May 9, 1895J 



NA TURE 



45 



aflminlstratif)n of this grant, prL'[)are(I by a Special Committee of 

 the Institute and adoptetl by the Kxecutive Comniillee, has 

 since received the sanction of the Court of the Salters' Company. 

 The first award was made in January of the present year to 

 Dr. Martin f). Forster. A sum of ;f33J 4^. yi- has also been 

 received from the Committee of the .Siemens .Memorial Window 

 Kund, '* as an enfiowment to furnish a small sum to the recipient 

 of Ihc .Siemens Memorial Medal, which is awarded annually to 

 the .student of the greatest merit in the Department of Electrical 

 Engineering at the Central Technical College of the City and 

 Guilds of London Institute." The Report deals in detail with 

 the operations of the several colleges, schools, and dejiartments 

 of the Institute's work. 



Miss Crace Ciiisholm has just taken the degree of Doctor 

 of I'hili>sophy at Gottingen, this being the first degree obtained 

 !>y a lady since (jottingen became a Prussian University. Miss 

 Chisholm was a scholar of (lirton College, Cambridge, and wa.s 

 placed between the 22nd and 23rd Wranglers in j'art I. of the 

 Mathematical Tripos in 1892, and in Cla.ss 3 of the Mathematical 

 Tripos, Part II., in 1893. In 1892 .she also took a first class in 

 the Final Mathematical .School at Oxford, .\fter leaving (iirton, 

 she proceedei! to Gottingen, an<l, receiving permission to attend 

 the mathematical lectures, was in residence there about a year 

 and a half. It was with the express sanction of the Prussian 

 Minister of Eilucation that the doctor's degree was conferred 

 on her, and it is thought that the precedent thus established will 

 probably lead to a substantial development in the opportunities 

 ofTered for the higher education of women in Germany. 



Silver Mkdals have been awarded to Mr. K. H. Turnbull, 

 Mr. {;. F. Mair, and Mr. And. Robertson, of the Gla.sgow and 

 West of Scotland Technical College. The medals were purchased 

 with funds placed at the disposal of Prof. A. H. .Sexton, by the 

 West of .Scotland Iron and Steel Institute, for the award of prizes 

 for kuiiwlidge of the metallurgy of iron and steel. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



AmerUan Meteorological Journal, .Vpril. — Recent foreign 

 .studies of thimderstorms : Switzerland, by R. De C. Ward. 

 The sy.stematic study of thunderstorms has been regularly carried 

 on in Switzerland since 1883, and the results have been pub- 

 lished yearly in the Aiinalen of the Central .Meteorological 

 Office, but thtTe has been no general summary of the whole 

 data. The general conditions of thunderstorm development in 

 Switzerland are the presence of cyclonic depressions over 

 Northern Furope, high temperatures, southerly winds and 

 secondary depressions over Switzerland.— Note on Croll's 

 glacial theory, by Prof. W. M. Davis. This is a reprint from 

 the Traiisadions ol \.\\e Edinburgh Geological Society (vol. vii. ). 

 The author thinks that the recent studies of Dr. J. Mann, on the 

 origiii of cj'clones and anti-cyclones, suggest an amendment to 

 Croll's physical explanation of the climate of the glacial period. 



Symoiis's Monthly Meteorological Magazine, April. — Earth 

 temperatures and water-pipes, by the Editor. .\ table shows the 

 earth temperatures at nineteen stations in various parts of the 

 country, from which it is seen that frost penetrated to I foot al 

 eleven stations, to i foot 6 inches at three stations, to 2 feet at 

 one station, and nowhere reached 2 feet 6 inches. The fact 

 that ice formed in many pipes buried 2 feet 6 inches, and 

 probably lower, is indisputable, but the explanation is not given 

 of the a]>parent discordance between the temperature of the 

 water and that shown by the earth thermometers. — The great 

 gale in the Midlands on .March 24, by li. A. Boys and 

 A. W. Preston. This appears to have been, locally, one of the 

 heaviest gales for many years. In a park near East Dereham, it 

 is said that 11 00 trees were uprooted. The worst part of the 

 hurricane was from ih. 30m. to 2h. 15m. p.m., and both 

 observers state that the gusts were little short of force 12 of the 

 Beaufort scale, which is equivalent to a velocity of ninety miles 

 in the hour. — Snow from a cloudless sky, by C. L. Prince. The 

 author states that at Crowborough, Sussex, on Febrtiary 6, some 

 snow crystals and minute spicule of ice fell at intervals, without 

 any visible cloud. 



