March 5, 1903] 



NATURE 



429 



other educational bodies have been invited to attend the 

 conference by the National Association for the Promotion 

 of Technical and Secondary Education. 



In connection with the seventeenth annual Exhibition of 

 Arts, Crafts and Industries, which will be opened on May 4 

 in the Town Hall, Hammersmith, by the Duchess of Argyll, 

 a special " nature-study " section has been organised 

 by Mr. W. M. Webb. Prizes and certificates are offered to 

 pupils in schools in Hammersmith for exhibits illustrating, 

 among other subjects, rambles or visits to a park, nature- 

 study diaries, pea plants grown in pots with descriptions 

 of their growth, drawings of living plants or animals, the 

 life-history of any animal (in the wide sense of the word) 

 from personal observation, and nature-study photographs. 



The committee of the Bombay University, appointed to 

 consider the recommendations of the recent Universities 

 Commission, has, we learn from the Pioneer Mail, come to 

 the conclusion that both the Senate and the Syndicate work 

 satisfactorily and need not be changed ; second-grade 

 colleges should not be disaffiliated; a limit of age and 

 minimum fees should not be fixed, and the study of law 

 should not be concentrated in a central college. Moreover, 

 the Senate objects to interference from outside with the 

 courses of study, and considers that the University should 

 )>■■ allowed to control such matters in its own way. 



The Johnston Laboratory at University College, Liver- 

 pool, built and equipped by Mr. William Johnston, of Brom- 

 borough, will be opened by the President of the Local 

 Government Board on May 9. The laboratory will contain 

 the following departments : — Bio-chemistry, under the direc- 

 tion of Prof. Benjamin Moore ; tropical medicine, directed 

 by Prof. Ronald Ross, F.R.S. ; experimental medicine and 

 comparative pathology, directed by Dr. A. S. Griinbaum, 

 win 1 will also have charge of the cancer research, for which, 

 as we have already announced, Mr. T. Sutton Timmis re- 

 cently provided a gift of 10,000/. Mr. Johnston lias also 

 endowed the professorship of bio-chemistry and three fellow- 

 ships in various branches of medical research. 



Sir Owen Roberts distributed the prizes and certificates 

 to the students of the South-Western Polytechnic on Feb- 

 ruary 23. The report of the principal, Mr. Herbert Tomlin- 

 son, F.R.S. , was read, and showed the number of adult 

 students in the institute to be rapidly increasing, so much 

 so, indeed, that the volume of work as estimated by the 

 student hours has in the last four years been doubled. 

 During last session upwards of 600 students entered the day 

 colleges for men and women, and nearly 1800 the evening 

 > Li^srs. 1 wo years ago large additions, costing 12,000/., 

 •were made to the buildings, but these proving insufficient, a 

 still further sum of 13,000/., provided, like the former sum, 

 by the Trustees of the London Parochial Charities and the 

 London County Council, is now being expended in providing 

 a large hall and further workshop and laboratory accommo- 

 dation. The long list of successes of students shows that the 

 number of certificates gained during last session was above 

 150 more than in the previous year, but, as was pointed out 

 by the principal, the proper function of the institute is not 

 merely to prepare students for examinations, but to fit them 

 to earn a living, and the institute owes a good deal of its 

 popularity to the recognition of this by the management. 



The address on science workshops for schools and colleges 

 delivered by Prof. H. E. Armstrong, F.R.S., to the Royal 

 Institute of British Architects last month is printed in full 

 in the Journal of the Institute (vol. x. No. 6). Prof. Arm- 

 strong illustrated his arguments by reference to the new 

 ■buildings at Horsham for Christ's Hospital School, of which 

 he is a governor. The science buildings occupy practically 

 one side of the quadrangle, and the floor area of the rooms 

 they contain is 10,326 square feet, while that of the ordinary 

 class rooms of the school only reaches 15,482 square feet. 

