22 



NATURE 



[May 7, 1903 



two small stations or ranches in Alaska, one in the interior, 

 where may be secured specimens of the great moose, the 

 great bear, and other disappearing animals of the land 

 fauna ; the other " ranch " to be on the coast for the collec- 

 tion of the walrus, the sea otter, the great sea lion of 

 Steller, and other important vanishing marine species. 



The animals in the National Zoological Park at the close 

 of the fiscal year included 506 mammals, 232 birds, and 145 

 reptiles. The accessions of the year numbered 314. More 

 than half of these accessions were gifts to the Government, 

 several of the most interesting animals having been secured 

 through the cooperation of United States consuls and other 

 officials. A fine specimen of grizzly bear, also some ante- 

 lope, deer, elk, and cinnamon bears were received from the 

 Yellowstone National Park. 



The native game, formerly everywhere plentiful, has 

 grown so nearly inaccessible that only after years of effort 

 have there at last been procured a single young male speci- 

 men of the great Kodiak bear and two big horn or Rocky 

 Mountain sheep. 



The Astro physical Observatory. — The principal work of 

 the Astrophysical Observatory during the past year has 

 continued to be the study of the sun and its radiation. 

 While fully acknowledging the interesting nature of astro- 

 physical investigation of the stars and nebulae, the study 

 of the sun has a far superior practical importance, for were 

 the former bodies to be wholly blotted out, they would be 

 missed chiefly as objects of scientific interest, while with the 

 sun would be abolished life itself. The solar researches 

 have mainly been concerned with determining the amount 

 and nature of the absorption of solar radiation in the earth's 

 atmosphere and in the solar envelope. These researches are 

 preliminary to, and form an essential part of, the measure- 

 ment of the total radiation of the sun. A presumption 

 exists, almost amounting to certainty, that the total radia- 

 tion of the sun is variable in some relation to the appear- 

 ance of sun-spots, but nothing is yet known to fix definitely 

 the amount of this supposed variability or to measure its 

 effect upon the earth, though that effect, if so fixed, cannot 

 but be of interest to every inhabitant of the earth's surface. 



The instrumental means, which thus have been the subject 

 of incessant study and improvement here during the past 

 ten years, for investigating such questions, are more efficient 

 than at any previous time. The detailed report shows that 

 automatic bolometric curves accurately representative of the 

 amount and distribution of the solar energy at the observer's 

 station may now be obtained in a few minutes, covering 

 nearly the whole spectral region which reaches sea level, 

 and Vk^here occurs much of the great and varying absorption 

 by water vapour which influences our terrestrial temper- 

 atures so greatly. 



Some twenty years ago, when Dr. Langley invented his 

 ^' bolometer," the instrument was able to measure tempera- 

 ture to about one one-hundred-thousandth of a degree. 

 Since then, during fifteen years of constant advance, latterly 

 associated with a great improvement of the adjuncts, par- 

 ticularly of the galvanometer, at the hands of Mr. C. G. 

 Abbot, this has been brought to measure somewhat less 

 than one-hundred-millionth of a degree, and this almost 

 infinitesimal amount is distinguished with readiness and 

 precision. It is this increased precision which is associated 

 with all the improvements in the work of the year here 

 described. 



It is the variability of the absorption of our air which 

 now offers the greatest difficulty to the work. Dr. Langley 

 cherishes the hope that a solar observatory will one day be 

 established high in a clear and dry air, the chief aim of 

 which shall be to solve the questions of the amount ol 

 radiation of the sun, the changes in this total amount, and 

 the consequences of such changes on the earth. 



The interest of this solar study is peculiar among all the 

 subjects of astronomical research, for it is not only a scien- 

 tific but a utilitarian interest of such high importance that 

 It has among its remote possibilities the forecasting of the 

 coming seasons and harvests, and of conditions immediately 

 practical, from those which affect the price of the labourer's 

 dmner up to those which, to use the weighty words of Prof. 

 Newcomb, may bring to light not merely interesting 

 cosmical processes, but " cosmical processes pregnant with 

 the destiny of our race." 



NO. 1749, VOL. 68] 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridgk. — The General Board of Studies report that in 

 their opinion it is expedient to reestablish the chair of 

 surgery, which has been suspended since Sir George 

 Humphry's death. They propose a stipend of 600?. a year, 

 with freedom to undertake private practice, and the right 

 to be ex officio surgeon to the hospital and to hold a 

 college fellowship. 



A special syndicate has been appointed to consider arrange- 

 ments for the future conduct of the engineering depart- 

 ment, in view of the approaching departure of Prof. Ewing. 

 A bust of the late Dr. John Hopkinson has been presented 

 to the Hopkinson Laboratory, and will be unveiled during 

 the present term. 



The second reading of the London Education Bill was 

 carried in the House of Commons on April 29 by 300 votes, 

 to 163. 



At a meeting of the Court of Governors of University 

 College, Liverpool, held on May 2, the chairman alluded to 

 the endowment of a chair of electrotechnics, for which 

 special purpose a donation of lo.oooL had been made by 

 Mr. Jardine, and stated that they hoped to receive other 

 special donations in order to establish professorships of 

 applied mechanics and applied mathematics. A new build- 

 ing for electrotechnics and biology is to be erected, which 

 it is hoped will be one of the most perfect of the kind in 

 the country. It was also announced that, assuming all 

 went well, and that the charter constituting the Liverpool 

 University College a separate university was granted in 

 June or early in July, the necessary Act of Parliament 

 would probably be passed during the present session. 



The annual conference of the presidents, deans and ex- 

 ecutive officers of many of the institutions for the higher 

 education of women in the United States was held this 

 year at Smith College on April 18. The association, which 

 numbers among its members eleven colleges for women 

 and co-educational institutions, as well as associations and 

 individuals, maintains a table at the Zoological Station at 

 Naples, awarding places at it to from one to five 

 persons each year. A place at the American Women'* 

 Table at this Station for 1903-4 was awarded to 

 Dr. Grace Emily Cooley, associate professor of botany at 

 Wellesley College, who will thus become scholar of' the 

 association. An additional award has, howe%er, been made 

 this year, that of the prize of 200/. offered two vears ago 

 for the best piece of scientific research work done by a 

 woman. Twelve professors representing the biological, 

 chemical, and physiological sciences act as board of ex- 

 aminers for the association. This year they considered 

 eleven scientific investigations, and awarded the prize to 

 Dr. Florence R. Sabin, assistant in anatomy at the Johns 

 Hopkins University Medical School, for the' results of an 

 investigation on the origin of the lymphatic system. 

 Honourable mention was given to the paper on the life- 

 history of Pinus by Miss Margaret Ferguson. The prize 

 of 200/. is again offered, to be awarded in 1905. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Physical Society, April 24.— Mr. T. H. Blakesley, 

 vice-president, in the chair.— Mr. W. B. Croft exhibited 

 several novel and ingenious pieces of physical apparatus. — 

 Dimenlional analysis of physical quantities and the correla- 

 tion of units, by Mr. A. F. Ravenshear. The object of 

 this paper is to knit together various divergent views which 

 are current on the subject of dimensions. It is shown that 

 while (i) dimensional analysis and the correlation of units 

 of different kinds can be pursued in one direction until, with 

 completed correlation, we arrive at degrees of undifferenti- 

 ated quantity, a different procedure may be followed which 

 (2) gives rise to various systems of dimensions descriptive 

 of the physical relationships of the quantities treated. The- 

 conditions giving rise to dimensional relations are first set 

 out, and it is proposed to distinguish the purelv quantita- 



