June 18, 1914] 
NATURE 
419 
status of college teachers as compared with the situa- 
tion presented in a similar study published five years 
ago. The ordinary salary of a full professor in the 
institutions associated with the foundation is now 
6ool. During the last five years the salaries of in- 
structors have risen by about 16l.; those of junior pro- 
fessors show a gain of from 24l. to 45/.; those of full 
professors show an increase from 25/. to 7ol. 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
Ir is announced in Science that Lafayette College 
is a beneficiary under the will of the late Mr. William 
Runkle to the amount of 20,000l. 
News has been received by cable that Prof. T. R. 
Lyle, F.R.S., is shortly to resign his professorship in 
the University of Melbourne, and that in consequence 
the chair of natural philosophy will become vacant. 
The salary attaching to the post is about roool. per 
annum, and the new occupant of the chair will be 
expected to take up his duties in February next, which 
is the beginning of the session. 
Tue following gifts to higher education in the 
United States are announced in the issue of Science 
for June 5 :—20,000l. anonymously for the erection of 
the first of Cornell University’s residential dormi- 
tories; an unrestricted gift to Harvard University of 
10,0001. by Mr. Nathaniel H. Stone; 5o00ol. under the 
will of Miss Elizabeth S. Shippen to the University 
of Pennsylvania; and 4oool. and a contingent interest 
in one-third of a to,oool. fund to the Hampton Normal 
and Agricultural Institute by the late Mr. Robert C. 
Ogden. 
Lorp Rosepery has been elected president of the 
University of London Club, and the following have 
been elected vice-presidents :—Sir Thomas Barlow, Sir 
Robert Blair, Sir John Rose Bradford, Dr. Sophie 
Bryant, Sir Edward H. Busk, Mr. Clifford B. Edgar, 
Lord Emmott, Sir Rickman Godlee, Sir Alfred Pearce 
Gould, Dr. W. P. Herringham, Prof. M. J. M. Hill, 
Sir Alfred Hopkinson, Sir Joseph Larmor, Sir Oliver 
Lodge, Sir Philip Magnus, Sir Henry A. Miers, Lord 
Moulton, Sir William Ramsay, Sir Henry E. Roscoe, 
Sir William A. Tilden, Prof. H. H. Turner, and the 
Right. Hon. T. McKinnon Wood. The committee 
has elected g10 original members of the club, 709 men 
and 201 women. Mr. T. LI. Humberstone has been 
appointed the first secretary of the club, and it is hoped 
that the club-house at 19 and 21 Gower Street will be 
open in July or soon afterwards. 
THE annual report for the present year of the Nan- 
tucket Maria Mitchell Association has been received. 
One of the most useful of the activities of the asso- 
ciation has been the provision from time to time of an 
astronomical fellowship, to which Miss M. Harwood 
was reappointed in March, 1913. Her research work, 
executed at the Harvard College Observatory, has 
included a study of several variable stars of the Algol 
type, for the purpose of determining accurate periods 
and the forms of their light curves. It is desired by 
the association to establish a permanent fellowship 
yielding annually trool., which will enable recent 
graduates of women’s colleges to devote themselves 
for a year or more to advanced work in astronomy. 
A portion of the year may be spent at the Maria 
Mitchell Observatory and a part at Harvard College 
Observatory. It is hoped that one or more of these 
fellowships may be established by some former pupil 
of Miss Mitchell, open to graduates of Vassar, and 
that similar fellowships may be endowed for graduates 
of other colleges. 
NO. 2329, VOL. 93| 
A REPORT on the teaching of mathematics in Aus- 
tralia, by Prof. H. S. Carslaw, presented to the 
International Commission on the Teaching of Mathe- 
matics, has just been published (Sydney : Angus and 
Robertson; London: Oxford University Press). The 
problem of mathematical teaching stands in much 
the same position now in Australia as it stood at home 
a few years ago. Reformers are struggling to im- 
prove school teaching, and they find the chief obstacle 
to be the externai examination held by a body with 
a limited knowledge of the schools. New South 
Wales has cut the knot by deciding to substitute 
examinations: by its own Department of Public In- 
struction, and Queensland and Tasmania are follow- 
ing suit. It is a pleasing sign that some of the 
examining bodies are acting on the Mathematical 
Association reports on teaching. The decision of the 
Mathematical Association Committee that the con- 
gruence theorems and the condition of parallelism 
should be taken as the axiomatic basis of logical 
geometry was not available when Prof. Carslaw’s 
report was written, and we read that the Board 
of Education Circular 711 advocating much the same 
treatment is condemned by the New South 
Wales education authority. It is permissible to hope 
that this authority, which is the most open-minded 
in Australia, and has a high regard for the Mathe- 
matical Association, may by this last decision of the 
association be induced to reconsider its condemnation. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
LONDON. 
Linnean Society, June 4.—Prof E. B. Poulton, presi- 
dent, in the chair.—Rev. G. Henslow: Darwin’s alter- 
native explanation of the origin of species, without the - 
means of Natural Selection.—G. C, Robson: On a col- 
lection of land and freshwater gastropods from Mada- 
gascar, with descriptions of a new genus and new 
species. The affinities of the species examined were 
found to be mainly Oriental and not African.—Prof. 
H. H. W. Pearson : Notes on the morphology of certain 
structures concerned in reproduction in the genus 
Gnetum. This is an account of an investigation of 
(1) androgynous and pseudoandrogynous spikes of 
Gnetum gnemon; (2) the young embryosac of G. afri- 
canum.—Prof. C. Chilton: Deto, a subantarctic genus 
of terrestrial crustacea. Deto is a genus of terrestrial 
isopoda, established in 1837 by Guérin for the species 
D. echinata from the Cape of Good Hope. The genus 
shows a typical subantarctic distribution and empha- 
sises the close connection between the faunas of New 
Zealand and South America. 
CAMBRIDGE. 
Philosophical Society, May 18.—Dr. Shipley, president, 
in the chair.—Prof. Pope and J. Read: Optically active 
substances of simple molecular constitution. Not- 
withstanding numerous attempts, it has not hitherto 
been possible to prepare an optically active substance 
containing fewer than three carbon atoms in the 
molecule, and the assumption has therefore been 
made that a considerable degree of complexity is 
necessary to enable the molecule to exist in stable 
enantiomorphous forms. After unsuccessful attempts 
to resolve chlorosulphoacetic acid and chlorobromo- 
methanesulphonic acid the preparation and investiga- 
tion of chloroiodomethanesulphonic acid were under- 
taken with a similar object in view, and eventually 
the resolution of this substance was effected with d- 
and I-hydroxyhydrindamine, strychnine and_ brucine. 
The purest optically active ammonium salt of this acid 
yet obtained, having [M],...+43-7° in dilute aqueous 
