524 



NA TURE 



[September 22. 1904 



In the " Announcements " of the Northampton Institute, 

 London, E.C., a table is given showing the courses which 

 should be taken by various classes of technical students. 

 This, as well as the sound advice given in many parts of 

 the prospectus as to aims and methods of study, should be 

 of great assistance in guiding the energies of students in 

 right directions. .Among the new developments of the 

 institute are day courses in technical optics. These are 

 believed to be the first complete day courses in technical 

 optics attempted in this or any other country. In 

 mechanical and electrical engineering complete day courses 

 extending over four years are arranged. In mechanical 

 engineerinaf full evening courses for automobiles, their 

 design, construction, and working, are offered. The courses 

 in .structural engineering have been re-modelled. The 

 evening courses in electrical engineering have also been re- 

 modelled, the complete course now covering five years. 



The Board of Education has issued the following list of 

 candidates successful in this year's competition for the 

 Whitworth scholarships and exhibitions : — Scholarships, 

 125/. a year each (tenable for three years) : Walter A. Scoble, 

 London ; Herbert G. Tisdall, Bedford : James Cunningham, 

 Glasgow; Archibald D. Alexander, Portsmouth. Exhibi- 

 tions, 5oi. (tenable for one year) : Sidney R. Dight, 

 Plymouth; Edwin S. Crump, Wolverhampton; Harold H. 

 Perring, Devonport ; Sidney H. E. May, Portsmouth ; 

 William B. Wood, Sheerness ; Alexander R. Home, Edin- 

 burgh ; Leslie G. Milner, London ; John Wharton, Leeds ; 

 Thomas .'\. Colville, Chatham ; Edward L. Macklin, Ports- 

 mouth ; William D. McLaren, Glasgow ; Arthur A. Rowse, 

 Southsea ; Arthur Rose, Portsmouth; Andrew Robertson, 

 Fleetwood, Lanes.; Ernest J. Buckton, London; Roderick 

 Ferguson, Sunderland ; William Browning, Halifax ; 

 William Dawson, Glasgow ; Herbert G. Taylor, Oldham ; 

 Sydney Moor, Devonport ; Harold H. Broughton, Brighton ; 

 Robert C. P. Bricknell, Devonport; William E. Dommett, 

 Southsea ; John S. Mackay, Liverpool ; Harry D. Marlow, 

 Plumstead, Kent ; Herbert E. Sothcott, Portsmouth ; Sidney 

 G. Winn, London ; Samuel W. Orford, Sheerness ; Thomas 

 Fell, Bootle ; Chauncy H. Sumner, London. 



At the annual meeting of the Institution of Mining 

 Engineers, held at Birmingham on September 14, Prof. 

 R. A. S. Redmayne described the courses of instruction and 

 study of the mining department of the University of 

 Birmingham. The full three years' curriculum has been 

 constructed on the principle of giving a thorough grounding 

 in pure science during the first two years (with instruction 

 in the theory and practice of mining), and devoting the third 

 and last year entirely to the application of the scientific 

 knowledge so acquired to engineering — mining, mechanical, 

 civil, electrical, and metallurgical — all specialising and re- 

 search work being relegated to a post-graduate or fourth 

 year. The first year's work is devoted to such subjects as 

 prospecting and boring, sinking, underground development 

 and systems of working, surface and underground transport 

 of minerals, winding, drainage, ventilation, sorting and 

 screening of minerals, and surveying and planning. During 

 the second year the details of colliery and mine management 

 and mining jurisprudence are considered, in addition to 

 which there is an advanced course in surveying and 

 planning. To the third year is consigned the study of the 

 foreign coal and metal mining conditions, and the dressing 

 and preparation of fuels and ores for the market. There is 

 a summer school of practical mining in every long vacation, 

 the object being to devote several weeks in each year entirelv 

 to the detailed study of the plant and methods of working 

 of a particular class of important mines, so that students 

 may see for themselves in actual practice much that they 

 have had described to them in the lecture theatre and class- 

 rooms. An experimental coal-mine has been constructed a 

 few feet below the surface, with which it is connected by a 

 downcast and upcast shaft. The workings, the area of 

 which somewhat exceeds three-quarters of an acre, will be 

 ventilated by a single-inlet Capell fan, driven at 500 revolu- 

 tions per minute by an electric motor of 20 horse-power, 

 coupled direct ; and they will be drained bv a small electric 

 pump placed at the bottom of the downcast shaft. The chief 

 use to which this piece of apparatus will be put will be to 



NO. 1821, VOL. 70] 



