P29 
directing the attention of the Scottish Board of Educa- 
tion to the educational value of the kinematograph 
was adopted unanimously. 
IN a pamphlet entitled ‘‘Some Roads Towards 
Peace,” a report to the trustees of the Carnegie En- 
dowment for International Peace, Mr. Charles W. 
Eliot gives an open-minded and businesslike account 
of his sojourn in China and Japan in 1912. The key- 
note of the report is education, modern scientific edu- 
cation, such as Japan has developed and China would 
fain see established. According to his report, the 
well-known and often repeated taunt that the Japanese 
tradesmen are untrustworthy in commercial dealings 
is now quite out of date; and this is plainly due to 
the enlightened educational policy of the leaders of 
Japan during the last generation. His picture of the 
evils attending the introduction and development of 
factories is not pleasing; but it is certainly no worse 
than in Western lands. The influence for good of 
the missionary, and especially the medical missionary, 
is strongly emphasised. Among some of the imme- 
diate outcomes of Mr. Eliot’s official visit to the far 
Orient may be mentioned three memorials which 
appear among the six appendices to the pamphlet. 
One is an appeal from prominent Chinamen to the 
trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for a free public 
library in Peking; the second is an appeal to the 
same trustees for an international hospital for Tokyo, 
signed by leading Japanese and European and 
American residents; and the third is a memorial on 
the subject of the education of the children of foreign 
residents in the Far East—the great need of a well- 
endowed school to take the place of the present in- 
adequate Tokyo Grammar School. There is little 
doubt that by supporting such educational and medical 
needs the trustees of the Carnegie Endowment would 
do effective service in the cause of international peace. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
LONDON. 
Royal Society, February 26.—Sir William Crookes, 
O.M., president, in the chair.—Lord Rayleigh: The 
diffraction of light by spheres of small relative index. 
—Prof. H. E. Armstrong and Prof. F. P. Worley: 
Studies of the processes operative in solutions. XXXI. 
—Sulphonic acids and sulphuric acid as hydrolytic 
agents: a discussion of the constitution of sulphuric 
and other polybasic acids and of the nature of acids. 
XXXIJI.—The influence of sulphonates on the hydro- 
lytic activity of sulphonic acids: a contribution to the 
discussion on the influence of neutral salts.—Prof. 
H. E. Armstrong, R. T. Colgate, and E. H. Rodd: 
Morphological studies of benzene derivatives. V.— 
The correlation of crystalline form with molecular 
structure: a verification of the Barlow-Pope concep- 
tion of ‘‘valency-volume.’’—Prof. E. Wilson: The 
magnetic properties of iron when shielded from the 
earth’s magnetism. When iron is subjected to a con- 
siderable magnetising force, a species of polarisation 
is produced which has the effect of reducing the per- 
meability and increasing the dissipation of energy due 
to magnetic hysteresis for given values of the mag- 
netic induction. The residual effects can be removed 
by careful demagnetisation or annealing. It was 
thought by analogy that the earth’s magnetic force 
would also have a polarising influence upon exposed 
iron, and this is the subject of the present paper. An 
effort has been made to remove the residual effects of 
the earth’s magnetism by placing the specimen, which 
is of ring form, in a magnetic shield, and carefully 
demagnetising it. The magnetic properties of the 
material were then examined in the usual manner 
with a ballistic galvanometer, and a comparison made 
NO, 2314eesvOL. 92) 
NATURE 
[MarcH 5, 1914 
t 
with those obtained from the exposed or unshielded . 
specimen. It has been found that the permeability of 
freshly demagnetised and shielded iron, corresponding 
| to a given value of the magnetic induction, is con- 
siderably larger than in the case of the unshielded . 
specimen.—Dr. J. N. Pring: The occurrence of ozone 
in the upper atmosphere. In the Alps, at an altitude 
of 2100 metres, the mean concentration of ozone is 
about 2-5 parts by.volume in one million of air, and 
at an altitude of 3600 metres, about five parts in one 
million of.air. In this country the mean quantity 
found between ground-level and an altitude of 20 kilo- 
metres was about two parts by volume in one million. 
No trace of either hydrogen peroxide or nitrogen 
peroxide could be detected in these cases. Measure- 
ments made in the laboratory on the action of ultra- 
violet light on air showed that a definite equilibrium 
amount of ozone is obtained, and that this value 
increases with fall in temperature, but decreases 
rapidly with fall in pressure. The formation of 
hydrogen peroxide or nitrogen peroxide by ultra-violet 
light radiation could not be detected.—W. A. D. 
Rudge: A meteoric iron from Winburg, Orange Free 
State. In this paper some account is given of the 
structure, and mechanical and magnetic properties, of 
the Winburg meteorite, which is stated to have fallen 
in 1881. It appears to be composed of large crystals 
of ferrite with veins and crystals of an iron nickel 
alloy. The total amount of nickel is not more than 
3 per cent.—W. A. D. Rudge: The electrification pro- 
duced during the raising of a cloud of dust. During 
the raising of a cloud of dust a considerable amount 
of electrification occurs. Insulated conductors held in 
a stream of dust become charged to a potential of 
some hundreds of volts. The dust particles seem to 
be charged by friction amongsi themselves, some with 
positive, others with negative, electricity.—Prof. 
W. M. Thornton: The electrical ignition of gaseous 
mixtures. This is an experimental examination of 
the mechanism of ignition of gaseous mixtures by 
electric sparks. It is found that there are two dis- 
tinct types of curve connecting percentage of gas in 
air and the least current which, when broken, causes 
ignition by the break-spark. In one, characteristic 
of continuous currents, the current required is pro- 
portional to the percentage of gas present; in the 
other, of the alternating-current type, it is a quadratic 
function of the percentage, having a minimum, at the 
mixture giving combustion, midway between CO and 
CO,. Ignition by contiauous-current break-sparks 
is largely ionic or electronic, but by alternating 
currents is more nearly a simple thermal process. 
The gases examined were hydrogen, carbon disul- 
phide, benzene, alcohol, and the paraffin series up to 
pentane. 
Linnean Society, February 5.—Prof. E. B. Poulton, 
president, in the chair.—J. Davidson : The mouth-parts 
and mechanism of suction in Schizoneura lanigera, 
Hausm. The object of this paper is to give a detailed 
description of the anatomy and relations of the mouth- 
parts of aphids, with special reference to the working 
of these structures during the processes of feeding.— 
Dr. L.° Cockayne: The vegetation of White Island, 
New Zealand.—W. E. Collinge: The range of varia- 
tion of the oral appendages in some terrestrial Isopods. 
After carefully examining and considering the varia- 
tions described, the conclusion is reached that the oral 
appendages are subject to a considerable amount of 
variation, and for purposes of specific distinction are 
not of the value generally supposed, and certainly not 
so constant as to the form of the head, the meso- 
somatic segments, the antennz, the telson, uropoda, 
and thoracic appendages; they may, however, serve to 
' characterise the larger divisions of the group. 
