3IO 



NA rURE 



[January 25, 1900 



Odling, silicon, boron and fluorine compounds ; Mr. Fisher, 

 inorganic chemistry ; Mr. Watts, organic chemistry ; Mr. 

 Veley, physical chemistry ; Mr. Marsh, the practice of organic 

 chemistry ; Mr. Vernon- Harcourt, the subjects of the preliminary 

 examination; Mr. Elford, groups vi., vii., viii. in Mendeleef's 

 periodic system ; Mr. Elford, great chemists and their work ; 

 Mr. Walden, synthetical methods in organic chemistry, purin 

 group, &c. ; Mr. Wilderman, the velocity of reaction and equi- 

 librium in homogeneous and heterogeneous systems ; Prof. 

 Sollas, history of the earth, Jurassic fossils ; Mr. Dickson, the 

 atmospheric circulation ; ■ Mr. Herbertson, river basins and 

 shore lines ; Prof. Miers, elementary crystallography ; Mr. Bow- 

 man, some natural silicates ; Prof. Weldon, general course of 

 niorphology, variation, inheritance, natural selection (con- 

 tinued) ; Mr. Goodrich, annelida ; Mr. Jenkinson, elementary 

 niorphology ; Mr. Cninther, arthropoda (continued) ; Mr. 

 Thompson, sauropsidan morphology, sauropsidan palceontology ; 

 Prof. Gotch, general course of physiology, physiology of the 

 excitable tissues ; Mr. Haldane and Mr. Ramsden, subjects of 

 the Final Honour School ; Mr. Burch, physiological physics ; 

 Prof. Vines, elementary course — botany ; Prof. Tylor, anthro- 

 pology in ancient literature ; Mr. Stout, mental evolution ; Prof. 

 Case, psychology and the origin of knowledge. 



Cambridge.— The Reader in Geography (Mr. Oldham) 

 gives this term three courses of lectures, on the geography 

 of Europe, on physical geography, and on the history of 

 geographical discovery, respectively. 



At Corpus Christi College, Mr. F. G. Channon, eighth 

 -wrangler, 1897, has been elected to a fellowship. 



Mr. W, B. Hardy, Demonstrator of Physiology, has been 

 awarded the Thurston Prize at Caius College, for his physio- 

 logical researches. 



The John Hopkinson memorial wing of the Cambridge 

 University Engineering Laboratory will be opened on Friday, 

 February 2, at 2.30. Lord Kelvin will deliver an opening 

 address, after which the Master of Trinity will unveil a portrait 

 of the late Dr. Hopkinson, presented to the Laboratory by 

 subscribers. 



We learn from the Alhenaenm that by the will of a wealthy 

 Africander, Dr. W. Hiddingh, the Cape University profits to 

 'the extent of 25,000/., with a site for new university buildings, 

 and 5000/. for the foundation of a scholarship. The South 

 -Africa College receives from the same source a legacy of 



4O,O0O/. 



We understand that the Berkeley fellowships at Owens 

 College, referred to in a note last week (p. 284), were given 

 only for a limited number of years by a generous friend of the 

 College, and they have now ceased. There has never been 

 an endowment upon which these fellowships were an annual 

 charge. 



A Bill " to authorise the regents of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution to confer certain degrees and for other purposes " has been 

 introduced by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on the 

 District of Columbia. Science publishes the following particulars 

 of the provisions of the Bill -.—That the regents of the Smithsonian 

 Institution be authorised to appoint a board of five examiners, 

 who shall, with the approval of the regents, prepare and publish 

 a schedule of courses of studies preparatory to the degrees of 

 .master of arts, master of science, doctor of philosophy, and 

 doctor of science. The examiners shall from time to time hold 

 examinations in the City of Washington for the said degrees ; 

 and, on the satisfactory completion by any candidate of the 

 prescribed course of studies f6r either of the above mentioned 

 degrees, shall recommend such a candidate to the regents of the 

 Smithsonian Institution for such degrees. The regents are 

 Jiereby authorised to confer, under suitable regulations, the 

 degrees above mentioned, and also the honorary degree of 

 doctor of laws. Provided, That no person shall be accepted as 

 a candidate for the degree of master of arts or of doctor of 

 philosophy who has not completed a course of study at least 

 equivalent to the course of study required of candidates for 

 -corresponding degrees in the most advanced universities 

 m the United States ; and provided further. That the 

 degree of doctor of laws shall be conferred on no more than five 

 persons in any one calendar year. The members of the board 

 •of examiners shall hold office during the pleasure of the regents 

 of the Smithsonian Institution. Each examiner shall devote 

 NO. 1578, VOL. 61] 



his entire time to the duties of instruction and examination 

 assigned to him by the said regents, and shall receive a salary 

 of 4000 dollars per annum, except that the chairman of the 

 board shall receive a salary of 5000 dollars per annum. 



