154 



NATURE 



[April 13, 1916 



interest of those : — (i) Who have been abnormally em- 

 ployed during the war ; (ii) who cannot immediately 

 find advantageous employment ; (iii) who require 

 special training for employment. The committee con- 

 sists of: — Mr. Herbert Lewis, M.P., Parliamentary 

 Secretary, Board of Education (chairman) ; Mr. W. A. 

 Appleton, secretary, General Federation of Trade 

 Unions; Mr. R. A. Bray, L.C.C., chairman, London 

 Juvenile Advisory Committee ; Mr. F. W. Goldstone, 

 M.P. ; Mr. Spurley Hey, director of education, Man- 

 chester ; Alderman Hinchcliffe, chairman. West Riding 

 ■County Council; Miss C. Martineau, member, Birm- 

 ingham City Council ; Lady Edmund Talbot ; Mr. 

 H. M. Thompson, vice-chairman, Cardiff Education 

 •Committee ; Mr. Christopher H, Turnor, member, 

 Lincolnshire (Lindsey) County Council ; together with 

 the following representatives of the Government De- 

 partments concerned : — Mr. C. E. B. Russell, of the 

 Home Office; Mr. J. S. Nicholson, of the Board of 

 Trade ; Mr. A. B. Bruce, of the Board of Agriculture ; 

 Mr. E. K. Chambers, C.B. ; and Mr. F. Pullinger, 

 ■C.B., of the Board of Education. Mr. J. Owen, H.M. 

 Inspector, will act as secretary to the committee, and 

 all communications should be addressed to him at the 

 Board of Education, Whitehall, London, S.W. 



The question of the part science should take in the 

 ■education provided in our schools and colleges is 

 further discussed in the correspondence columns ot 

 the Times Educational Supplement of April 4. Mr. 

 •C. L. Bryant, of Harrow, describes how the organisa- 

 tion of the Association of Public Schools Science 

 Masters has been employed to introduce in many of 

 the public schools instruction in science of a utilitarian 

 kind along the lines suggested by the Director of 

 Military Training, not only to those boys who would 

 he learning science if times were normal, but also to 

 all boys who are within measurable distance of leav- 

 ing to join the Army. Prof. Percy Gardner comments 

 ■on the recent memorandum on the neglect of science. 

 His position is clear from the following paragraph 

 from his letter : — " I am no hard-and-fast defender of 

 the classics. I should allow that in the teaching of 

 the sciences which deal with nature as well as in the 

 teaching of those which deal with man, and with 

 language and history, we need more scientific method, 

 more system, more modernity. And the natural and 

 Tiuman sciences may well claim in the future some of 

 the time now given to the classics. Some knowledge 

 of the scheme of the physical universe has become a 

 part of all complete education. But premature special- 

 ism in natural science is not a desirable thing ; and 

 that would be the inevitable result of such impatient 

 legislation as the memorial demands." Mr. R. W. 

 Livingstone attributes the scientific success of Ger- 

 many to the admirable provision for the teaching of 

 applied science in her Technische Hochschulen, to'the 

 fact that many more people receive a universitv educa- 

 tion in Germany than is the case with us, and that 

 in Germany research work is an essential part of a 

 university education for the best students. Mr. H. 

 Cradock-Watson, writing of the position of science in 

 the smaller schools, maintains that science has its 

 proper place in their time-tables already, and that 

 when the commercial and manufacturing worlds are 

 ready to e.mploy and pay adequately the university 

 science graduate, when the scientific expert can com- 

 mand the remuneration and the openings that he can 

 — or could — in modern Germany, then the teaching of 

 science will come into its own. Mr. O. H. Latter 

 directs attention to the discontinuance of a science 

 paper in the common entrance examination for public 

 schools, and the consequent discouragement of science 

 teaching in preparatory schools. 



NO. 2424, VOL. 97] 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Royal Society, April 6. — Sir J. J. Thomson, president, 

 in the chair. — J. H. Jeans : The instability of the pear- 

 shaped figure of equilibrium of a rotating mass of 

 liquid. The form of the pear-shaped figure of equili- 

 brium was calculated so far as the second order of 

 small quantities by Sir G. Darwin, who believed he 

 had shown it to be stable. In a recently published 

 paper (Phil. Trans., A, 215, p. 27) it was shown that 

 ■the stability could only be finally decided upon after 

 the figure had. been calculated to terms of the third 

 order. In the present paper these third-order terms 

 are evaluated, and the pear-shaped figure is definitely 

 shown to be unstable. ^ — Sir William Ramsay : A hypo- 

 thesis of molecular configuration in three dimensions 

 of space. — J. Proudman : The motion of solids in a 

 liquid possessing vorticity. This paper contains inves- 

 tigations on the motion of a homogeneous frictionless 

 liquid by the methods ot~ theoretical hydrodynamics. 

 The principal subjects considered are two-dimensional 

 motion with uniform vorticity and three-dimensional 

 motion with varying vorticity, the positions of the 

 solids being specified by generalised co-ordinates. The 

 general work consists in reducing solutions to those of 

 f>Jeumann's potential problems. — Dr. S. J. Lewis : The 

 ultra-violet absorption spectra of blood sera. The 

 work described in this preliminary paper has for its 

 object the investigation of the absorption spectra of 

 blood sera in the ultra-violet region of the spectrum. 

 Modern spectrophotometers are used to determine the 

 absorption values on passing ultra-violet light through 

 a prescribed layer or solution of serum. With these 

 values as ordinates and wave-lengths as abscissae an 

 absorption curve is drawn. With normal serum the 

 general characters of the curve are constant, and there 

 is very little variation in detail. W'ith certain patho- 

 logical sera the curves show much greater modifica- 

 tions, and some of these are well defined and appear 

 to be peculiar to given diseases. It is found that the 

 major part of the absorption is due to the proteins.— 

 G. W. Paget and R. E. Savage : The growth-rings on 

 herring scales. This communication brings forward 

 morphological evidence as to the structure and signifi- 

 cance of the so-called "growth-rings" on herring 

 scales. At present the interpretation of 'these rings 

 as rings of growth depends, in the main, upon statis- 

 tical data. Morphological evidence of a differential 

 growth-rate of the scale as a whole is altogether lack- 

 ing. The present observations place upon a sure 

 foundation the view that the transparent rings do 

 indeed, mark a recurring period of minimum growth. 



Geological Society, March 8. — Dr. Alfred Harker, 

 president, in the chair. — H. Bolton : Fossil insects from 

 the British Coal Measures. The author describes six 

 insect-wings found in the Coal Measures of North- 

 umberland, Lancashire, and South Whales. Three of 

 these have been previously named, but not described 

 in detail ; the remaining three are new to science. 

 Aedoeophasma anglica, Scudder, has been examined' 

 in detail, and is now regarded as a primitive type of 

 the Proto-Orthoptera, in contradistinction to Scudder's 

 view that it is a Protophasmid, and to that of Hand- 

 lirsch, who had removed it to a group of unplaced 

 Palaeodictyoptera. Palaeodictyopteron higginsi is 

 shown to be related to the Dictyoneuridae. A new 

 genus and species is created for a finely-preserved 

 wing, intermediate in character between the Dictyo- 

 neura and Lithomantis. Among the varied fauna 

 obtained from ironstone nodules in the Middle Coal 

 Measures at Sparth Bottoms, Rochdale (Lancashire), 

 is a basal fragment of a wing recognised as a new 

 species of Spilaptera, and this is now described. An 



