46 



NA TURE 



[November io, 1904 



ago to consider the question whether the peak which Mr. 

 Hodgson called Devadhunga was identical with the peak 

 which Sir A. Waiigh called Mount Everest ; from the 

 geographical evidence available they concluded that the 

 two peaks were not identical, and their conclusion has been 

 found correct.' In those early days there had arisen no 

 such subtle questions as whether Mount Everest formed 

 part of a certain range, or whether it belonged to a certain 

 group of peaks, or whether it was just visible to those who 

 knew where to search for it. To the clear minds of our 

 predecessors, to Hodgson and Waugh and Schlagintweit 

 and Walker, there was but one question at issue, namely, 

 the identity of Hodgson's and Schlagintweit's peak with 

 the Mount Everest of the Survey. 



This question has now been answered, and after fifty 

 years of discussion the Hindu and Nepalese names have 

 been proved to be inapplicable ; let us, then, close a con- 

 troversy that has fulfilled its purpose, and let us suffer the 

 English name to rest on our maps in peace. 



S. G. BURR.IRD. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Oxford. — The Vice-Chancellor has appointed Prof. Ray 

 Lankester, hon. fellow of Exeter College, to be Romanes 

 lecturer for 1905. 



Sir John Burdon Sanderson, Bart., hon. fellow of 

 Magdalen College, late regius professor of medicine, has 

 been constituted a perpetual delegate of the university 

 museum. 



Mr. Walter J. Barton, scholar of New College, has been 

 elected to the geographical scholarship for 1904-5. 



The executive committee of the Oxford division of the 

 British Medical Association has had the electric light per- 

 manently installed in the Pitt-Rivers Museum as a mark of 

 their appreciation of the generosity of the university in 

 allowing the association to make use of their various build- 

 ings and of the help the university gave them in other ways 

 during the meeting of the association in Oxford in July 

 last. The cordial thanks of the university have been con- 

 veyed to the Oxford division of the association for their 

 most acceptable gift, and the curators of the university chest 

 have been empowered to erect a suitable record of the 

 occasion in the Pitt-Rivers Museum. 



CAMBRIDGE. — Mr. J. C. Willis, of Gonville and Caius 

 College, director of the botanic garden at Peradeniya, 

 Ceylon, has been approved for the degree of doctor of 

 science. 



Prof. G. H. Darwin, F.R.S., and Mr. A. E. Shipley, 

 F.R.S., have been elected members of the council of the 

 Senate. 



Mr. A. Young, tenth wrangler in 1895, lecturer in mathe- 

 matics at Selwyn College, has been elected a fellow of Clare 

 College. 



Mr. R. P. Gregory, demonstrator of botany, and Mr. 

 E. Cunningham, senior wrangler 1902, have been elected 

 fellows of St. John's College. 



Prof. Marshall Ward, F.R.S.. has been elected president, 

 and Prof. Thomson, F.R.S., Prof. Liveing, F.R.S., and 

 Dr. Hobson, F.R.S., vice-presidents of the Cambridge 

 Philosophical Society. 



We learn from Science that the will of Mr. James 

 Callanan, of Des Moines, makes bequests amounting to 

 27,000?. for educational institutions. Of this sum 20,000/. 

 goes to Talladega College, Alabama. 



The chair of chemistry applied to the dyeing industry at 

 the Paris Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, rendered vacant 

 by the death of .M. Victor de Luvnes, has been given, states 

 the Athenaeum, to M. Maurice Prudhomme, who acted as 

 reporter of the section devoted to textile industries and dye- 

 ing at the Exposition Universelle of 1900. 



The following deans of faculties of the Universitv of 

 London have been elected for the two years 1904-6 : — 

 medicine. Dr. J. K. Fowler ; science, Dr. A. D. Waller, 

 F.R.S. ; engineering, Prof. J. D. Cormack ; economics, Mr. 

 G. .Armilage-Smith. 



1 y/de Procttdings R.G.S., iSiS 

 NO. 1828, VOL 71] 



Mr. Andrew Carnegie, who has been Rector of the Uni- 

 versity of St. Andrews for the past term of three years, was 

 re-elected to that oflfice on November 4. 



