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NA TURE 



[June 23, 1904 



engineers and men of science have been sent not only to 

 India, but to Manila, Italy, and other places. One set of 

 instructive reports refers to destruction and shattering pro- 

 duced by movements closely approximating to those of 

 actual earthquakes given to a platform on which masonry 

 and other structures had been erected. This platform is 

 in no sense a toy, but a large piece of apparatus actuated 

 by powerful machinery. To say that these investigations 

 have during the last ten years cost the Government of 

 Japan 50,000/. is a modest estimate. The return for the 

 same is seen in the new types of structures which are grow- 

 ing up in Japan, replicas of which have been adopted in 

 British possessions and other places, the meaning of which 

 is that danger to life and property resulting from seismic 

 disturbances, if not averted, has been markedly mitigated. 



Add twenty volumes issued by the .Seismological Society 

 to those published by the Investigation Committee, and we 

 have eighty-three publications, the greater number of which 

 are volumes, as Japan's contribution to recent seismological 

 progress. 



In consequence of not being acquainted with researches 

 carried out in the Far East — and we do not refer to those 

 which Japan for the benefit of her own people has pub- 

 lished in Chinese characters — it is not uncommon to find 

 seismologists in Europe reproducing as novelties the jails 

 Ui'conipUs of past history. Had Prof. Odone read the 

 Transiictioiis of the Seismological Society of Japan, it is 

 not likely that in a recent number of the Ballcttino he would 

 have given, with drawings almost identical with those pub- 

 lished in Japan, a description of a method by which the 

 relative motion of two points of the earth's surface might 

 be measured ; neither should we find in the last number of 

 the same journal a description, quoted from the Complcs 

 rendus, January 2b, 1903, of a new system bv which record 

 receiving surfaces could be set in movement, and therefore 

 ready to receive the record of an earthquake before the 

 earthquake itself arrived to actuate the indices of a seismo- 

 graph. In 1884 in Japan nine stations were electrically 

 connected, so that an earth movement at one of them re- 

 sulted in the release of clockw'ork at all the others {Trans. 

 Seis. Soc, vol. X.). 



Since then the system has been greatly extended, and at 

 stations considerable distances apart record receiving 

 surfaces are set in motion before the pointers resting on the 

 same have been actuated by earth movements. That work 

 of this description, which was referred to over and over 

 again in publications issued twenty years ago in Japan, 

 should in 1904 be reproduced in Europe as original indicates 

 that the work has at least had some slight recognition. 

 The main point at issue, however, is that the veil of 

 Chinese cryptograms which has hidden so very much of the 

 work done in the Far East has by means of an index been 

 partly raised, and if at Strassburg or at any other institu- 

 tion this work can be rendered available to seismologists 

 who read a European language, the same will from " many 

 an error free us," and be most gratefully received. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — The following appointments of university 

 lectures are announced ; — Chemistry, Messrs. W. J. .Sell, 

 I'.R.S., and H. J. H. Fenton, F.R'.S. ; organic chemistry, 

 Mr. S. Ruhemann : petrology, Mr. .\. Marker, F.R.s!; 

 invertebrate morphology. .Mr. .\. E. Shipley, h'.R.S. ; 

 physical anthropology, Mr. W . I.. 11. Duckworth; palao- 

 zoology, Mr. H. Woods. 



The new Balfour student is Mr. K. C. Punnett, of Caius 

 College. A grant of 50/. from the Balfour fund has been 

 made to Mr. L. Doncaster, King's, in furtherance of his re- 

 searches on sex and heredity. 



.Messrs. C. Shearer and W. E. .\gar have been nominated 

 to occupy the university's table at the Naples Zoological 

 Station. 



'I'he special board for biolog\- proposes that Mr. J. W. 

 Clark should be re-appointed a manager of the Balfour 

 fund for a period of ten years. 



NO. 1808, VOL. 70] 



The original researches of Messrs. R. Hosking, W. 

