April 25, 1895] 



NATURE 



bi9 



physical examrnation curve. If we muit admit intellectual 

 mediocrity, let us, at any rate, secure that we have, in com - 

 peosation, physical excellence. 



In practice this would necessitate the preliminary testing, 

 when they are undergoing their m;dical inspection, of all 

 candidates by means of the spirometer ; neither a difficult nor a 

 lengthy operation. No doubt, as Dr. Venn pDints out, breath- 

 ing power may to some extent be improved by practice, and 

 candidates would all (Ijck to a "spirometer-cramaiar." But 

 probably all of them would be the better for som; physical 

 cramming in this way. C. Lloyd Morgan. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — Prof. W. Watson Chayne, F.R.S., has been 

 appointed an additional Examiner in Surgery for the present 

 term. 



An intercollegiate Examination in Mechanical Science and 

 Engineering, for candidates for the Mechanical Sciences 

 Tripos, will be held, under the direction of Prof. Ewin^;, at the 

 end of this term, commencing on June 4. 



The Somerset County Edaca'.ion Committee have adopted 

 a resolution in favour of establishing in the county a fixed 

 Dairy Farm School for aJults of both sexes. InUruction in 

 cheese and butter making, and in subjects allied there.o, woul J 

 be given. Provision is made for granting thirty sch ilar^hips, 

 giving free board an! tuition at the school for two months, to 

 formers' sons and daughters engaged in dairy w )rk. The 

 Committee have agreed that it 15 d;sirable to set up aa agri- 

 cultural side to one or more of the existing sacoadiry schools 

 in the county. It is hoped that in due course an agricaUural 

 college (or the West of England will ba provided by the com- 

 bined efforts of the local counties. 



With the view of acquainting teachers with a course of ex - 

 periments in accoriance with the British Association Commi t- 

 tee's programme for the teaching of Chemistry in schools, the 

 Evening Schools Code, and the syllabus for Major Scholarship 

 examinations recently prepared by a committee of the Incor- 

 porated Association of Head Masters, Prof, .\rmitrong, F.K.S., 

 will give a series of demonstrations at the City and Guilds 

 Central Technical College, on Saturday mornings, in May. The 

 special object of the course will be to explain the exact method 

 to be followed in carrying out a carefully arranged series of 

 very simple qualitative and quantitative experiments calculated 

 to impress the chief and most generally useful facts of chemistry 

 on children's minds whilst developing their powers of ob- 

 serving and reasoning. 



It has often been urged against the educated natives of India, 

 that they are admirable at adaptation, but are altogether at a 

 discount where original research is concerned. The Hon. Mr. 

 A. Cadell commented upon this failing in a recent ad Ireis to 

 Convocation of .\llahabad University. His advice was that 

 debating societies, which are so common a feature of student- 

 life, should give place to natural history societies ; the object 

 would be to foster the true scientific spirit in the native mind. 

 In this connection, some remarks (which we quote from the 

 Allahabad Morning Post), made by Prof. Ingram, of the Madras 1 

 Educational Service, indicates that the complaint as to the want 

 of scientific research by natives of India is not without founda- 

 tion. In a recent contribution lie says:— "Now, if India is 

 not helping in this work, if she is supplying no additional infor- 

 mation, and is offering no aid towards the consummation of 

 this unity, her claim to be regarded as in any sense a scientific 

 country, is null and void. No matter how assiduously her 

 students may devote themselves to studying the science course 

 of their University curiiculum ; if it all end there, it is nothing. 

 But need it end there .' What country could offer greater 

 facilities for scientific research than India? Here is a country 

 teeming with animal and plant life ; but the systematic biology 

 of India is still in a nebulous condition. Why are no students 

 devoting themselves to collecting and collating, and studying 

 the plaints of their districts, or the insects that abound within 

 their walls? It would be hard, too, to find a country better 

 suited than India, with her clear atmosphere and cloudless skies, 

 for the study of the stars orof other atmospheric phenomena. In 

 these ways, and in a thousand other?, we might be advancing 



the cause of knowledge. But we can scarcely be said to have 

 begun yet." By way of remedy. Prof. Ingram suggests the for- 

 mation of an Indian Royal Society, or sone such association as 

 would serve the same purposes here as the Riitish Association 

 does at home. It is possible, however, without going to that 

 length, to utilise the resources already at hand. India is not 

 without its scientific societies. There are the .\siatic Society of 

 Bengal, the Indian Science Association, and the Bombay 

 Natural History Society, all of which are amply sufficient for 

 the purposes of scientific research. 



