NA TURE 



[October 13, 1904 



\ RESOLUTION adopted bv the manufacturers' section of 

 the London Chamber of Commerce, and approved by the 

 council of the chamber, was recently forwarded to the 

 Board of Education together with a letter from the 

 secretarv of the chamber expressing the views of the manu- 

 facturer= more explicitly. The resolution states that, m 

 order to retain our industrial position and to introduce mto 

 this country such further industries as may be profitably 

 developed, the manufacturers' section is of opinion that it 

 is absolutely necessary to raise the standard, and, if possible, 

 cheapen the cost of 'technical and higher technical educa- 

 tion and that representations should be made to the Board 

 of Education in this sense. The letter to the Board of 

 Education points out that up to the present time manu- 

 facturers in this country have not realised that there is a 

 scientific aspect to every branch of manufacture, requiring 

 study to attain the highest results, and that there is hardly 

 an industry that would not benefit from the more general 

 emplovment of specially qualified scientific assistants. At 

 present such qualified assistants as are available are mostly 

 foreigners, the letter continues, and there is urgent necessity 

 for providing greater facilities for obtaining a thorough 

 training in applied science in this country. There would 

 seem to be urgent need for technical colleges of university 

 tvpe in connection with each industry, where students could 

 have opportunities of carrying out specialised study and 

 research worlc under competent teachers. The fees charged 

 should not be greater than those charged by siniilat 

 Continental institutions, and poorer students of ability 

 should be assisted by a liberal system of scholarships. Mr. 

 Morant replying on behalf of the Board of Education, says 

 the board is 'keenly alive to the importance of encouraging 

 a better provision of higher technical education than at pre- 

 sent exists, and will take every step in its power towards 

 its promotion. But these efforts will be largely in vain 

 unless British manufacturers give every encouragement in 

 their power to promote the employment of students at 

 home thoroughly trained for the needs in question. Mr. 

 Morant rightly points out, with reference to the consider- 

 ations submitted, that the want of properly qualified English 

 assistants referred to may be attributed partly to the fact 

 that the salaries offered are frequently too low to tempt 

 natives of this country, partly to the shortsightedness of 

 many English parents in refusing to continue their sons' 

 education to a sufficiently advanced point, partly to the 

 fact that there is no adequate provision at present in Great 

 Britain for enabling persons to acquire the manipulative 

 skill necessary in certain branches of industry, and partly 

 also to the inadequate endowment and the insufficient 

 encoi'ragement of research. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, October 3. — M. Mascart in the 

 chair. — A comparison of the expenditure of the f!e.xor and 

 extensor muscles of the forearm, applied, each group 

 separately, to the production of the same continuous ex- 

 ternal work ; A. Chauveau. The energy expended was 

 measured by means of the respiratory coelficient. It was 

 found that the external work effected by the flexor muscles 

 of the forearm was less than that of the extensors, the pro- 

 portion being about 04 for the former and 06 for the 

 latter. This difference appears to be due exclusively to the 

 less favourable conditions under which the extensor muscles 

 work. — On the loss of electricity in air in the neighbour- 

 hood of thermal springs : A. B. Chauveau. In the 

 thermal springs at Cauterets, the radio-activity of the air 

 near the spring was clearly marked, the loss observed in 

 the neighbourhood of the reservoir being three times as 

 fast as in the open air. — The colorations produced by the 

 Becquerel rays ; its application to crystallography and to 

 the calorimetric determination of radio-activity: C. J. 