enable practical instruction to be given in underground 

 surveying and levelling, and connecting surface and under- 

 ground surveys ; and for demonstrating and investigating the 

 peculiarities of mine-ventilation, such as the splitting of 

 air currents and directing their course, the resistance to air 

 currents, the loss of pressure due to friction, and the 

 characteristics of mechanically produced ventilation. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, September 12. — M. Mascart in the 

 chair. — On the comparative morphography of the cartila- 

 ginous cell : Joannes Chatin. The author disputes the 

 generally accepted view that the normal shape of the 

 cartilage cell is ovoid or spheroidal in the higher vertebrates, 

 and shows that in cartilage from the badger there are un- 

 doubted examples of the stelliform type of cell. — The in- 

 fluence of grafting on the composition of the grape : 

 G. Curtel. Clear evidence of differences in physical and 

 chemical composition between grafted and non-grafted 

 grapes has been obtained, and the facts observed explain 

 the more rapid ageing of wines from grafted vines, and also 

 their greater sensitiveness to pathogenic ferments. — Simple 

 traumatic dislocation of the atlas on the axis on a skeleton 

 found in a megalith of Vendee : Marcel Baudouin. — 

 Observations on the preceding note : M. Lannelongue. 

 The author regards the effects noted as probably due to 

 f>osl mortem changes. 



CONTENTS. PACK 



The Scope of Anthropology. By J. Gray 501 



Progress in the Chemistry of Fats. ByC. Simmonds 502 

 Stokes's Mathematical and Physical Papers, by 



Prof. Horace Lamb, F. R.S 503 



Argentine Live Stock 504 



Our Book Shelf :— 



Gerard : " The Old Riddle and the Newest Answer." — 



F. A. D 504 



Langworthy and Austen : " Occurrence of Aluminium 



in Vegetable Products, &c." 505 



Richards : " Practical Chemistry." — J. B. C 505 



Morse : " Calculations used in Cane-Sugar Fac- 

 tories " . 505 



Letters to the Editor : — 



Colours due to Intermittent Illumination. — Rev. F.J. 



Jervis-Smith, F.R.S. j 505 



Is Selenium Radio-active ? — W. A. Davis 506 



Rare Moths in England. — F. H. Perrycoste . . 506 

 The Heart of Skye. (IHnslnited.) By Prof. Grenville 



A. J. Cole 506 



English Medicine in the Anglo-Saxon Times. 



(Illuslralcd.) ■ 508 



Notes. {Illustrated.) 509 



Our Astronomical Column : — 



The Return of Encke's Comet (1904 ^) (Illnstyated.) 512 



Variations in the Lunar Landscape 512 



Sun-spot Periodicity and Terrestrial Phenomena . . 512 



Observations of the Recent Perseid Shower 512 



Radiation in the Solar System. By Prof. J. H. 



Poynting, F.R.S 512 



Physics at the British Association. By Dr. C. H. 



Lees 515 



Chemistry at the British Association 516 



Geology at the British Association. By J. Lomas . 517 



Recent Studies of Disease Organisms 519 



The Evolution of the Horse 520 



The Action of Wood on a Photographic Plate in 

 the Dark. {Illustrated.) By Dr. William J. Russell, 



F.R.S 521 



The Density of Nitrous Oxide. By Lord 



Rayleigh, O.M., F.R.S 523 



University and Educational Intelligence 523 



Societies and Academies 524 



