592 



NATURE 



[October i i, 1900 



upon his duties on January i, 1901, soon after which date the 

 college will, it is expected, be ready to receive pupils. 



At a general meeting of Convocation of the University of 

 London, held on Tuesday last, the following were elected to serve 

 as members of the Senate under Section i?. of the statute of the 

 reconstructed University :— Mr. John Fletcher Moulton, Dr. J. D. 

 McClure, Sir A. Kaye RoUit, Dr. T. B. Napier, Dr. J. B. Benson, 

 Dr. T. L. Mears, Sir H. H. Cozens- Hardy, Dr. T. Barlow, Mr. 

 J, F. Payne, Sir Philip Magnus, Dr. S. Bryant, Dr. C. W. 

 Kimmins, Dr. F. Clowes, Prof. Silvanus Thompson, Dr. F. S. 

 Macaulay, and Mr. J. W. Sidebotham. 



During the past week very many addresses have been de" 

 livered to students at the opening of the winter sessions of the 

 various science, technical and medical schools in London and 

 the provinces, in the course of which much excellent advice has 

 been given. An article dealing with some of the utterances 

 made to medical students is to be found in another part of the 

 present issue. In this column we refer, and only very briefly, j 

 to two addresses given to students of other branches of know- 

 ledge, viz. those by Sir Alexander Binnie at the opening 

 of the Central Technical College, on October 2, and by 

 Prof. Le Neve Foster at the distribution of medals, prizes, 

 &c., to the students of the Royal College of Science, on 

 October 4. The subjects chosen for their addresses by both 

 speakers were well suited to the occasion, and should prove 

 of much service to the audiences who listened to them. 

 Prof. Foster took as his topic "Common Sense," in the course 

 of which he referred to the remark of Prof, Huxley that science 

 was organised common sense, and the two or three years' 

 training in science which students received at the college was, 

 therefore, simply training in ordinary common sense. If they 

 wished to succeed in any calling they must exercise the faculty 

 of thought. It was difficult to realise that times were changing, 

 but change was everywhere taking place, and they must throw 

 aside the idea that m the production of British manufactures the 

 methods that had come down to them from their forefathers were 

 necessarily the best. In Lancashire it was said that what Lan- 

 cashire did to-day Great Britain would do to-morrow. They might 

 say that what the scientific man did to-day the manufacturing man 

 would do to-morrow. The laboratory experiment of to-day was, 

 in fact, the manufacturing process of to-morrow. But if the student 

 desired to take an active part in the improvement of the indus- 

 trial life of the country and of manufacturing processes, he must 

 work hard and not place too much reliance on his teacher. All 

 that the professor could do was to give the student a general 

 ground-work upon which afterwards by his own experiments he 

 could build up his frame- work of knowledge. Sir A. Binnie in 

 his address contrasted the advantages which students of to- day 

 have over those educated in the middle of the present century, 

 and urged upon his hearers not to confine themselves merely to 

 the curriculum of study laid before them, or to take too narrow 

 a view or devote themselves exclusively to one particular branch 

 of learning. The aim of the speaker was to impress upon his 

 audience that to be a true student of science the mind must be 

 opened out and widely cultivated by observation to grasp every 

 detail, as it often occurs that it is among the almost unnoticed 

 minulise of a particular science that those wonderful correlations 

 that lead in the future to wide results are to be found. He 

 spoke of the necessity of acquiring a wide and broad view of the 

 subjects which should engage the student's attention for the 

 reason that he felt that education could only be complete when 

 studied as a whole, and the beauty of all the different sciences 

 brought clearly before the mind. Further, one can never tell, 

 when entering upon active work, into what avenues or by-paths 

 of practice he may be led, and to illustrate this Sir A. Binnie 

 referred to his own experience. He also urged upon his hearers 

 to study the history of their profession, and of the various dis- 

 coveries which have been made in the different branches ot 

 science to which they would apply themselves. Altogether the 

 students are to be congratulated upon the helpful advice tendered 

 to them. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, October 1.— M. Maurice L^vy in 



the chair. — On the absorption of free oxygen by normal urine, 



by M. Berthelot. Normal urine absorbs free oxygen in amounts 



larger than those corresponding to the solubility of oxygen in 



NO. 16 I 5. VOL. 62] 



water. The acidity is not altered by the absorption. — Remarks on 

 the acidity of urine, by M Berthelot. — On the distribution of the 

 horizontal component of the earth's magnetism in France, by 

 M. E. Mathias. As the result of work spread over a period of six 

 years in the neighbourhood of Toulouse, it was found that a very 

 simple formula would combine the results of all the observa- 

 tions, namely : AH= - i'26 {£>. long.) - 7*42 (A lat.), in which 

 aH was the difference between the measurement for an element 

 at a place X and that of the corresponding element at Toulouse. 