 Salomonsen and G. Dreyer. The coloration produced by 

 radium on certain crystals demonstrates the zonal structure 

 of the crystal, and thus throws light upon the manner in 

 which it has been built up. In the case of quartz, this 

 zonal structure has not hitherto been demonstrated. — On a 

 vacuum effect produced by a waterspout : L6on Pigeon. — 

 On actinium : A. Debierne. The substance previously 

 described by the author under the name of actinium pre- 



NO. 1824, VOL. 70] 



sents many similarities with the emanium of Giesel. The 

 opportunity has recently arisen of directly comparing the 

 two substances, and the observations of M. and Madame 

 Curie, M. Giesel, and the author on the characteristic 

 phenomena of phosphorescence provoked by the two pro- 

 ducts shows that they are identical. The name emanium 

 should therefore be dropped in favour of the earlier 

 actinium. — The properties and constitution of the molyb- 

 denum steels : L^on Guillet. The series of steels studied 

 contained only 02 per cent, of carbon, with molybdenum 

 increasing from o per cent, to 15 per cent. A second series 

 contained about 085 per cent, of carbon. In small 

 quantity, molybdenum increases the breaking load without 

 causing extra fragility. The general properties of the 

 molybdenum steels resemble those of tungsten steels, but 

 four times as much molybdenum as tungsten is required to 

 produce the same results. — A thermochemical comparison 

 between rosanilines and leucanilines : Jules Schmidlin. — 

 On the morphology of the Chetoptera : Ch. Gravier. — The 

 archaic form of the Thecosome Pteropods : Paul Pelseneer. 

 — On the structure of the muscles of Anotnia ephippium : 

 F. Marceau. — On acarophytism in Monocotyledons : 

 E. de Wildman. — Semeiology of the prostatic secretion : 

 .\. Guepin. — On a new treatment of seeds: E. Breal and 

 K. Giustiniani. 



New South Wales. 

 Linnean Society, August 31. — Dr. T. Slorie Dixson, presi- 

 dent, in the ihair. — Revision of the Australian species of 

 Bolboceras (Coleoptera, fam. ScarabseidEe), with descrip- 

 tions of new species : Rev. T. Blackburn. — Studies in 

 .Australian entomology. No. 14, new species of geode- 

 phagous Coleoptera from Queensland and North-West 

 .\ustralia : T. G. Sloane. Three additions to the Cicin- 

 delidae and five to the Carabids are proposed as new. — 

 The botany of Funafuti, Ellice group : J. H. Maiden. 

 The author gives a list, with critical notes, of thirty-eight 

 dicotyledons, eleven monocotyledons, five vascular crypto- 

 gams, and one lichen. All the species are more or less 

 widely distributed in the Pacific Islands as denizens of 

 other coral islands or of the coastal tracts of the larger 

 islands. 



CONTENTS. PACK 



CEcological Plant-Geography. By R. H. Y. ... 573 

 The Comparative Histology of Vertebrates. By 



Dr. Francis H. A. Marshall 574 



Spectrum Analysis 575 



Our Book Shelf :— 



Lehfeldt : "Text-books of Physical Chemistry. 



Electrochemistry" 575 



Kermode : " Traces of the Norse Mythology in the 



Isle of Man."— W. A. Craigie 576 



Hill and Webb : " Eton Nature-study and Observa- 

 tional Lessons" 576 



Letters to the Editor : — 



The Forest-pig of Central Africa. — Oldfield Thomas, 



F.R.S 577 



Appeal for Cooperation in Magnetic and Allied Obser- 

 vations during the Total Solar Eclipse of August 



29-30, 1905. — Dr. L. A. Bauer 577 



Instinct and Reason in Dogs. — E. W. P 577 



Misuse of Words and Phrases. — E. S 577 



Natural History Essays. {Illialrated.). By R. L. . 577 

 Developments of Three-Colour Photographic Pro- 

 cesses. II. By Chapman Jones 57S 



Notes 5S0 



Our Astronomical Column : — 



Discovery of a Nova or a New Variable 584 



The Lick Observatory Programme for Next Year's 



Solar Eclipse 5S4 



Visual Observation of Phicbe 584 



The Orbit of Castor 5S4 



The Meeting of the Astrononiischen Gesellschaft, 1904 584 



Engineering at the British Association. By T. H. B. 585 



Physiology at the British Association 586 



The Relation of Oxidation to Functional Activity . 590 



Geological Notes .... ... 593 



I Prize Subjects of the Industrial Society of Mulhouse 595 



I University and Educational Intelligence 595 



I Societies and Academies 596 



