July io, 1919] 



NATURE 



379 



Helena Charlotte Chance, C. A. F. Hastilou, R. H. 

 Humphry, A. M. Mehrez, Abd El Rahman EI Sawy, 

 and -Mostapha El Saved. 



The follo\vinj4 appointments to vacant chairs have 

 been made : — I)r. John Robertson as professor of 

 hyj^iene and public health, Dr. John Shaw Dunn as 

 professor of pathology, and Mr. Leonard Gamgee as 

 professor of surgery. 



Prof. Haslam has been appointed lecturer in 

 applied anatomy. 



Prof. Peter Thompson has resigned his office as 

 Deim of the faculty of medicine, and Prof. Haslam 

 has been ajipointed to succeed him. 



Mr. William Haywood has been appointed lecturer 

 in town-planning. 



Mr. B. T. Rose has been appointed demonstrator 

 of anatomy, and Miss Hilda Walker lecturer in 

 physiology. 



Cambridge. — Mr. C. T. R. Wilson has been ap- 

 pointed reader in electrical meteorology. 



London. — The following have been appointed to 

 lectureships in the subjects indicated, tenable at Uni- 

 versity College: — Faculty of Science: Mr. J. C. 

 Fliigel (psychology), Mr. E. J. Salisbury (botany). 

 Dr. Paul Haas (plant chemistry), and Dr. Francis W. 

 Goodbody (medical chemistry). Faculties of Science 

 and Engineering : Mr. H. T. Davidge (applied mathe- 

 matics). Faculty of Engineering : Mr. C. C. Hawkins 

 (electrical design). 



The .Senate of the LIniversity has instructed the 

 Principalship Committee to proceed to recommend 

 one or more persons for appointment to the position 

 of Principal Officer. In 1915 the University adver- 

 tised the appointment and certain applications were 

 received, but the Senate did not then proceed to fill 

 up the vacancv. Applications already received, 

 together with any other names which may be brought 

 to the notice of the Senate, will be considered by the 

 Principalship Committee. 



.Applications are invited for a Lee's readership in 

 chemistry (with special reference to the inorganic and 

 physical sides of the subject) at Christ Church, 

 Oxford. The .stipend to begin with will be 450/. 

 annually. .Applications for the appointment must be 

 received before September ro bv Mr. R. E. Bavnes, 

 Christ Church, Oxford. 



Applications for not more than three Ramsay 

 memorial fellowships for chemical research will be 

 considered by the -trustees at the end of the present 

 month. The value of each fellowship will be 250/. 

 annuallv, with the possible addition of not more than 

 50/. for expenses. The fellowships will be tenable 

 for two years normally, and may be extended to three 

 years. .Applications must be made to the organising 

 secretary of the Ramsav Memorial Fund, L'ni- 

 versitv College, Gower Street, W^.C.i, not later than 

 July 14. 



The Merchant Venturers' Secondary School, which 

 has been conducted for many years as a part of its 

 technical college by the Society of Merchant Ven- 

 turers, an ancient Bristol guild, will at the end of 

 the present term be transferred to the Bristol Educa- 

 tion Committee, and will become a municipal school. 

 The Merchant Venturers conduct in their college the 

 facultv of engineering of the University of Bristol, 

 and the urgent need for additional space for this 

 rapidlv growing faculty has made it impossible for 

 them to continue to house the secondary school. 



The sipecial feature of the July issue of the 

 "Readers' Guide," published by the Norwich Public 

 Librarv (post free 2d.), is a classified and annotated 



NO. 2593, VOL. 103] 



list of books and articles on the important subject of 

 coal and the nationalisation of coal-mines, which 

 should be of much practical, use at the present time. 

 The list comprises a represi-ntative selection of the 

 principal writings on the subject, and is divided under 

 the following headings :—Bibliographv ; Natural His- 

 tory; Legislation; General and Economic, with a sub- 

 division "Books for Juveniles"; Conservation; 

 Statistics ; Reports of Royal Commissions, etc. ; 

 Nationalisation ; and Mining. 



London will now come into line with the newer 

 universities in having a faculty of commerce, which 

 it is proposed to open on October i. The general plan 

 for degrees in commerce was first put forward about 

 a year ago, and the scheme which is about to be put 

 into operation is the result of long deliberations be- 

 tween prominent City men and the Universitv authori- 

 ties. For the present, provision has been made for 

 granting two degrees— the B.Com. and the M.Com. 

 Certain subjects will be cornpulsory for the former, 

 viz. economics, banking, currency, trade and trans- 

 port, finance, geography, and a modern foreign 

 language. Different classes of students will be ex- 

 pected to specialise in addition in subjects which have 

 a particular interest for their calling. Bankers, for 

 instance, would take world-history, with special refer- 

 ence to the nineteenth century ; other students might 

 take accounting, and so on. The B.Com. will neces- 

 sitate three years' work, and one of the strong features 

 of the course will be the attention paid to a modem 

 language. The choice is undoubtedly ample, for, 

 besides French and German, the list will include 

 Polish, Czech, Rumanian, modern Greek, and the 

 great Eastern languages. For the M.Com. two years' 

 practical commercial experience will be required. The 

 underlying idea here is to regard work in a merchant's 

 office as equivalent to the practical w'ork of the 

 medical student in a hospital or of the engineering 

 student in a workshoo or factorv. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, June 16.— M. Leon Guignard 

 in the chair.^MM. .\. Lacroix and Tilho : A geological 

 sketch of Tibesti, Borkou, Erdi, and Ennedi. The 

 sedimentary formations. — G. Bigourdan : Work of the 

 Naval Observatory. Historical account of observa- 

 tions made between 1752 and 1796. — H. Deslandres : 

 Remarks on the constitution of the atom and the 

 properties of band spectra. — C. Guichard : Isothermal 

 surfaces. — E. Ariis : The saturated vapour pressures 

 and latent heats of evaporation of propyl acetate at 

 various temperatures. From the equation of state 

 developed in earlier communications, formulje are 

 deduced and applied to the calculation of the vapour 

 pressures and latent heats of evaporation of propyl 

 acetate ; the figures are compared with the experi- 

 mental results of .S. Young with very satisfactory 

 agreement. — M. E. Mathias was elected a corre- 

 spondant in the section of general physics in suc- 

 cession to M. Georges Gouv, elected non-resident 

 member. — E. Kogbetliantz : Trigonometrical series. — 

 G. Reboul : The phenomena of luminescence accom- 

 panying the oxidation of potassium and sodium. This 

 effect appears to be due to the formation and rupture 

 of a skin of hvdroxide ; the presence of moisture is 

 essential. — H. Abraham and E. Bloch : The mainten- 

 ance of mechanical oscillations bv me.ins of lamps 

 with three electrodes. -G. Baume and M. Robert : .\ 

 glass manometer with elastic walls. The instrument 

 described and figured consists of a thermometer with 

 a bulb made with thin flat walls. This is surrounded 



