June i, 191 6] 



NATURE 



295 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Birmingham. — On Tuesday, May 30, at a crowded 

 special Degree Congregation, the degree of LL.D. 

 was conferred by the Vice-Chancellor (Mr. Gilbert 

 Barling) upon the Right Hon. W. M. Hughes, Pre- 

 mier of the Commonwealth of Australia. It was felt 

 to be fitting that the University, which owes its foun- 

 dation so largely to the great Colonial Secretary, 

 should thus honour the distinguished representative of 

 the Overseas Dominion which has taken the lead in 

 the promotion of co-operation between science and 

 industry in the Empire. 



London. — At a meeting of the Senate held on May 

 24 the following doctorates in science were con- 

 ferred : — D.Sc. in geolog>-, Mr. P. G. H. Boswell, an 

 internal student, of the Imperial College (Royal Col- 

 lege of Science), for a thesis entitled "The Strati- 

 graphy and Petrology of the Lower Eocene Beds of 

 East Anglia " ; D.Sc. in psychology. Miss M. J. 

 Reaney, an internal student of King's College, for a 

 thesis entitled "The Psychology of the Organised 

 Group Game." 



Oxford. — The Waynflete professor of chemistry 

 (Prof. W. H. Perkin) gives notice that the new chem- 

 ical laboratories in South Parks Road will be open 

 for inspection by members of the Universit}- and their 

 friends on Wednesday, June 7, from 4 to 6 p.m. 



By the will of the late Mr. J. Forte, his plantation 

 ■'Bennetts," and the residue of his estate in Bar- 

 bados, are left to Codrington College in that island. 

 The value of the bequest is expected to be not less 

 than io,oooZ. 



A PARTY of professors from French universities is 

 visiting this country at the invitation of the British 

 Government. Oxford was visited last week, and on 

 Monday, May 29, the party was received at the Uni- 

 versity of London by Sir Alfred Pearce Gould, Vice- 

 Chancellor of the University, and members of the 

 Senate. On Tuesday, Mr. Henderson, President of 

 the Board of Education, received the visitors at the 

 offices of the Board, and welcomed them on behalf of 

 the Government. During the day visits were paid to 

 University College, Gower Street, and the East Lon- 

 don College. King's College, London, was visited on 

 Wednesday. Cambridge will be visited to-day, and 

 the party will remain there until next Monday, after 

 which visits will be paid to Manchester, Liverpool, 

 Sheffield, Leeds, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. It is pro- 

 posed to return to France on June 12. 



The relations between science and industry, on one 

 hand, and science and the State, on the other, are 

 being discussed in France as well as in the United 

 Kingdom. In a paper by Prof. H. Le Chatelier, on 

 science in its relations with economic development, in 

 the Comptes rendits for May i, we find ourselves held 

 up as a model in some respects in these matters. 

 Prof. Le Chatelier agrees that in France the general 

 public ("Ze grand public, c'est-a-dire le public incom- 

 pdtent ") believes in science, but he says that this is 

 unfortunately not the case either with the public 

 authorities or with the leaders of industry. In Ger- 

 many any captain of industry is proud of the title 

 of doctor of science ; in France this would be ridi- 

 culed. In England such men esteem it an honour to 

 preside over meetings of learned societies ; in the 

 L'nited States leading manufacturers show their re- 

 spect for science by gifts amounting already to many 

 millions of pounds. France, also, has not established 

 any institution corresponding to the Physikalisch- 

 Technische Reichanstalt in Germanv, the National 



NO. 2431, VOL. 97] 



Physical Laboratory in England, or the Bureau of 

 Standards in the United States, though it has the 

 Institut Pasteur. The too frequent absence of labora- 

 tories in cx)nnection with works is deplored. It is 

 admitted that the faults are not altogether on the 

 side of the manufacturers, as the source of scientific 

 study is frequently not directed to a practical end, and 

 might be described as intellectual gymnastics. This 

 is a fault of the scheme of education, and it is pointed 

 out by Prof. Le Chatelier that the Academy of 

 Sciences has never been consulted on the question of 

 the organisation of teaching. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 Dublin. 

 Royal Dublin Society, May 2;^. — Dr. J. M. Purser in 

 the chair. — Prof. W. Brown : Note on laminated mag- 

 nets. When a compound magnet is built up of 

 laminations the distance between the poles decreases 

 as the cross-section grows from an oblong to a square, 

 and when the section further increases from a square 

 to an oblong the said distance then increases. The 

 above result was found to hold whether the steel 

 laminations were placed in contact or separated by 

 slips of paper, but the minimum distance between the 

 poles was, in the latter case, greater than in the 

 former. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, May 15. — M. Camille Jordan in 

 the chair. — G. Lemoine : The catalysis of hydrogen 

 peroxide in heterogeneous media. Part iv. Experi- 

 ments with carbon ; conclusions. The three varieties of 

 carbon used in these experiments — coconut charcoal, 

 wood charcoal, and sugar charcoal — all acted as cata- 

 lysers towards hydrogen peroxide, the first being the 

 most energetic. There would appear to be a relation 

 between the catalytic power and absorptive capacity 

 for gases. The results given in the four papers are 

 summarised. — H. Le Chatelier and F. Bogitch : The 

 estimation of carbon by the Eggertz method. The 

 effects of heat treatment of the steel, of nickel, man- 

 ganese, and silicon have been examined.- — P. Duhem : 

 The electrical oscillations on a system of purely di- 

 electric bodies. ^C Guichard : The C congruences of 

 which one of the focal surfaces is a quadric. — M. 

 Bergoni^ was elected a correspondant for the section 

 of medicine and surgerj- in the place of the late M. 

 Mosso. — J. K. de Feriet : An integral equation of the 

 second species, admitting hyperspherical functions as 

 fundamental solutions. — D. Eginitis : Observations of 

 the comets 1915a (Mellish) and 1915c (Taylor) made 

 at the Athens Observatory with the Doridis equatorial. 



P. Villey : A stenographic machine for the blind. — 



A. Colson : The consequences of the assimilation of 

 reversible solutions to saturated vapours. — C. Ravean : 

 The complete expression of the heat of reversible solu- 

 tion in a volatile liquid. — L. C. Maillard : The forma- 

 tion of pyridine bases, starting with albuminoids. 

 Remarks on a recent communication on the same sub- 

 ject by MM. A. Pictet and Tsan Quo Chou.— Mile. R. 

 Hemnierle : Diphenylpyruvic acid. — J. Bougault : 

 Phenyloxymaleic anhydride. This anhydride is ob- 

 tained by the action of sulphuric acid upon o-cyano- 

 phenylpyruvic ester. It crystallises with one molecule 

 of water, and hence possesses the same composition 

 as phenvloxalacetic acid, but its reactions with alcohols 

 and amines clearly distinguish it from the latter. — 

 MM. J. and C. Cotie : The examination of a pre- 

 historic paste. A chemical and microscopical exam- 

 ination of a coloured paste found on two fragments of 

 bone in the eneolithic layers of the cavern of Adaouste. 



