638 



NA TUKE 



[October 25, 1900 



UNI VERS I TY AND ED UCA TIONA L 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge.— Dr. J. Larmor, F.R.S., has been appointed a 

 member of the General Board of studies. Mr. F. C. Kempson 

 and Dr. G. F. Rogers have been appointed demonstrators of 

 anatomy ; Mr. C. T. R. Wilson and Mr. J. S. E. Townsend 

 have been appointed demonstrators of physics. 



The Gedge Prize for physiology has been awarded to Mr. J. 

 Barcroft, King's, and Mr. H. H. Dale, Trinity. 



The Biennial election to the Council of the Senate will take 

 place on November 7. Dr. Hill, Mr. Austen Leigh, Sir 

 Richard Jebb, Dr. Kirkpatrick, Dr. Langley, F.R.S., Mr. 

 MoUison, Mr. Shipley, and Dr. Keynes are the retiring members. 

 In the absence of any acute issue it is not unlikely that most of 

 these may be re-elected. 



A syndicate is about to be appointed to consider what steps, 

 if any, should be taken towards the better organisation of 

 instruction in military subjects within the University. The 

 question has been brought up by a memorial signed by a large 

 number of influential residents in Cambridge, who desire the 

 establishment of a closer connection between the University and 

 the Army. 



The High Court has issued an order varying the conditions of 

 the Gedge Bequest for the encouragement of physiological 

 research, whereby advanced students are admitted to the com- 

 petition, provided they are of not less than three or more than 

 five years' standing. 



The examiners in sanitary science announce that sixteen 

 candidates have, at the recent examination, become qualified for 

 the University Diploma in Public Health. 



On October 22, the number of freshmen who matriculated 

 was 841, including fifteen advanced students. Last year the 

 number was 883. 



Prof. Darwin, F.R.S., has been elected a member of the 

 Financial Board, Dr. Larmor a member of the Observatory 

 Syndicate, Mr. Berry an examiner for the Mathematical Tripos 

 Part L, and Prof. Lamb, Mr. Richmond, Mr. Baker and Mr. 

 Macdonald examiners for Part IL 



A VALUABLE address on "Famine in India" was given by 

 Prof. Robert Wallace at Edinburgh University on October 18, 

 to inaugurate the course of lectures on Colonial and Indian agri- 

 culture, specially endowed by Mr. Robert and Mr. John Garton, 

 of Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire, and permanently attached 

 to the chair of agriculture and rural economy in the University. 

 The course is to be a part of the regular work to be done during 

 the winter session of five months, and is to be delivered free to 

 present and past students of the department of agriculture. As 

 Prof. Wallace will be largely concerned with agricultural condi- 

 tions in India and the Colonies, and their possible development, 

 the subject of his inaugural lecture at what may be the closing 

 epoch of the most prolonged, if not the most disastrous, of 

 famines to which the Indian peoples have been periodically sub- 

 jected was an appropriate one. " One of jthe greatest problems 

 of the future," he remarks, " will be the supply of food for the 

 rapidly-increasing, teeming millions of population. The hap- 

 hazard method of production by which the accumulated resources 

 of temporary fertility have been drawn upon as successive new 

 unpopulated areas of virgin soil have been placed under requisi- 

 tion must sooner or later cease, and more scientific methods of 

 cultivation and better systems of management must extract more 

 bountiful results from new and improved breeds of plants and of 

 domesticated animals. The expected era implies a more accu- 

 rate knowledge of agricultural details, and a wider and more 

 Imperial conception of the greater kindred questions than the 

 present time affords." 



The museum which was opened by the Countess of Warwick 

 at Stratford on October 18 will, we trust, lead to the establish- 

 ment of many similar local museums. Prof. R. Meldola is 

 largely responsible for the erection of the museum, for he 

 advocated the formation of a collection of objects, and a per- 

 manent home for it, in his inaugural address to the Essex Field 

 Club twenty years ago. The suggestion was taken up by the more 

 energetic members of the Club, and specimens of scientific 

 interest gradually accumulated, but it was felt that a museum 

 building was essential to make the collections of wide value. 

