, especially on the subject of 

 radio-activity. During the war he was attached to 

 the scientific side of the Air Service, and was in charge 

 of the laboratory of experimental physics at Farn- 

 borough. 



The late Dr. Henry Wilde, whose death occurred 

 recently at the age of eighty-five, was a notable bene- 

 factor of the University. He was the founder of the 

 Wilde readership in mental philosophy, of the Wilde 

 lectureship in natural and comparative religion, and 

 of the John Locke scholarship in mental philosophy. 



Among the lectures announced in connection with 

 the school of geography are courses on physical 

 geography in its relation to the life of man (Mr. 

 Beckit), extra-tropical Africa (Miss MacMunn), geo- 

 graphical factors in the economic development of 

 British North America (Mr. Cossar), and the geo- 

 graphv and ethnology of the eastern Mediterranean 

 (Prof.' J. L. Myres). 



The committee for anthropology announces courses 

 on ethnology (Miss Czaplicka), comparative techno- 

 logy (Mr. H. Balfour), and informal instruction on 

 the Bronze and Early Iron ages (Mr. Leeds), questions 

 relating to ancient Egypt and Babylon (Mr. Griffith 

 and Mr. Langdon), Indian archaeology (Prof. Mac- 

 donell and Mr. Vincent Smith), and primitive language 

 in its relation to thought (Prof. J. A. Smith). 



Dr. Marett will lecture on primitive law, and 

 hold classes on primitive religion in relation to morals 

 and on ethnological questions. 



Mr. W. M. Jones has been appointed lecturer in 

 physics at the University College of North Wales, 

 Bangor. 



Capt. W. A. Andrews has been appointed lecturer 

 In wireless telegraphy at the Cardiff Marine Technical 

 School. He has hitherto been an inspector of wire- 

 less operators in connection with the R.A.F. 



The following special lectures have been arranged 

 for delivery in the Metallurgical Lecture Theatre of 

 the Royal School of Mines, South Kensington, at 

 4 o'clock each day: — "The Smelting of Zinc Ores," 

 J. C. Moulden (May i); "Sulphuric Acid Manufac- 

 ture,'' R. Curtis (May 6); "Factors in Mineral Flota- 

 tion," H. L. Sulman (May 13 and 15); and "The 

 Frangois Cementation Process," H. F. Marriott 

 (May 20). Admission to the lectures is free to all. 



Mr. Lawrence Philipps has offered University Col- 

 lege, Abervstwvth, the sum of io,oooL to found a 

 plant-breeding institute for Wales in connection with 

 the agricultural department of the college. He has 

 guaranteed a further sum of .loooL per annum for ten 



NO. 2583, VOL. 103] 



ye«rs towards the maintenance of the institution. The 

 governors of the college have appointed Mr. R. G. 

 Stapleton, who was for some years connected with the 

 college as advisory botanist, to a chair of agricultural 

 botany and to the directorship of the new institution. 



Dr. J. E. M. Finch, who died on February 5, 

 bequeathed 5000^. to "the Mayor, Aldermen, and Bur- 

 gesses of Leicester for the endowment of a univer- 

 sity for Leicester in remembrance of his long services 

 as medical superintendent of the Borough Asylum." 

 It is understood that the bequest is for the East Mid- 

 land University, with which Leicester is to be asso- 

 ciated, and the seat of which will be University Col- 

 lege, Nottingham, as described in an article in 

 Nature of February 13. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Geological Society, April 9. — Mr. G. W. Lamplugh, 

 president, in the chair. — W. Whitalier ; The section af 

 Worms Heath (Surrey), with remarks on Tertiary 

 pebble-beds and on clay-with-flints. (With petrological 

 notes on the beds at Worms Heath by G. MacDonald 

 Davies.) The chief pit now shows a fine set of more 

 or less vertical pipes in the chalk, filled with pebbles 

 and sand of the Blackheath beds, separated from the 

 chalk by clay-with-flints. The pebble-beds here, like 

 those elsewhere, consist of well-rolled black flint- 

 pebbles, amongst which pebbles of a brownish quartzite 

 are occasionally found. It is concluded that the water 

 in which these flint-pebbles were formed touched no 

 other firm rock than chalk; but, as there are no sub- 

 angular flints, the deposition of the beds cannot have 

 taken place close along a chalk coast. From a con- 

 sideration of older Tertiary pebble-beds it seems that 

 these are not big enough to have afforded the material 

 for the Blackheath beds. On the other hand, the 

 Blackheath beds mav have yielded the pebbles of the 

 Bagshot series in Essex, though not in Hampshire. 

 As to the clay-with-flints, it is inferred that it is not 

 a deposit of definite age, but a residual product, repre- 

 senting a condition of things that may have held 

 through lonj^ geologic ages, from the start of the 

 Blackheath beds to the present time. Mr. G. M. 

 Davies gives a petrological description of the chalk, of 

 the clay-with-flints (both grey and red), of the Eocene 

 sands, sandstones, and pebble-beds. 



Mathematical Society, April 24. — Mr. J. E. Campbell, 

 president, in the chair. — K. Ananda Rau : (i) Lam- 

 bert's series. (2) The relations between the con- 

 vergence of a series and its summability by Cesaro 

 means. — G. H. Hardy and J. E. Littlewood : A 

 Tauberian theorem for Lambert's series. — Prof. W. H. 

 Young : A formula for an area. 



Manchester. 

 Literary and Philosophical Society, April i.— Mr. 

 W. Thomson, president, in the chair. — S. Lees : 

 The superposing of two cross-line screens at small 

 angles, and the patterns obtained thereby. The 

 author discusses in this paper the general character- 

 istics of the patterns obtained on superposing two 

 half-tone plates of like type at small angles 0. More 

 particularly the cases of (i) intaglio, (ii) ordinary half- 

 tone, (iii) " chess-board " screens are discussed. I-i 

 each of these cases it is shown that the coarse square 

 framework which arises is similar in type to that of each 

 of the constituent screens. — Lieut. W. A. Macfadyen : 

 Electrolvtic iron deposition. The work described was 

 undertaken with the view of obtaining data on which 

 an industrial process could be built up for the pur- 

 pose of salving worn steel parts by electro-plating 



