August io, 19 i6] 



NATURE 



495 



The Gladstone Memorial prize at the London School 

 of Economics and Political Science has been awarded 

 to Mr. Ramchandra Mahadev Joshi, of Bombay. 



The sum of 10,000/. in Consols has been given by 



Mrs. Streatfeild, to be held in trust jointly by the 



; Royal College of Physicians of London and the Royal 



j College of Surgeons ot England, for the promotion of 



-research. 



The programme for the session 19 16-17 of the 

 Department of Technology of the City and Guilds of 

 London Institute has now been published by Mr. John 

 Murray at the price of gd. net. It contains the regu- 

 lations for the registration, conduct, and inspection of 

 classes, the examination of candidates in technological 

 subjects, and for the award of teachers' certificates in 

 manual training and domestic subjects. The sylla- 

 buses in the following subjects have been revised : — 

 Gasfitting, silversmiths' work, goldsmiths' work, and 

 jewelry, painters' and decorators' work, and heating 

 and ventilating engineering. Other syllabuses have 

 been redrafted, and these include r^Electrical installa- 

 tion work, typography, carpentry and joinery, brick- 

 work, masonry, and plasterers' work. 



Work has been begun upon the building of the 

 Museum of the American Indian, at 155th 

 Street and Broadway, New York, which is 

 to house the ethnological collection made by 

 Mr. George G. Heye during the last twenty- 

 five years. It will be in charge of a group of trustees, 

 of which Mr. Heye himself is chairman. The ground 

 was given by Mr. .Archer M. Huntington, and the cost 

 of the building, amounting to 50,000/., has been sub- 

 scribed by other friends of Mr. Heye. The collection 

 will be supplemented by the working library- of 

 archaeology which has been brought together bv Prof. 

 Marshall H. Saville. of Columbia Universitv. In 

 addition to Prof. Saville, Mr. George H. Pepper, who 

 has spent much time among the Navajo and Hopi 

 Indians, will be a member of the staff of the museum. 



.•\t the conference of presidents and other representa- 

 tives of Canadian universities held at McGill Univer- 

 sity. Montreal, in May last, the following resolution 

 was unanimously adopted: — "This conference is 

 strongly of the opinion that, to strengthen the unity 

 of the Empire, the universities of Great Britain should 

 be urged to modify and increase their graduate facili- 

 ties to meet the needs especially of students of the 

 Dominion ; and also, to effect this purpose, that a 

 committee be appointed to correspond with the univer- 

 sities of Great Britain, and that the committee also 

 correspond with the universities of France, with the 

 object of increasing the number of students from Cana- 

 dian colleges." The members of the committee are 

 President Falconer, of Toronto Universitv; Sir W. 

 Peterson, president of McGill Universitv'; Abbe E. 

 Chartier, of Laval Universitv ; and Dean' Cappen, of 

 Queen's University. The ne.xt conference will be held 

 in Ottawa in 1917. 



.\ COPY of the prospectus of the university courses 

 in the Manchester Municipal School of Technology for 

 the session 1916-17 has been received. The school 

 offers systematic training in the principles of science 

 and art as applied to mechanical, electrical, and muni- 

 cipal and sanitary engineering; architecture and the 

 building trades; the chemical industries; the textile 

 industries; and photography and the printing crafts. 

 It possesses extensive laboratories and workshops 

 equipped with full-sized modern machinerv. tools, and 

 apparatus, including not only machines of the types 

 now in general use, but also machines especiallv con- 

 structed for demonstration, experiment, and original 

 research. Its work includes advanced studv and re- 



NO. 2441, VOL. 97] 



search in science and technology; university courses 

 in the faculty of technology, leading to degrees in 

 applied science ; and part-time day and evening courses 

 for a great variety of workers. Ihe present prospectus 

 forms the first part of the calendar of the school, the 

 other activities of which are to be described and e.x- 

 plained in later parts of the calendar. 



In his opening address to the vacation course of 

 the Oxford School of Geography on August 3, Dr. J. 

 Scott Keltic reviewed the progress of geography during 

 the last half-century. This included, first, the addi- 

 tions to our knowledge by means of exploration ; 

 secondly, progress in the methods of dealing with such 

 results; and thirdly, improvements in geographical edu- 

 cation. No period, said Dr. Keltie, had been so pro- 

 lific in exploration since the half-century following the 

 discovery of America by Columbus. The {wo poles 

 have been reached, and large additions made to our 

 knowledge of polar regions. The unknown two-thirds 

 of Africa have been provisionally mapped. Great areas 

 of North America have been surveyed and occupied, 

 and much of South America has been explored. The 

 map of Asia has been largely reconstructed, the 

 interior of Australia traversed in all directions, and 

 much of Europe re-surveyed. Lastly, the science 

 of oceanography has been created. Geograph- 

 ical research is now conducted on scientific lines, and 

 the explorer of the future must be differently equipf>ed 

 from the pioneer of the past. Geographical education 

 has made strides in universities and schools, but there 

 is still a dearth of adequately trained teachers to do 

 the subject justice. 



The future of the British chemical industries is so 

 closely bound up with the education of the technical 

 chemist that it is not surprising to find this constantly 

 discussed in the technical and daily Press. In the July 

 Engineering Supplement of the Times Prof. F. G. 

 Donnan deals with the relation of the engineer and 

 the chemist from the point of view that it is necessary 

 to bridge the gap which exists between our present 

 chemical and engineering laboratories by " inter- 

 linking " laboratories of chemical engineering. He 

 pictures the young chemists and engineers who intend 

 to enter the field of applied chemistry meeting here 

 and learning to work together to the great benefit of 

 the industries. Unfortunately, this development is 

 hindered, if not prevented, by the British examination 

 degree sj'stem, which, as Prof. Donnan truly observes, 

 is even more powerful at the newer and supposedly 

 modern universities than at Oxford and Cambridge. 

 The only apparent remedy is for manufacturers to 

 recruit their staff by taking men on the personal 

 recommendation of the university professor, a course 

 which the more enlightened firms have been following 

 for some time. This involves, however, that the pro- 

 fessor should have an accurate knowledge of the 

 requirements of industry, so that he may not recom- 

 mend the wrong type of man. Prof. Donnan lays 

 great stress on the superiority of a training in physical 

 chemistry as the only road to real applied chemistry, 

 and condemns what he terms the molecule-juggling 

 type of chemist usually turned out from the chemical 

 laboratories of the universities and higher technical 

 schools. The training in physical chemistry as 

 sketched bv Prof. Donnan appears to be open to the 

 criticism of being too general and not yielding a pro- 

 duct of sufficiently high calibre to act in any other 

 capacity than as departmental under-manager in the 

 works. It must not be forgotten that the industry 

 needs also men with a real knowledge of chemistry-, 

 above all of organic chemistry, and, though the de- 

 mand for such men is less than that for under- 

 managers, they alone can act to recreate the industrv. 



