38 



NA TURE 



[May t4, 1903 



indignation which would greet the suggestion that the 

 government of the Universities of Oxiord and Cam- 

 bridge should be placed in the hands of the munici- 

 palities of Oxford and Cambridge respectively to see 

 how indiscreet is a proposal made during the second 

 reading debate to give the control of " all kinds cf 

 education from the beginning to the end " to the new 

 Education Committee for London. Such an authority 

 will have at least quite enough to do in building up a 

 properly coordinated and duly unified system of 

 secondary and elementary education, and in continuing 

 the excellent work now being done by the London 

 Technical Education Board. It would be in the 

 highest degree unwise to give the new authority any 

 sort of opportunity to interfere, for example, with the 

 procedure of the Senate of the University of London, 

 though, as has been said, it should be made possible 

 for the new committee to show its sympathy with 

 higher education by contributing to the funds of the 

 University of London and of the metropolitan university 

 colleges. 



The university college cannot in any narrow sense be 

 a local institution. To attempt to make it so would be 

 the work of an enemy to higher education ; indeed, it 

 would be difficult to imagine anything more likely to 

 play into the hands of our competitors than a disposi- 

 tion to place university education under the control of 

 local authorities. Germany, for instance, would prob- 

 ably be highly delighted If this were done. 



At present higher education in the United Kingdom 

 largely depends upon private munificence and upon 

 financial aid from municipal authorities. But, when 

 the Government and the people of this country have 

 been educated to understand that the maintenance of 

 universities on a generous scale Is of prime Importance 

 to the nation's well-being, it will become evident that 

 the only satisfactory solution of a difficult problem Is 

 to regard the adequate provision of higher education as 

 an Important function of the State. When this Is pro- 

 perly appreciated, the universities will be dependent 

 upon State grants alone ; they will no longer find It 

 necessary to solicit financial help from individual muni- 

 ficence, or to secure the voting interest of local coun- 

 cillors with the object of obtaining municipal aid. 



iVOT£5. 

 At the closing ceremony of the fourteenth International 

 Congress of Medicine, it was announced that the prize of 

 5000 francs offered by the Moscow municipality had been 

 allotted to Dr. Metchnikoflf, of the Pasteur Institute, Paris, 

 and the prize of 3000 francs offered by the Paris munici- 

 pality to Dr. Grassi, of Rome. The fifteenth congress will 

 be held in Portugal in 1906, when the president will be 

 Prof. Coimbra Costa. Dr. Miguel Bombarda, who will be 

 the general secretary of this congress, is a member of the 

 Royal Academy of Sciences and president of the Royal 

 Academy of Medical Sciences at Lisbon. 



The death is announced of M. Worms de Romilly, 

 formerly president of the French Physical Society, and a 

 member of the committee of the International Association 

 of Electricians. 



Prof. E. Ray Lankester, F.R.S., has been added to the 

 departmental committee appointed to investigate experi- 

 mentally and to report upon certain questions connected 

 with the dipping and treatment of sheep. 



Dr. Robert Bell, F.R.S., acting director of the Geo- 

 logical Survey of Canada, is at present in England for the 

 purpose of receiving personally the degree of Doctor of 

 Science which is to be conferred upon him to-day by the 

 NO. 1750, VOL. 68] 



University of Cambridge. Dr. Bell was promoted to the 

 directorship of the Canadian Survey more than two years 

 ago, after being associated with the survey department for 

 forty-six years, but it will surprise all who are not familiar 

 with official routine to know that his appointment has not 

 yet been gazetted, and we presqme, therefore, that he does 

 not receive the pay of the appointment. 



Ladv Huggins and Miss A. M. Gierke have been elected 

 honorary members of the Royal Astronomical Society. 



The International Association of Botanists has just held 

 its first congress at Leyden under the presidency of Prof. 

 Goebel, of Munich. 



The Athenaeum announces the death of Josef Enzen- 

 berger, the director of the scientific station of the German 

 South Pole Expedition. Herr Enzenberger was only thirty 

 years of age. 



Mr. W. H. Patchell has been appointed a member of the 

 committee to inquire into the use of electricity in mines in 

 the place of Mr. James Swinburne, resigned. 



The honorary treasurer of the Cancer Research Fund, 

 under the direction of the two Royal Colleges of Physicians 

 and Surgeons, has received the sum of loooi!. from Mr. 

 H. L. Florence for the advancement of the investigation of 

 cancer. 



The Times correspondent at Wellington, N.Z., points out 

 that unless the next season should prove more favourable 

 than the last, the Discovery will remain fast in the ice, and 

 her ultimate abandonment in the Antarctic is possible. It 

 is imperative, therefore, that the relief ship should return. 



Some additional particulars referring to the British 

 Antarctic Expedition have been brought from New Zealand 

 by the s.s. Paparoa, which arrived at Plymouth on Sunday 

 with a member of the Discovery's crew, and also one of 

 the crew of the relief ship Morning. A remarkable ex- 

 perience is related by a young New Zealander named Hare, 

 who set out from the Discovery with a party of officers 

 and men to deposit a record at Cape Crozier. He was 

 separated from the party when returning to the ship, and 

 was buried in a snowdrift. After being asleep in the snow 

 for thirty-six hours he was revived by the warmth of the 

 sun, and was strong enough to rise out of the snow and 

 walk to the ship. With reference to some of the work in 

 terrestrial physics, Mr. Bernacchi says in a letter : — " One 

 of the most typical of the magnetograms for the year 1902-3, 

 with data for reduction, has been sent home in case some- 

 thing should happen to us before the return of the expedi- 

 tion. The seismograph has been working the whole year, 

 but very few shocks and tremors are recorded. Our largest 

 are on May 25 and on September 22, which seems to corre- 

 spond with your record on April 18. There are some 

 irregularities in the line which might be due to the Guate- 

 malan earthquake. There are some tremors, however, 

 which coincide with your record. From October 3 to 

 October 8 a great many tremors were recorded. I also 

 have a year's observations of atmospheric electricity." 



In connection with the celebration of the centenary of 

 Dalton's enunciation of the atomic theory, to be held at 

 Manchester next week, the following extract from the presi- 

 dential address delivered by Prof. J. Emerson Reynolds. 

 F.R.S., to the Chemical Society, at the last anniversary 

 meeting, is of interest : — " This year is the centenary of 

 the announcement, in a tentative form, of probably the most 

 fruitful and valuable of all scientific hypotheses — Dalton's 

 Atomic Theory. On October 21, 1803, Dalton read a paper 