 The four chief rooms in the science block are called science 

 '^workshops," and are distinguished by the names of 

 Cavendish, Dalton, Davy and Faraday, and to each of these 

 are attached certain subsidiary rooms. No lecture room is 

 provided, since it is desired to discourage didactic teaching — 

 a demonstration bench in the workshop amply provides for 

 any such teaching as is necessary. No special balance room 

 has been introduced, but instead a balance bench — a long 



NO. I74O, VOL. 67] 



narrow table covered by a glazed case for the protection of 

 balances, and arranged at right angles to the working 

 benches. A store or stock room is attached to each of the 

 workshops. There are two kinds of working benches, those 

 for ordinary work and those at which work involving the use 

 of water may be done. The, former have teak tops, and the 

 latter are covered with lead. In the rooms on the upper 

 floor, all sinks have been placed near to the walls, and the 

 waste is carried down to the floor below in pipes fixed in 

 chases in the walls. On the basement floor, cross channels 

 have been avoided as much as possible. In three rooms an 

 arrangement has been adopted which provides both a gas 

 service and upright supports to wdiich rings, &c, can be 

 clamped. The space below the bench-top is fitted with two 

 tiers of small cupboards ; inside each cupboard is a small 

 drawer. Each bench has four such cupboards, so that four 

 pupils may occupy the place in succession, and each have a 

 cupboard. Prof. Armstrong also gives invaluable hints as 

 to the construction .of sinks, drains and ventilation hoods, 

 and describes some special appliances which are in use at 

 Christ's, Hospital School. The address concludes with a 

 plea for the simplification of school workshops, and the re- 

 commendations are well summed up in Prof. Armstrong's 

 own words, " in designing science workshops the architect 

 . . . should have three S's in mind^Setisc, Simplicity and 

 Space." 



SCIENTIFIC SERIAL. 



\merican Journal of Science, February. — Good seeing, by 

 S. P. Langley. A study of the conditions necessary to the 

 I' rmation of a tranquil image in a telescope (see p. 400). 

 — Native arsenic from Montreal, by N. N. Evans. The 

 native arsenic was found in a vein of nepheline syenite at 

 the Corporation Quarry, near Montreal. On analysis it 

 proved to contain o,8'i4 per cent, of arsenic, i'6s per cent, 

 of antimony, with traces of sulphur. — Electromotive force 

 in plants, by A. B. Plowman. The experiments described 

 show that the functional activities of a plant give rise to 

 differences of electrical potential in its parts, the intensity 

 and relative sign of these differences depending upon the 

 physiological condition of the plant, as well as upon its 

 electrical conductivity. — The ionisalion of water nuclei, by 

 C. Barus. — The morphogenesis of Plalystrophia. A studv 

 of the evolution of a Palaeozoic Brachiopod, by E. R. 

 Cumings. — Note on the condition of platinum in the nickel- 

 copper ores from Sudbury, by C. W. Dickson. An account 

 of the isolation of sperrylite, platinum arsenide, from chalco- 

 pyrite. — Lecture experiment on surface tension and surface 

 viscosity, by J. E. Burbank. — Mylagaulodon, a new rodent 

 from Oregon, by W. J. Sinclair. — Studies in the Cyperai > ■■< . 

 by T. Holm. On Carex fusca and Carex bipartita. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Physical Society, February 27.— Dr. R. T. Glazebrook, 

 F.R.S., president, in the chair. — A paper by Prof. Fleming 

 and Mr. Clinton, on the measurement of small capacities 

 and inductances, was read by Prof. Fleming. The measure- 

 ment of small capacities and inductances has become im- 

 portant in connection with Hertzian wave wireless tele- 

 graphy. The authors have designed a rotating commutator 

 which renders the measurement of small capacities a matter 

 as easy as the measurement of resistance on a Wheatstone 

 bridge. The appliance is described in the paper, and the 

 authors claim that they have worked out a thoroughly satis- 

 factory form of rotating commutator, designed more from 

 the point of view of an engineer than an electrical instrument 

 maker. For use with the instrument a moving-coil differ- 

 ential galvanometer has been designed. The authors have 

 made a number of experiments upon the capacity of aerial 

 wires, such as are used in Hertzian wave telegraphy, and 

 have also investigated the laws governing the capacity of 

 such wires when grouped together in certain ways and 

 verified experimentally, as far as possible, the formula; for 

 the capacity of insulated wires in various positions in regard 

 to the earth. The experiments are given at length in 



