April 28, 1910] 



NATURE 



269 



Government shall undertake, when it makes the financial 

 arrangements for the year, to put on a more satisfactory 

 and stable basis the whole question of the existing sub- 

 vention from Imperial sources. 



In the House of Commons on April 20 a satisfactory 

 and altogether sympathetic discussion on the care and 

 education of adolescents indicated that the efforts of 

 educationists during the past few years to instruct public 

 opinion as to the need of a system of compulsory attend- 

 ance at continuation schools have not been in vain. Mr. 

 Whitehouse moved a resolution, which was subsequently 

 agreed to, " That, in view of the relation of unemploy- 

 ment to adolescent and child labour, this House regards 

 an improved educational system, with more adequate pro- 

 vision for the care and training of adolescents, as a matter 

 of urgent necessity, and considers that the Imperial 

 Exchequer should bear an increased share of the cost of 

 this national service." The chief educational change 

 which he advocated was a system of compulsory education 

 at continuation schools from the time of leaving school 

 until the age of seventeen or eighteen. Mr. S. H. Butcher, 

 in seconding the resolution, pointed out that the great 

 blot of our educational system is that with one hand we 

 spend millions of money on elementary education, and 

 with the other we throw away a large part of the results 

 of that education. There is lavish expense on one side, 

 sheer waste on the other. A sjstem which can lead to 

 such results is economically unsound and educationally 

 ruinous. .A. change is needed in the curriculum, and that 

 change ought to be in the direction of less insistence upon 

 mere book work, more direct contact with nature, more 

 manual training. The school age must be raised, whether 

 it is to fifteen or to fourteen, and we must abolish, by 

 degrees but ultimately altogether, half-time exemptions 

 below thirteen. Mr. Trevelyan expressed sympathy with 

 the resolution on behalf of the Board of Education. He 

 pointed out that the present is a session in which the 

 Board is not required to produce any legislation, but he 

 said the Board is prepared to move in several directions 

 if time, money, and public opinion are favourable. A 

 drastic method of dealing with street trading, the abolition 

 of the half-time system, the raising of the school leaving 

 age, and the encouragement of attendance at continuation 

 schools, were instanced as subjects on which the Board 

 has been at work and is prepared to act. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Royal Society, April 21.— Sir Archibald Geikie, K.C.B., 

 president, in the chair. — Lord Rayleisrh : The incidence 

 of light upon a transparent sphere of dimensions com- 

 parable with a wave-length. The investigation is on the 

 basis of the electromagnetic theory of light, the transparent 

 sphere being supposed to have a dielectric constant different 

 from that of the surrounding medium. The case of a verj' 

 small sphere, or of an obstacle of any size and shape 

 under the restriction of verj' small refractivity, was treated 

 m 1881. In the numerical calculations of the present paper 

 the refractive index is supposed to be 1-5, and the ratio of 

 circumference to wave-length has the values i, 1-5, 1-75, 

 2, and 225. When the ratio in question is small and the 

 incident light is unpolarised, the scattered light is polarised 

 in aU directions except, of course, those parallel to the 

 incident ray ; and the polarisation is complete at right 

 angles to the primary ray. As the ratio increases, tfiis 

 condition of things is departed from. The maximum 

 polarisation is now to be found in an oblique direction, 

 inclining backwards. A little later the polarisation in 

 certain directions is reversed, such changes occurring ver>- 

 rapidly as the ratio alters. Experiments similar to those 

 made in i88r upon sulphur particles precipitated from a 

 dilute and acidified solution of " hjrpo " are described, 

 and it is shown that a passage from red to blue light may 

 reverse the polarisation, although there is no change either 

 in the liquid or in the direction of obser\'ation. — Prof. Karl 

 Pearson : The improbability' of a random distribution of 

 the stars in space. — Dr. R. D. Kleeman : The total 

 ionisation produced in different gases by the kathode rays 

 NO. 2 113, VOL. 8j] 



ejected by X-rays. The results are given in the annexed 

 table, in which are also placed the total ionisations 

 obtained by Prof. Bragg with the a particle. It will be 

 seen that the two sets of values relative to air are very 

 nearly the same. The energy spent in making an ion 

 thus seems not to depend in any marked degree on the 

 nature of the ionising agent. 



