February 5, 1903] 



NA TURE 



occupy the University table at the Plymouth Marine Bio- 

 logical Laboratory. 



Dr. W. N. Shaw, F.R.S., is to lecture on Thursdays 

 during the present term on the physics of the ventilation 

 of buildings. The lectures are given in the Cavendish 

 Laboratory at 4.30 p.m. 



The Arnold Gerstenberg studentship, value go/, for two 

 years, will be awarded in the Lent term, 1904. It is open 

 to men and women who have obtained honours in the 

 natural sciences tripos and propose to pursue philosophical 

 study. The award will be made by means of essays on 

 subjects set forth in the University Reporter (p. 431). 



Dr. G. N. Stewart, of Cleveland, U.S.A., has been offered 

 and has accepted the professorship of physiology in the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago. 



SPEAKING at a meeting of the Derbyshire Dairy Farmers' 

 Association at Derby, on January 30, the Duke of Devonshire 

 Slid he did not know what our educational system, as it had too- 

 generally been administered in the past, had done for the 

 advantage of the farmers. They had seen it mainly from this 

 pnintof view — that it had taken Ihe best and brightest boys and 

 girls from the country districts away to employment in the 

 towns, and that it had done nothing to improve the character 

 of the labour which was still left to them in the country. The 

 education which the children received in rural districts might 

 have been such as to fit the children for occupations in towns in 

 various branches of industry, but it had not been such as to 

 make a boy or a girl a better member of the agricultural com- 

 munity. What they wanted was, first, to form the character of 

 the children, to make them honest, industrious, more reflecting 

 and steadfast ; and, next, to improve their intelligence so that 

 they might be more capable of doing whatever class of work 

 might fall to their lot in life in a better, more conscientious and 

 intelligent manner. The village school which did not have 

 this effect upon the children was not a school conducted as it 

 ought to be. What was wanted for the children was not the 

 cramming of them with facts, but teaching them something 

 which might be applied to their daily lile and might so interest 

 them that they would prosecute its study after they left school 

 and thus fit themselves more effectively lor their daily labour, 

 whether it were in the town or in the country. The training of 

 their teachers had hitherto been too exclusively of a literary 

 character, with, perhaps, a scientific smattering. It had not 

 been directed to those subjects which related to agricultural 

 life, to farming, dairying or the household. 



In proposing the toast of " The Mining and Metallurgical 

 Industries," at the 30th annual dinner of the Royal School 

 of Mines on Tuesday, the chairman, Mr. A. C. Claudet, 

 referred to the steps that had been taken by the council of 

 the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy with a view to 

 effect the reorganisation of the Royal School of Mines. 

 The Times reports Mr. Claudet to have said that, in the 

 interests of the Empire no less than of the mining and 

 metallurgical industries, prompt and far-reaching action 

 was imperatively necessary if British-trained mining 

 engineers and metallurgists were to hold their own in the 

 future with foreign-trained engineers, and it was this con- 

 viction which led the council of the institution to take the 

 matter in hand. Systems in force in America and elsewhere 

 had been investigated, and the results communicated to the 

 council of the college, with certain recommendations and 

 the offer of material assistance in carrying them out. The 

 matter was receiving the serious attention of the Board of 

 Edui ation, and the council of the institution had good 

 grounds for feeling confident that comprehensive improve- 

 ments would be effected at no distant date. It was believed 

 that, if nothing unforeseen happened, British mining and 

 metallurgical students would soon have facilities for train- 

 ing equal to the best in the world. The institution council 

 proposed that a post-graduate course in practical work in 

 mines and works at home or abroad should be established, 

 and they had offered to give very material assistance in pro- 

 viding the necessary facilities for such a course on lines 

 which they believed would be of the greatest possible benefit 

 to British graduates. In connection with this post-graduate 

 course the institution had presented schola'rships to the 

 Royal School of Mines, and to three or four other colleges 

 as a beginning, and it was hoped that before long further 



NO. 1736, VOL. 67] 