CAnthropologie, 1895, tome vi. No. i.— Note sur I'age de la 

 pierre en Ukraine, par M. le Karon de Baye. The author 

 collected the materials for this article while residing in the pro- 

 vince of Kiev, during the years 1893 and 1894. Little Russia 

 contains three kinds of tumuli of the Stone age: (i) Small 



NO. 1332, VOL. 52] 



tumuli each containing a single skeleton resting on clay or white 

 sand, and wrapped in birch bark ; and in which small stone arrow- 

 heads are found, but no stone implements of large size. (2) 

 Cists, cimstructedof .stone slabs, containing va.ses filled with ashes 

 and burnt bones, with which are associatetl polished stone 

 weapons. (3) Tumuli containing skeletons, certain parts of 

 which, particularly the bones of the head, are coloured red. 

 Opinions differ as to whether this colouration has been produced 

 naturally or artificially ; but the interments may probably be 

 referred to the end of the .Stone age, as only three bronze relics 

 have been foimd in sixty of these tombs oj3ene<l I)y Prof. Antono- 

 witch. — La scidjiture en Europe avant les infiuences greco- 

 roniaines, par M. Salomon Keinach. In this number the author 

 describes and figures relics of the Bronze age, chiefly swords and 

 dagger hilts, many of them of great beauty. — De Tart du potier 

 de terre chez les Neo-Caledoniens, par M. Glaumont. The pots 

 of the New Caledonians are made of clay ; they are spheroidal 

 in shape, and have large mouths, the lips of which are turned over 

 and pierced with two, or sometimes four, holes, through which a 

 cord is passed to facilitate transportati<m from one place to 

 another. They never have feet, but, when used for cooking, are 

 either supported on two or three stones fixed in the ground, or 

 they are suspended from a branch driven obliquely into the earth 

 so as to project over the hearth. The ornamentation is usually 

 very simple, consisting merely of lines, but on one vase from the 

 north of the island, figured by M. Glaumont, there appears a 

 human face in relief. — Les races de I'Ogooue. Notes anthro- 

 pologiques, par M. Liotard. It is now fully recognised that the 

 population of the Gaboon consists of several peoples of different 

 types, each having special characteristics. M. Liotard has had 

 exceptional opportunities of studying these people, and here 

 records some of the results of his observations. 



Ln Nos. 1-4 of the Biillettino of the Societa Botanica Italiana 

 for 1895 '^ "" article by Sig. P. Voglino, on the part played by 

 snails and toads in the propagation of certain fungi. In the 

 digestive canal of these aniinals he foimd abundance of the 

 spores of species of Riissula, Tricholoma, I.actarius, and other 

 species of Agaricini. The facidty of germination of these spores 

 hail not been destroyed by passing through the body of the 

 animal. Sig. A. De Bonis contributes a paper on the cleisto- 

 gamous flowers of Porttilaca grandiflora, Salpiglossis sinuata, and 

 l.aminm af/iplexicaitle. The production of these flowers he 

 attributes to unfavourable vital conditions, especially sterility of 

 the soil. The remaining articles are chiefly of interest to 

 Italian botanists. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Physical Society, .April 26. — Mr. Walter Baily, Vice- 

 President, in the chair. — Prof. S. P. Thomp.son read a note on 

 a neglected experiment of .Vmpere. .-\in])ere, in 1S22, ni.ade an 

 experiment which, if it had been properly followecl up, must 

 have led to the discovery of the induction of electric currents 

 nearly ten years before the publication of Faraday's results. 

 While attempting to discover the presence of an electric current 

 in a conductor placed in the neighbourhood of another conductor, 

 in which an electric current was flowing. Ampere made the 

 following experiment. A coil of insulated copper strip w.as 

 fixed with its plane vertical, and a copjwr ring was suspended 

 by a fine metal wire, so as to be concentric with the coil, and 

 to lie in the same plane. A bar magnet was so placed that if an 

 electric current was induced in the .suspended ring, a deflec- 

 tion would be ])roduced. No such tleflection, however, was 

 observed. In 1822, in conjunction with de la Rive, Ampire 

 repeated this experiment, using in place of the bar magnet a 

 powerfiil horse-shoe magnet. He describes the result in the 

 following words: — "The clo.sed circuit under the influence 

 of the current in the coil, but without any connection with 

 this latter, was attracted and repelled alternately by the 

 magnet, and this experiment would, consequently, leave no 

 doubt as to the production of currents of electricity by induction 

 if one had not suspected the presence of a small quantity of 

 iron in the copper of which the ring was formed." This closing 

 remark shows that they were looking for a permanent deflection. 

 When, however, I-araday's results were published in' 1831, 

 .Atnp^re, after again ilescribing the experiment made in 1S22 

 by himself and <le la Rive, .says : — " As soon as we connected a 

 battery to the terminals of the conductor the ring was attracted 



