May 21, 1914] 
NATURE 
get 160l. for its biological laboratory, Rennes 320l. for 
the botanical and physical science laboratories, Lille, 
Clermont, and Grenoble are getting goodly sums for 
electrical equipment, and Paris tool. for the herbarium 
of the Academy of Sciences. 
Tue Association of Teachers in Technical Institu- 
tions will hold its eighth annual conference at Liver- 
pool during Whitsuntide, May 30-June 3. The open 
meetings begin on Monday, June 1, when the chair- 
man of the Liverpool Education Committee, Councillor 
J. W. Alsop, will welcome the conference to Liver- 
pool, and the president, Mr. P. Abbott, will deliver his 
presidential address. During the conference papers 
will be read by Mr. W. Hewitt, director of technical 
education for Liverpool, Prof. Haldane Gee, Mr. W. E. 
Harrison, Mr. Laurence Small, Mr. W. R. Bower, 
and others. Sectional meetings will be held on the 
afternoon of June 2, when papers of special interest to 
.the various sections of technical education will be read. 
Resolutions on matters of educational and professional 
interest will be discussed at the various meetings. 
A LIMITED number of free places at the Imperial 
College of Science and Technology, South Kensington, 
S.W., will be awarded by the London County Council 
for the session 1914-15. The free places will be 
awarded on consideration of the past records of the 
candidates, the recommendations of their teachers, 
the course of study which they intend to follow, and 
generally upon their fitness for advanced study in 
science as applied to industry. Candidates will not 
be required to undergo a written examination. It is 
possible that the free places may be extended to two 
or more years. Parents (or guardians) of candidates 
must be resident within the administrative county of 
London, except in the case of self-supporting candi- 
dates above twenty-one years of age on July 31, 1914, 
who must themselves be resident within the county. 
Application forms (T. 2/268) may be obtained from the 
Education Officer, L.C.C. Education Offices, Victoria 
Embankment, W.C., and must be returned not later 
than Saturday, May 23. 
In addition to much other matter of interest and 
importance, the recently published Report of the Board 
of Education for the year 1912-13 (Cd. 7341), contains 
particulars as to the main provision for full-time educa- 
tion in connection with the industries of the country. 
This has been provided in the past either by means 
of advanced courses known as technical institution 
courses at the larger technical schools, or by means 
of day technical classes, which, as a rule, take younger 
pupils and give more elementary instruction. There 
are twenty-six institutions giving technical institution 
courses, the total number of separate courses in these 
institutions being eighty-one in 1911-12. But of these 
twenty-two were courses in preparation for matricula- 
tion. Fifty-four were courses in engineering, chem- 
istry, and subjects connected with the building, min- 
ing, textile, and leather trades. Five were purely 
scientific courses. The number of students taking full 
courses was 1246, of whom 528 were in their first 
year, 414 in their second year, 245 in their third year, 
and fifty-nine in later years of their courses. The 
number of day technical classes recognised in 1911-12 
was in all 324, and these were held in 111 institutions. 
The students in attendance numbered 12,041. One 
hundred and fifty-four of the courses were full-time 
day schools, and these will in future receive aid from 
the State to a degree more commensurate with their 
importance. The report may well point out that the 
provision for full-time education in applied science is 
regrettably small in bullk compared with the industrial 
development of the country. 
NO. 2325, VOL. 93] 
| maturation, 
| the same result. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
LonbDon. 
Royal Society, May 14.—Sir William Crookes, presi- 
dent, in the chair.—Dr. A. D. Waller; The various 
inclinations of the electrical axis of the human heart. 
Part Ia.—The normal heart.—Effects of respiration. 
Continuation of previous observations (Phil. Trans., 
1889, p. 169) in which the electrical effects of the 
human heart were first demonstrated, and the dis- 
tinction made between favourable and unfavourable 
leads dependent upon the obliquity of the cardiac axis, 
and of subsequent observations (Proc. R.S., B, 
vol. Ixxxvi., p. 507, 1913) to determine the angular 
value of the inclination of the electrical axis.—Dr. 
D. H. Scott and Prof. E. C. Jeffrey: Fossil plants 
showing structure from the base of the Waverley 
Shale of Kentucky. The specimens were collected by 
Prof. -C. R. Eastman and Mr. Moritz Fischer, near 
Junction City, Boyle County, Kentucky. The nodule 
iayer containing the plants is described by Prof. East- 
man as lying at the base of the Waverley (Lower 
| Carboniferous) and immediately above the Genessee 
Black Shale of Upper Devonian age. The anatomical 
structure is, on the whole, well preserved.—F. Kidd : 
The controlling influence of carbon dioxide in the 
dormancy, and germination of seeds. 
Part ii. The inhibitory effect of carbon dioxide on 
the germination of seeds previously described is dealt 
with in relation to temperature and oxygen supply. 
In relation to temperature the result obtained is un- 
usual, the inhibitory action being more pronounced at 
low temperatures than at high. At 3° C. complete 
| inhibition was obtained with 4 per cent. CO,; at 
17° C. as much as 24° C. had to be employed to obtain 
Varying partial pressures of oxygen 
also effect the inhibitory action of carbon dioxide, but 
to a less degree than temperature. Thus with 5 per 
| cent. oxygen, 15 per cent. CO, produced inhibition ; 
with 20 per cent. oxygen, 27 per cent. CO, was 
' necessary. The author emphasises the fact that the 
adjustments of the moist seed by which it is enabled 
| to continue dormant in the presence of oxygen and 
| water, rather than those of the dry seed, are likely to 
have formed the central problem of seed life in nature. 
A low temperature and a decreased oxygen supply are 
often the natural conditions of a seed’s environment 
in the soil. Correlating the results obtained in this 
' and in a former paper, the author strongly emphasises 
tumour tissue in vitro. 
the controlling influence of carbon dioxide in the 
biology of seeds. It appears that the normal resting 
stage of a seed is primarily a phase of narcosis.—D. 
Thomson and J. G. Thomson : The cultivation of human 
Small portions of tissue from 
' two human tumours, (a) intracystic papilloma of the 
_ ovary, and (b) carcinomatous lymphatic gland, have 
been cultivated successfully in a medium composed of 
| fowl blood plasma+ extract of embryonic chick. This 
proves that human tissue can be grown in vitro ina 
| medium obtained entirely from a bird. This is con- 
trary to what was previously believed, since it was 
considered that the tissue of a certain animal could 
only grow in a medium composed of the blood plasma 
of the same species of animal.—H. G. Thornton and 
|G. Smith: The nutritive conditions determining the 
| growth of certain fresh-water and soil protista. 
Ex- 
periments made on the growth of Euglena viridis in 
artificial media showed that, in addition to’ those 
inorganic constituents necessary for the growth of a 
green plant, which were supplied by Miguel’s formula 
for growing diatoms, a certain quantity of organic 
material, e.g. infusion of hay, was necessary. In 
order to determine the constituent in this organic 
material which stimulated growth, various pure sub- 