scholarships and prizes would be available. The endow- 

 ments and grants by Government in connection with mining 

 and metallurgical training in this country were, as every one 

 knew, ridiculously inadequate, and out of proportion to the 

 vast interests involved — interests not merely local, but affect- 

 ing the whole British Empire. However, there were many 

 signs that the Government and other authorities were alive 

 to the necessity of doing something promptly for this branch 

 of education, and if they pressed their claims strongly and 

 persistently he had no doubt at all that they would be met 

 in a satisfactory manner. There was every reason to believe 

 that their school would again occupv the position it once 

 held, and ought still to hold — that of the premier mining 

 school of the Empire, and second to none in the world. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Royal Society, January 22. — " On the Electrodynamic and 

 Thermal Relations of Energy of Magnetisation." By Dr. J. 

 Larmor, Sec. R. S. 



The main points which the author has sought to bring out in 

 this paper are as follows : — 



(1) In an electrodynimic field, there exists the usual specifi- 

 cation of electrokinetic energy, but also in addition the energy 

 of magnetisation of magnetic material. 



(2) This energy of magnetisation appears as made up of a 

 part given by the ordinary formula, which (when paramagnetic) 

 is derived from thermal sources, and so in the absence of 

 hysteresis has the limited mechanical availability of thermal 

 energy, together with a local part which is to some extent thus 

 available, but is also in part permanent intrinsic energy of the 

 molecules, regarded temporarily as magnetic energy. 



(3) The law of Curie, that the susceptibility of weak para- 

 magnetic substances is inversely proportional 10 tfie absolute 

 temperature, is involved in these statements. 



(4) The extent of the direct (non-thermal) availability of 

 retained magnetism can be inferred only by empirical procedure, 

 for example, in general features by inspection of the hysteresis 

 diagram as pointed out by Lord Rayleigh. 



Physical Society, January 23. — Prof. S. P. [Thompson, 

 president, in the chair. — A paper on an oscillating table for 

 determining moments of inertia was read by Mr. W. H. 

 Derriman. The apparatus consists of a circular wooden 

 table which can be suspended from a wire by means of brass 

 supports. A pointer is attached to the centre of the bottom 

 of the table and immediately below is another fixed pointer. 

 In the top of the table a circular groove is cut, in which 

 pieces of lead can slide. These pieces of lead form together 

 half of a circular ring of rectangular cross section. The body, 

 the moment of inertia of which is required, is placed in posi- 

 tion on the table, and the lead weights moved until the two 

 pointers are opposite to one another. The table therefore 

 always oscillates about the same axis, and since the lead 

 weights are at a fixed distance from this axis, the moment 

 of inertia of the table remains constant. The apparatus 

 can be employed for determining the moment of inertia of 

 a body about any axis, and is useful for proving the law 

 that the moment of inertia of a body about any axis is equal 

 to its moment of inertia about a parallel axis through its 

 centre of gravity, together with the moment of inertia of the 

 whole mass, collected at its centre of gravity, about the 

 given axis. — Mr. Skinner described an inertia balance by 

 means of which moments of inertia can be determined with- 

 out the use of stop watches. The table which carries the 

 body is suspended by a wire. Fixed to the centre of the 

 bottom of the table there is another wire, similar to the first, 

 but twice as long. This wire carries a screwed brass bar, 

 the axis of the bar being at right angles to the wire. At 

 the middle point of this wire there is a pointer fixed at right 

 angles to it, and on the brass bar are two weights which 

 can be placed at varying distances from the axis. To the 

 bottom of the bar is attached a fourth wire, the same length 

 as the first one, and its lower end is clamped. By arranging 

 so that the upper table oscillates to the left when the bar is 

 oscillating to the right, and adjusting the weights on the 

 brass bar until the pointer is stationary, the moments of 

 inertia of bodies placed upon the table ran be determined. 

 The chairman referred to an inertia table designed bv Prof. 