The inaugural lecture of the Department of Agriculture of 

 the University of Cambridge, delivered by Prof. Somerville, has 

 been published by the University Press. The subject is some 

 aspects of the bearings of education and science on practical 

 agriculture. Ten years ago very little was done for the educa- 

 tion of the rural population in the principles of agricultural 

 industries, but many agencies are now at work, and the assist- 

 ance which science can give to agriculture is slowly being 

 recognised by farmers. The establishment of a chair of agricul- 

 ture at Cambridge, and its endowment for ten years, should 

 serve to extend the movement for increased attention to agricul- 

 tural interests in education. When the ten years provided for 

 by the endowment have elapsed, it may confidently be expected 

 that public opinion will see that the chair shall be placed upon 

 a permanent footing. What has to be done between now and 

 then is to show that farmers who use with intelligent discrimin- 

 ation the teachings of science have the best chance of success. 

 Agricultural practice which neglects scientific results is doomed 

 to failure, but if science is engrafted upon practice, it is possible 

 for farmers to hold their own even in these years of depression. 

 "It is the fortune of agriculture," remarks Prof. Somerville, 

 " to be indebted to science at almost every turn. Zoology and 

 physiology play their part in such directions as the breeding and 

 feeding of live-stock, in the various ramifications of the veterinary 

 art, and in the attractive section of economic entomology, 

 (ieology affects practical agriculture to a less extent, but no 

 science adds more to the pleasures of a farmer's life. Mathe- 

 matics and physics lend their assistance in such sections of a 

 farmer's work as the calculation of volumes and areas, in drain- 

 ing, levelling, road-making, the use and maintenance of 

 machinery, and the like." To this may be added that the 

 agriculturist who has a knowledge of the principles of physical 

 and natural science is better able to discern directions in which 

 cultivation may be improved, and to take advantage of the 

 results of agricultural research, than the farmer who does not 

 possess such knowledge. Prof. Somerville's lecture should be 

 widely distributed among agriculturists so as to correct the im- 

 pression, still too common, that science is theory and that 

 practice is independent of it. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



American Jonrnal of Science, January. — Products of the 

 explosion of acetylene, by W. G. Mixter. The study of the ex- 

 plosion of acetylene was continued in order to obtain facts for or 

 against the author's hypothesis that a sufficient frequency of 

 molecular impacts is requisite to secure spread of explosive 

 change throughout a gas. The experiments so far are not 

 conclusive. Acetylene is always found after sparking and ex- 

 plosion. The author believes that it is not residual gas, but is 

 formed by subsequent synthesis. This is supported by the fact 

 that an endothermic compound of carbon and nitrogen is also 

 formed in the eudiometer. — Glaciation of central Idaho, by 

 G. H. Stone. The occurrence of wood in the esker gravels of 

 Idaho suggests a comparison of that region with New England. 

 The large valley ice sheets or Piedmont glaciers of north central 

 Idaho formed a type intermediate in character between the more 

 strictly local glaciers found further south and the great confluent 

 ice sheet of British Columbia. — Graftonite, a new mineral, by 

 S. L. Penfield, The mineral described is found on the south 

 side of Melvin Mountain, about five miles west of the village of 

 Grafton, New Hampshire. It is an iron-manganese phosphate 

 closely analogous to triphylite, with which it is found intergrown. 

 — Explorations of the Albatross in the Pacific Ocean, by Alex- 

 ander Agassiz (see p. 211). — Constitution of the ammonium- 

 magnesium arseniate of analysis, by Martha Austin. When 

 ammoniacal magnesia mixture in slight excess is added to the 

 faintly acid solution of arsenic acid (carrying no ammonium 

 salts) in a volume not exceeding 200 c.c, the precipitate appears 

 to fall in ideal condition. 



Symons's Monthly Meteorological Magazine, January. — Low 

 barometric pressure on December 29, 1899. The notes refer to 

 the readings along the remarkable course of the storm, which 

 took first an easterly track along the south of Ireland, and then 

 suddenly changed it to a northerly one over the Isle of Man. 