 By the munificence of Mr. Passmore Edwards, and the 

 enlightened policy of the Town Council of West Ham, a 

 building, which has cost about ;i^4000, has been erected 



NO. 1617, VOL. 62] 



adjoining, and communicating with, the Municipal Technical 

 Institute. This is the building which was opened by the 

 Countess of Warwick last week. The Corporation has agreed 

 to warm, light and provide for the care-taking of the building, 

 and to make a grant of not less than ^100 per annum towards 

 the curatorial expenses. The county collections, cases and 

 cabinets of the Essex Field Club (excepting the Epping 

 Forest collections, which are to be retained in the Forest 

 Museum at Chingford) are placed in the museum. The 

 Club undertakes the selection and scientific control of the 

 collections, and will devote a sum of ;,^50 per annum towards 

 the curatorial expenses. From a pamphlet by Mr. William Cole, 

 the honorary secretary and curator to the Club, we learn that the 

 plan and scope of the museum has been clearly defined, and will 

 be rigidly adhered to in order to avoid the error of gathering 

 together a miscellaneous collection^ of incongruous specimens. 

 The museum will be a local (Essex) one, supplemented by short 

 series having an educational value, and designed to show the 

 place of the local forms in the general scheme of classification 

 of animal and vegetable organisms. The promoters aim at its 

 eventually fulfilling three main purposes: (i) The instructive 

 recreation of the ordinary visitor by means of carefully arranged 

 sets of the chief forms of life inhabiting the district, and 

 examples showing the nature and meaning of fossils and geological 

 formations. (2) Collecting and preserving authentic series of 

 all forms of life, recent and extinct, occurring in Essex, as well as 

 geological and anthropological specimens. This is a matter of 

 really great scientific importance in view of the changes in our 

 fauna and flora now so rapidly being brought about by the 

 increase of population and the consequent effacement of natural 

 conditions in many parts of the county. (3) Assisting students 

 and field-naturalists in identifying and studying the groups in 

 which they are interested. It would facilitate the advancement 

 of education and natural knowledge if a museum of this kind 

 were connected with every Municipal Technical Institute. 



The parliamentary vote for the University of London for the 

 year 1900-1901 was ;^i8,840 gross, but it only amounted to a 

 net payment of ;^io, the difference being received from fees 

 paid by candidates presenting themselves for examination by 

 the University. Viewed as a strictly business concern, therefore, 

 the University is practically self-supporting. Many people both 

 at home and abroad will be astonished at the trivial amount 

 actually paid by the Government in aid of its greatest University. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



American Journal of Science., October. — Notes on the 

 Colorado Canyon District, by W. M. Davis. The Kaibab 

 section of the canyon discloses the nearly even floor on wliich 

 the horizontal Palaeozoic strata rest. The floor is of complex 

 structure. The fundamental schists with granitic dikes are 

 overlaid in the eastern section by the heavy Unkar and Chuar 

 series dipping eastward. The wedge in which the tilted forma- 

 tions terminate westward is a most remarkable geological 

 structure, alike for its distinctness and for its significance.— 

 Determination of minerals in thin rock sections by their maximum 

 birefringence, by L. V. Pirsson and H. H. Robinson. The 

 method described is an adaptation of Michel-Levy's colour 

 diagram. The thickness of the rock section having been deter- 

 mined, the highest colour given in any of the numerous sections 

 of the unknown mineral is observed, and by means of the 

 diagonals the numerical value is noted which corresponds to the 

 given colour in a section of the determined thickness. The 

 maximum birefringence having thus been determined, the table 

 of birefringences is referred to and theanineral usually found to 

 be one of a group of several, among which it is easily distin- 

 guished by cleavage, colour and other optical properties. The 

 authors add a table of birefractive powers, ranging from o"287 

 (rulile) to 0001 (chlorite).— Experiments on high electrical 

 resistance, by O. N. Rood. An electric current travelling along 

 a bad conductor has many analogies to a stream of pitch. It 

 attains the end of the channel after a considerable interval, and 

 if the resistance is very high, the potential at the end remains at 

 zero. The author describes a number of experiments carried 

 out with glass, silk, mica, jade, guttapercha, ebonite, amber and 

 rosin. When glass, silk and mica were connected with one 

 coating of a charged Leyden jar, it was found that within 

 fifteen minutes the part farthest from the jar had assumed its 

 potential. This was not the case with the other substances. 



