September 5, 



1918] 



NATURE 



19 



undei guidance in order to study areas chosen as illus- 

 trating diffi of mineral ileposiis. The 

 course has also been so arranged that it can be taken 

 in a post-graduate year bj those who have alread) 

 completed the associateship in the subjects of mining. 

 The main heads of the School Teachers' Super- 

 annuation Bill, which Mr. Fisher hopes to introduce 

 in the House of Commons in the autumn, have been 

 published as a Parliamentary paper (Cd. 9141)- The 

 Bill will bring within one comprehensive system of 

 State pensions, on a non-contributory basis, both cer- 

 tificated and uncertificated teachers in elementary 



ols, as well as the teachers in all other schools 

 aided by the Board of Education, including those 

 training colleges which are not departments of uni- 

 versities. Thi benefits will consist of annui 

 together with lump sums, for those who retire al the 



ol sixty or later aftei thirtj years' of service, and 

 fur those who retire disabled after ten years' ser- 

 vice; and of gratuities payable on the death of a 

 teacher in service after five years of service. No 

 difference will be made between the sexes in the 

 conditions of pension, except that in order to provide 

 for women teachers leaving the profession to be 

 married and afterwards returning to it, provision 

 is mad.- for the substitution of twenty years' service 

 for thirty as a condition of pension in such cases. 

 Pension service- will, as a rule', cease at sixtv-five. 

 Serve isionable must be full-time service in 



ols which are grant-aided at the time of service, 

 or in secondary schools which, though not grant-aided 

 at tlv tim.', 1. .in me grant-aided within five vears of 

 the passing of the Bill. Power is reserved to the 

 Board of Education, however, to reckon as pension- 

 able service a limited amount of service in certain 

 other schools rendered before the commencement of 

 the operation of the Bill. Other matters dealt with 

 in the Bill include medical examination for future 

 teachers before admission to recognised service and 

 the power to withhold or reduce benefits in case of 

 misconduct. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, August i_\ M. P. Painleve' in 

 tht .hair. -J. Boussinesq : Confirmation of the prin- 

 ciple of the approximate theorj of punching for a 

 thick block. — G. Bigourdan : I h, observatories of the 

 11 to-day the Lycee Saint-Louis. — 



II. Douville : The strata containing Orbitoids in North 

 America. E. Aries : The saturated vapour pressures 

 of bodies containing a large number of atoms in the 

 The formulae developed in previous papers 

 lining from one to eight atoms in 

 the molecule are now applied to pentane, hexane, 

 1 1 octane, and the calculated vapour pres- 

 compared with the experimental results of 

 Young and of Young and Thomas. — J. Comas-Sola : 

 studies of stellar currents. Two pairs 

 of negatives, taken 1912-18 and [916V18, have been 

 examined by the stereoscopic method, and show that 

 foi stars of the first ten magnitudes a proper motion 

 in the form of a current is general. — G. Fayet : The 

 ipearance of the periodic Borrellv comet. This 

 was seen at Nice on August 6 7. M. Bailiaud : Note 

 on the same. Positions given for August 7 and 10. — 

 R. Combes : The immunity of plants with regard to 

 the immediate principles which they elaborate. The 

 saponine of igrostemma githago (agrostemma- 



saponine) in concentration as low as 1: n,., i„ 



1- substance foi thi roots of plants 

 not producing this glucoside (pea, buckwheat, radish), 

 hi!' . xerts no toxic action even with a much higher 

 NO. 254.C), VOL. I02l 



concentration, i : 100, on tie roots of Agrostemma 

 githago. — J. Dumont : lie aqueous reserves of the 

 'il in periods of drought. Determinations of mois- 

 in soil aftei drought wen 1 di at depths from 

 o to 80 cm. from the surface, and for different crops 

 with and without manur. I Maignon : The in- 

 fluence of fats on the toxic power of the food pro- 

 teins : their rdle in the utilisation of nitrogenous 

 materials. Applications to therapeutics. 



Sydney. 



Royal Society of New South Wales, June 5. — Mr. 

 YV. S. Dun, president, in the chair. — C. D. (iillies : 

 The spine mode of Centropyxis aculeata, Stein. 

 Material for the investigation of the spine variation 

 in the test of this Rhizopod was obtained from six 

 different localities in Queensland. It was found that 

 the spine-frequencv polygons were unimodal, and that 

 the empirical mode varied from 3-5. From Maj 

 1916, to December, 1917, material was collected at 

 monthly intervals from the Brisbane Botanic Gardens. 

 The modal value of the polygons was 3, hence for 

 this localitv the mode is a constant. — R. W. Chal- 

 linor, E. Cheel, and A. R. Penfold : A new species of 

 Leptospermum and its essential oil. From evidence 

 accumulated over a period of six or seven years, 

 including the cultivation of a number of plants and 

 the chemical investigation of the essential oil, which 

 is shown to consist principally of the two aldehydes, 

 citral and citronellal, the authors have proved that at 

 least one more of our native tea-trees is new to 

 science, and give the name Leptospermum citratum to 

 this new species.— C. Laseron : Notes on some Permo- 

 Carboniferous Fenestellida;, with description of new- 

 species. The fossil polvzoa of Australia, though 

 abundant in manv formations, are as yet but little 

 known, and this paper deals with ten more or less 

 common forms in the Permo-Carboniferous rocks, 

 mostly in the Hunter River district. Six new species 

 and several old tvpes are described. 



July 5.— Mr. W. S. Dun, president, in the chair.— 

 J. H.' Maiden : A contribution to a history of the Royal 

 Society of New South Wales. The earliest recorded 

 effort to form an improvement society was in the year 

 1818, when Judge-Advocate Wylde's attempt to form an 

 agricultural societv failed because Governor Macquarie 

 demanded the admission of emancipists. In Decem- 

 ber, 182 1, Governor Brisbane formed a scientific club 

 under the name of the Philosophical Society of Aus- 

 tralasia. Some of the papers read were printed by 

 Barron Field, while the bronze plat, at Kurnell cele- 

 brates the foundation of this society and the jubilee 

 of Capt. Cook's visit. Thi- ucceededby the 



agricultural societv in the following year, which also 

 became a horticultural societv in 1S26. The author 

 showed the direct descent of the Roval Societv of New 

 South Wales from the Australian Philosophical 

 Societv, founded January 10, 1850. On July 30, 1855, 

 it was resuscitated under the name Philosophical 

 Societv of New South Wales, and received its present 

 title on December 12. 1866.— Prof. H. S. Carslaw : 

 Note on the theorv of a simple progressive tax, and 

 its bearing on the Federal income-tax schedules. Thi; 

 paper dealt with the system of tax in which the 

 amounts paid on each successive pound form an arith- 

 ression, and incidentally showed that with- 

 it. rial change in the incidence of the tax such 

 tern could be substituted for the compl d 

 schedules of the Federal Income-Tax Acts. 



Melbourne. 

 Roval Societv of Victoria. |une 13.— Mr. 1. A. Kershaw, 

 president, in the .hair.- ]'. T. Jutson The sand ridges, 

 mck floors, and other associat. ures at Goon- 