 It was further found that the above formula applies to the 

 whole of France. — On the selenides of nickel, by M. Fonzes- 

 Diacon. Nickel leaflets heated in a current of nitrogen 

 carrying small quantities of selenium vapour give cubical 

 crystals of a selenide of the composition NiSe. Another 

 selenide approximating in composition to Ni3S4 is obtained by 

 heating anhydrous nickel chloride in a current of hydrogen 

 selenide at a dull red heat. At 300° C. the diselenide NiSg 

 is obtained as a greyish-black, friable mass. All these pro- 

 ducts heated to a white heat in a current of hydrogen give a 

 sub-selenide, NigSe. — Oxycelluloses from cotton, flax and hemp, 

 by M. Leo Vignon. Purified fibres of various textile material 

 were submitted to the oxidising action of hydrochloric acid 

 and potassium chlorate ; the yield in all cases was the same, 

 about 70 per cent. ; phenylhydrazine furnished the same 

 osazone. Small differences were observed in the reducing 

 powers of the oxycelluloses from different sources. — On the 

 mutability of Oenothera Lamarckiana, by M. Hugo de Vries. 

 This furnishes an example of the rare phenomenon of a 

 state of mutability in a pure species. The new 

 species appears suddenly without preliminary or inter- 

 mediate stages ; the transformed individual shows all the 

 characters of a new type, although the parents .and grand- 

 parents are absolutely normal. The seeds of the transformed 

 individuals give rise to the new type only, no tendency being 

 observed to revert to the characters of CE. Lamarckiana. — On 

 the Eocene of Tunis and Algiers, by M. L. Pervinquiere. — The 

 ravine of Chevalleyres and the retrogression of torrents, by M. 

 Stanislas Meunier. Attention" is drawn to the mode of forma- 

 tion of this col, the size of which would appear out of all pro- 

 portion to the small stream to which the ravine is undoubtedly 

 due. The transfer of rock masses, and other effects usually 

 ascribed to glacier action, may be traced to this torrent. — Ob- 

 servations of a meteor which fell on the evening of September 

 24, by M. Jean Mascart. The meteor, the nucleus of which 

 was star-like and very bright, was seen at 10.16 p.m. on 

 September 24 between Meudon and Bellevue. 



CONTENTS. PAGE 



A New Geography of Plants. By Dr. Otto Stapf . 569 



Foundations of Agriculture 570 



Our Bookshelf: — 



McCarthy : " Surveying and Exploring in Siam " . . 571 



" Church Stretton " 571 



Kennedy: " Surveying with the Tacheometer " . . . 571 

 Letters to the Editor: — 



Ascent of Sap. — Dr. Henry H. Dixon and Prof. J. 



Joly, F.R.S. . . ... 572 



Homochronous Heredity and the Acquisition of 



Language.— Prof. R. Meldola, F.R.S 572 



Autotomic Curves,— A. B. Basset, F.R.S 572 



The Opening of the Medical Schools. By Prof. 



F. W. Tunnicliffe 572 



A Night with the Great Paris Telescope. [Illus- 



iraled.) By C. P. Butler 574 



Tobacco 576. 



Notes .577 



Our Astronomical Column : — 



Ephemeris for Observations of Eros 581 



The Stability of a Swarm of Meteorites and of a 

 Planet and Satellite ( IViih Diagrams. ) By Prof. 



A. Gray, F.R.S 582 



Antelopes and their Recognitidn Marks. {Illus- 

 trated.) By R. I. Pocock 584 



Geology at the British Association 587 



Zoology (and Physiology) at the British Associa- 

 tion 5^^ 



Geography at the British Association 590' 



University and Educational Intelligence 591 



Societies and Academies 592- 



