51 



NA TURE 



[February 19, 1903 



The reference to University education occurs in the 

 part of the memorandum which interprets what is meant 

 by the words " persons of experience in education and of 

 persons acquainted with the needs of the various kinds 

 of schools." The interests which are always to be 

 represented either among- the members appointed from 

 the council or among members appointed from outside 

 the council are thus enumerated : — University educa- 

 tion ; the secondary education of boys and girls in its 

 higher and lower grades ; technical instruction and 

 commercial and industrial education, having special 

 regard to the industries of a particular district; the 

 training of teachers ; and elementary education in 

 council schools and in voluntary schools. 



The Board of Education evidently does not intend 

 that the councils concerned with the appointment of 

 education committees shall be allowed to lose sight 

 of the needs of higher and secondary education. 

 It is earnestly to be desired that men of science in all 

 parts of the country will be willing to become members 

 of these education committees, so that councils every- 

 where may be kept informed as to what must be done 

 if, as a nation, we are to make up the leeway in our 

 educational affairs as compared with those of, say, 

 Germany and the United States. 



NOTES. 

 The Bakerian lecture of, the Royal Society on Thursday- 

 next, February 26, will be delivered by Mr. C. T. Heycock, 

 K.R.S., and' Mr. F. H. Neville, F.R.S., on " Solid Solution 

 and Chemical Transformation in the Bronzes." 



We regret to see the announcement that Mr. F. C. Pen- 

 rose, F.R.S., died on Sunday last at the age of eighty-five. 

 From an obituary notice in the Times we learn that Mr. Pen- 

 rose was born at Bracebridge, near Lincoln, and, after four 

 years at Bedford Grammar School, entered the foundation 

 at Winchester College. At Cambridge he was a senior 

 optime in the Mathematical Tripos in 1842, and for three 

 years thereafter he held the appointment of Travelling 

 Bachelor to the University. In 1851 he brought out, for the 

 Society of Dilettanti, a work entitled " The Principles of 

 Athenian Architecture," of which a second edition has 

 been published. In the following year he was appointed 

 Surveyor of the Fabric of St. Paul's Cathedral, a post which 

 he held until 1897. He published in 1S69 " A Method of 

 Predicting Occupations of Stars and Solar Eclipses by- 

 Graphical Construction," of which a new edition was issued 

 last year; and during 1893 he contributed to the Traus- 

 actions of the Royal Society a paper on the astronomical, 

 significance of the orientation of Greek temples, which was 

 followed by a supplement on the same subject in 1S97. His 

 last work was an endeavour to determine the age of Stone- 

 henge by utilising the orientation theory combined with 

 accurate measurement of the direction of the axis of the 

 building. It is rarely that the scientific and artistic tempera- 

 ments are found so closely united in one man. His death 

 is a loss both to science and art, which will be widely felt. 



At the Cambridge Philosophical Society on February 2, 

 the president, Dr. Baker, proposed from the chair, " That 

 the Cambridge Philosophical Society desires to express its 

 sense of the great loss sustained by the University and the 

 Society in the death of Sir George Gabriel Stokes, to whom 

 the Society was bound by so many ties of obligation and 

 reverence." This was seconded by Prof. Thomson, and 

 carried unanimously. The Society then adjourned, as a 

 mark of respect to Stokes's memory. 



At a conference of botanists of Vienna held on December 

 9, 1902, the organising committee was elected for the Inter- 



NO. I738, VOL. 67] 



national Botanical Conference which is to be held at Vienna 

 in 1905. The officers of the committee are as follows : — 

 Honorary presidents : Dr. Guillaume de Hartel, Minister of 

 Public Instruction; Dr. Charles de Giovanelli, Minister of 

 Agriculture ; Prof. Edouard Suess. Presidents : Prof. 

 Richard de Wettstein and Prof. Jules Wiesner. Vice-presi- 

 dents : Prof. Edouard Hackel and Prof. Hans Molisch. 

 General secretary : Dr. Alexander Zahlbruckner. Secre- 

 taries : Dr. Charles Linsbauer and Dr. Fr£de>ic Vierhapper. 

 Treasurer : Dr. Leopolde de Portheim.. All communications 

 concerning the congress should be addressed to the general 

 secretary, Dr. A. Zahlbruckner, Vienne, I., Burgring 7. 



The biennial Hunterian Oration was delivered on the 

 afternoon of February 14 by Sir Henry Howse, president of 

 the Royal College of Science, in the theatre of the college. 

 He devoted the greater part of his oration to interesting 

 biographical incidents concerning John Hunter, who was 

 elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1767, and appointed 

 surgeon-extraordinary to the King in 1776. The collection 

 of the objects in his museum was Hunter's chief interest 

 through many years of his life, and at his death there were 

 14,000 specimens in the museum, on which Hunter spent 

 70,000/. A banquet took place in the evening in the library 

 of the college, at which the honorary fellowship of the 

 college was conferred on Lord Roberts, who, in his reply, 

 referred to the outbreaks of enteric fever at Bloemfontein 

 and Kroonstad during the late war, and expressed his admir- 

 ation for the way in which the medical officers managed to 

 meet all emergencies with a minimum of appliances. 



The Rumford Committee of the American Academy of 

 Arts and Sciences has made the following grants in aid of 

 investigations in light and heat : — 250 dollars to Dr. Ralph 

 S. Minor, of Little Falls, N. Y., for a research on the dis- 

 persion and absorption of substances for ultra-violet radi- 

 ation ; too dollars to Dr. Sidney D. Townley, of Berkeley, 

 Cal., for the construction of a stellar photometer of a type 

 devised by Prof. E. C. Pickering and already in use in the 

 study of the light of variable stars ; 200 dollars to Prof. 

 Edwin B. Frost, for the construction of a special lens for 

 use in connection with the stellar spectrograph of the Yerkes 

 Observatory to aid in the study of the radial velocities of 

 faint stars ; 250 dollars to Profs. E. F. Nichols and G. F. 

 Hull, of Dartmouth College, for their research on the re- 

 lative motion of the earth and the ether ; 300 dollars to 

 Prof. G. E. Hale, of the Yerkes Observatory, for the pur- 

 chase of a Rowland concave grating to be used in the photo- 

 graphic study of the spectra of the brightest stars. 



At a meeting of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition 

 of 1851, held on February 10, the Prince of Wales was 

 unanimously elected president of the Commission in suc- 

 cession to His Majesty the King, who had held that position 

 since the year 1870. In taking the chair, the Prince of 

 Wales remarked : — " The history of the Commission seems 

 a somewhat curious one. Originally appointed merely to 

 rarry out the great Exhibition of 1851, it was afterwards 

 charged with the duty of disposing of the sum of iSo.ooo!., 

 the profit resulting from that Exhibition, a task which, in 

 ordinary circumstances, might have been speedily com- 

 pleted. But the happy investment of the bulk of the money 

 in the Kensington Gore estate gave the Commission a per- 

 manent character. The acquisition of the estate and its 

 subsequent great increase in value has enabled the Com- 

 missioners to afford considerably more help in the promotion 

 of science and the arts than could have been anticipated 

 from the sum of money originally at their disposal. With- 

 out going into detail, the Commissioners are aware that 