 Makower, ('•. Owen, and F. Rogers, advanced students in 

 experimental physics, and in engineering, have been 

 approved by the special board for physics and chemistry as. 

 of distinction ; they will receive certificates qualifying them 

 for the B..A. degree for research. 



Five candidates have gained the university diploma in 

 agriculture ; seven have qualified in the first part of the 

 examination. 



Mr. H. M. Chadwick, Clare, Mr. C. H. \V. Johns, 

 Queens', Dr. A. Macalister, St. John's, and Dr. F. H. H. 

 Ciuillemard, Caius, have been appointed members of the 

 new board of anthropological studies. 



Dr. D. MacAlister, St. John's, has been appointed 

 assessor to the regius professor of physic. Prof. Darwin, 

 Trinity, and Prof. Larmor, St. John's, have been appointed 

 electors to the Isaac Newton studentship in astronomy and 

 physical optics. 



Mr. Percy F. Kendall has been appointed professor of 

 geology in the University of Leeds, and Dr. J. B. Cohen 

 has been appointed professor of organic chemistry in the 

 same university. 



Mrs. Amanda W. Rhed has, says Scifiicc. provided in 

 her will for the foundation of an institution at Portland, 

 Oregon, to be known as Reed Institute, in memory of her 

 husband, the late .Simon G. Reed. The bequest will amount 

 to about 400,000/. Her will specifies that the institute shall 

 lombine instruction in the fine arts, sciences, and manual 

 training, and that it shall be conducted with especial regard 

 to the needs of young men and w'omen compelled to eara 

 their own living. 



New science buildings, which by special permission of 

 Lord Kelvin have been called the Kelvin .Science .School, are 

 to be opened by Sir Douglas Fox at Trent College, Derby- 

 shire, on June 29. The new science school contains si.x 

 large rooms and three small ones ; these include a room 

 for manual instruction in wood and iron, a physical labor- 

 atory, a lecture theatre to seat eighty, a balance room, a 

 chemical laboratory for twenty-four students, and a biological 

 laboratory for sixteen students. 



.\ rATER read by Prof. Israel C. Russell before the Research 

 Club of the University of .Michigan in January last is printed 

 in .Science for June 3. After referring to the triumphs of 

 science in the last century. Prof. Russell remarked : — " The 

 intellectual tide-gauges of the world give no suggestion 

 that the nineteenth century wave of discovery has culmin- 

 ated. On the contrary, there is abundant evidence to show 

 that the rate of intellectual development is still on the 

 increase, and that yet more important conquests in the 

 domain of the unknown than have illuminated the past will 

 be made in the future." The recognition of the importance 

 of research by the United .States is naturally emphasised in 

 the paper, and three important steps in this direction are 

 marked by what Prof. Russell called " enduring move- 

 ments," viz. the .Itnerican Journal of .'Science, which 

 appeared first in 1818, the .Smithsonian Institution, and the 

 Carnegie Institution. .Speaking of the place of research in 

 the imiversity. Prof. Russell expressed his agreement with 

 the dictum of Sir Norman Lockyer, that " research is now^ 

 generally acknowledged to be the most powerful engine of 

 education that we possess." 



The twenty-eighth annual exhibition of work e.xecuted 

 in the public elementary schools founded by the late London 

 School Board, and now administered by the London County 

 Council, was held from June 13 to iS at the Medical Ex- 

 amination Hall, Victoria Embankment. .As in previous 

 years, one section of the exhibition was devoted to the 

 science work done in these schools. The exhibits were 

 chiefly pieces of apparatus and working models made or 

 arranged by pupils and teachers. It was satisfactory to 

 notice that the work of pupils and teachers was this year 

 kept separate, and the confusion which in some former 

 years resulted from an indiscriminate intermingling of the 

 exhibits of teachers and taught was fortunately avoided. 

 Much of the work shown was the joint product of the science 



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