An open competitive examination for not fewer than 

 twenty situations as assistant examiner in the Patent Office 

 will be held by the Civil Service Commissioners in January 

 next. The examination will commence on January 2, 

 1905. and forms of application for admission to it are 

 now ready for issue, and may be obtained on request 

 addressed by letter to the secretary. Civil Service Com- 

 mission, Burlington Gardens, London, W. 



Dr. C. Kassner has been appointed professor of meteor- 

 ology at the Berlin Technical College ; Dr. Maurer physicist 

 to the German Navy ; Dr. O. Lummer, from Charlotten- 

 burg, to succeed Prof. O. E. Meyer as professor of 

 physics at Breslau ; Prof. London, of Breslau, to succeed 

 Prof. Heffter as professor of mathematics at Bonn. Dr. 

 Augustin, of Prague, has been raised to the rank of ordinary 

 professor of meteorology, and Dr. Karl Exner has retired 

 from the chair of physics at Innsbruck with the title of 

 Hofrat. 



In view of the importance of German to students of 

 science, the University College of North Wales founded a 

 lectureship in German, to which was attached the duty of 

 conducting a beginner's class in that language, with especial 

 reference to the needs of students qualifying for science 

 degrees, and Mr. Rea, of Belfast, was appointed lecturer. 

 The experiment bids fair to be a complete success, 

 about thirty students having joined in the first year of 

 the new venture. The institution of classes of this kind 

 in our university colleges will, it is hoped, remove an 

 anomaly which, in the natural order of events, has grown 

 up in Britain, viz. the turning out of graduates in science 

 who are debarred from efficiently engaging in post-graduate 

 work by their inability to assimilate readily the subject- 

 matter of Continental scientific literature. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Royal Society, June 2. — "Studies on Enzyme Action: 



The Eft'ect of ' Poisons ' on the Rate of Decomposition of 

 Hydrogen Peroxide by Hjemase." By George Senteri 

 Ph.D., B.Sc. (Lond.). Communicated by Prof. E. H. 

 Starling, F.R.S. 



In a former paper (Zeit. physikal. Chetnie, xliv., p. 257, 

 1903) the author investigated the relation of the reaction 

 velocity to peroxide concentration and amount of enzyme 

 present, as well as the acceleration caused by rise of 

 temperature ; the results correspond almost exactly with 

 those obtained by Bredig in his experiments on the decom- 

 position of hydrogen peroxide by colloidal platinum. In 

 the present paper, assuming that heemase is also a colloid 

 in solution, it is suggested that the velocity of reaction 

 between the catalysor and hydrogen peroxide is great in 

 comparison with the rate of diffusion of the peroxide to the 

 colloidal particles, so that what is measured is really a 

 diffusion-velocity. This would account for the analogous 

 results obtained with platinum and hjemase, since the nature 

 of the catalysor would be of secondary importance. 



The hffimase catalysis of hydrogen peroxide, like the 

 platinum catalysis, is retarded by small quantities of many 

 substances, more especially by those which act as poisons 

 towards the living organism. Thus mercuric chloride, 

 sulphuretted hydrogen, and hydrocyanic acid, in the con- 

 centration of I gram-molecule to i million litres, reduce the 

 reaction-velocity to half its value ; they are just the sub- 

 stances which have the greatest retarding effect on the 

 platinum catalysis. Iodine, mercuric cyanide, and aniline 

 have a much smaller effect. .Arsen'ious acid, sodium 

 fluoride, and formaldehyde do not greatly retard the cata- 

 lysis ; although powerful antiseptics, they have little effect 

 on enzyme actions in general. Carbon monoxide, although 

 an active poison for the platinum catalysis, does not affect 

 h.-tmase. Hajmase, like other enzymes, but unlike 

 platinum, is very sensitive even to minute quantities of acids 

 and alkalis. The retarding effect of acids is, in most cases, 

 proportional to the concentration of hydrogen ions, in other 

 words, to the strength of the acid. The ways in which 