Kathode Rays a particle 



Air 1.00 ... i-oo 



Carbon dioxide (CO,) ... ik)8 ... 1-08 

 Ethyl oxide (C^H„0) ... 1-23 ... 1.32 



Pentane (CjH„) 1.31 ... 1.35 



Benzene (CjH,) 1-20 ... 1-29 



Ethyl chloride (C,H,CI) ... 1.33 ... 1.32 

 Chloroform (CHClj) ... 1-34 ... 1.29 



— Prof. F. J. Cole : Tone perception in Gammarus pulex. 

 The paper has reference to the occurrence of a definite and 

 visible physiological response on the part of the fresh- 

 water amphipod Gammarus pulex to stimuli of an auditory 

 character. Audition in the lower animals cannot be satis- 

 factorily studied in most cases, since a stimulus produces 

 no response that can be seen or measured. Gammarus, how- 

 ever, when confined in a microscope live box, responds in 

 an energetic and striking manner by flexing its first pair 

 of antennae under its body. A response can be elicited 

 after the second pair of antennae have been removed, but 

 not after the removal of the first pair. The instrument 

 generally used to produce the stimulus was a tenor trom- 

 bone, and the experiments were conducted either on the 

 ordinary laboratoiy table or on a table specially constructed 

 to filter off vibrations from the ground, and thus to ensure 

 that the stimulus reached the animal through the air. It 

 was found that Gammarus was most sensitive to the B flat 

 below middle C, and that its range of tonal sense was so 

 limited that it might almost be adduced as an example of 

 absolute or physiological tonality, i.e. of an animal specially 

 sensitive to one note. Only a small percentage of in- 

 dividuals, however, responded at all, and then, probably 

 owing to fatigue, the power of response soon disappeared. 

 One specimen responded to every note of the trombone. 

 The experiments may be interpreted as either tactual or 

 auditory reactions — if it can be held that these two senses 

 have segregated out in such a simple and true aquatic 

 species as Gammarus pulex, and do not merely form a 

 part of an indefinite common sensibility. 



Geological Society, April 13.— Prof. W. W. Watts^ 

 F.R.S., president, in the chair. — Dr. Tempest Anderson : 

 The volcano of Matavanu in Savaii. Savaii is one of the 

 German Samoan Islands. It is volcanic, formed of varie- 

 ties of basic lavas, and for the most part fringed with 

 coral reefs. The volcano of Matavanu was formed in 1905. 

 The eruption was at first explosive, but since the first few 

 weeks has been mainly efflusive and accompanied by the 

 discharge of fluid basic lava, which has run by a devious 

 course of about ten miles to the sea, formed fields of both 

 slagg>' and cindery lava, filled up a valley to a depth in 

 some places of probably 400 feet, and devastated the most 

 fertile land in the island. The crater contains a lake, or 

 rather river, of incandescent lava, so fluid that it beats 

 in waves on the walls, rises in fountains of liquid basalt, 

 and flows with the velocity of a cataract into a gulf or 

 tunnel at one end of the crater. It then runs underground 

 until it reaches the sea, into which it flows, and causes 

 explosions attended with the discharge of showers of sand 

 and fragments of hot lava, and the emission of clouds of 

 steam. The resemblances to, and few differences from, 

 the volcano of Kilauea are discussed. — Helen Drew and 

 Ida L. Slater : Notes on the geology of the district around 

 Llansawel (Carmarthenshire). The stratigraphy and geo- 

 logical structure of a small area some nine miles to the 

 west of Llandovery, and to the north of Llandeilo, are 

 dealt with. The rocks consist of a series of sediments, 

 including a coarse conglomerate, grits, shales, and tough 

 blue mudstones. The structure in the eastern part of 

 the district is more complicated than in the west. 

 The repeated outcrops of the conglomerate in the hilly 

 region around Shon Nicholas give the clue to the struc- 

 ture. The paper concludes with a comparison of this 

 district with those of Rhavader and Pont Erwvd. 