NO. 1330, VOL. 51] 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



American J otirnal of Science, April. — Niagara and the Great 

 Lakes, by F. B. Taylor. By a correlation of the abandoned 

 shore lines, moraines, and outlets, and the gorges, recently- 

 submerged shores, and rivers of this region, the author is led 

 to the view that the lakes were at firit glacial and ice-dammed, 

 falling by stages as the outlets changed on withdrawal of the 

 glacier-dams. By the withdrawal ol the glacier the Niagara 

 river was opened, and the upper lakes became united. The 

 land was gradually depressed at the north, and finally led to 

 the opening of Nipissing outlet, which was then brought down 

 to the sealevel, and marine waters filled the three upper lakes, 

 the Ontario, St. Lawrence, and Winnipeg basins. The sub- 

 sequent raising of the Nipissing outlet made the upper lakes 

 fresh again. Then followed the stage of the second Lake 

 Algonquin and that of the second (present) Niagara lakes. 

 Lake Superior became independent. The Great Champlain 

 uplift took place at the north-east, and the formation of the St. 

 Clair delta began, and continues to the present day. — Disturb- 

 ances in the direction of the plumb-line in the Hawaiian Islands,, 

 by E. D. Preston. There appears to be a disturbance of more 

 than a minute in the direction of gravity at the south point of 

 Hawaii. At Kohala the plumb-line is deflected half a minute 

 towards the south, and at Kilaieha nearly as much towards the 

 north, the disturb.'.nce being in both cases towards the moun- 

 tain. The deflection at the south point is also northward, and 

 is caused by the great masses of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. — 

 Structure and appendages of Trinuclctu, by Charles F. Beecher. 

 The three posterior thoracic endopodites are very similar, and 

 in a general way closely resemble those of Triarthrus from the 

 same region of the thorax. They are, however, comparatively 

 shorter and stouter, and could not be extended beyond the ends 

 of the pleura. The two distal joint; are cylindrical, with well- 

 marked articular surfaces and ridges. The joints preceding 

 these proximally become much wider, flattened, and produced 

 into transverse extensions which carr>' large tufts of set.^ at the 

 end. The exopodites seem to b; composed of slender joints, 

 the distal exites being long and slightly curved outwards. They 

 carry very long, close-set, overlapping lamellose fringes, which 

 evidently had a branchial function. The characters of the 

 appendages indicate an animal of burrowing habit, which 

 probably lived in the soft mud of the sea-bottom, much after the 

 fashion of the modern Limulus. In addition lo its limuloid form, 

 the absence of eyes seems to favour this assumption. So does 

 the fact that many specimens have been found preserving the 

 cast of the alimentary canol, showing that the animal gorged 

 itself with mud, like many othjr sea-bottom animals. 



Wiedemann i Annaten der Pliysik iind Cliemie, No. 3. — 

 Electric conduction and convection in feebly conducting 

 dilute solutions, by E. Warburg. The alteration of conductivity 

 produced by a current in bodies like aniline, the phenomena of 

 convection exhibited by them, and their apparent deviations 

 from Ohm's law, can all be explained on the supposition that 

 their conductivity depends upon an electrolyte of which the body 

 is a very dilute solution. Bodies were investigated whose con- 

 ductivities went down to 5 x to"''. The similar behaviour of 

 still worse conductors, like xylol, benzol, oil of turpentine, is 

 probably due to the same cause. — Ratio of scctionri contraction 

 to longitudinal dilatation of iron rods during magnetisation, by 

 A. Bock. By magnetisation the constants of elasticity of soft 

 iron are altered to an extent not exceeding o"5 per cent. The ob- 

 servations indicate lh.at flexure diminishes, torsion also decreases, 

 and the ratio of sectional contraciion to longitudinal expansion 

 increases. Iron becomes more incompressible in the magnetic 

 field (see p. 614). — Freezing points of some binary mixtures of 

 heteromorphous substances, by Albert D.ihms. Euteclic mixtures 



