February 20, 1919] 



NATURE 



497 



I- i'H.( thi Committee of thi 



ntry had made all arrangemei cting ;i 



ileal institute, which, with equipment, was 



ed to cosi 40, '. The v. d the scheme 



. and the expansion ol thi city during 

 thi war has u me has had to bi 



entirely reji 1 quate. I hi 



too small, i' was necessary to find another. There is 



m d, n ith the 

 additional advanb ision 



for extensions wh< n the necessity for thi si 

 The Education Commit d the Cham- 



with the view of obtaining assist- 

 << new technical college worth) of t In- 

 city. The Chamber of Commerce has treated the pro- 

 posal [pathetically, and will probabl) 

 mat. rial help in providing for the cosi "I the equip- 

 ment; 50,000!. is the sum mentioned. Messrs. Alfred 

 Herbert, Ltd., havi given an impetus to the scheme 

 by a us gift oi 5000I. towards the equip- 

 ment, and it is confidently expected that the other 

 firms in Coventry will be relatively as generous, h 

 is gratifying to not< that the manufacturers, as a 

 rule, take a keen interest in the technical education 

 of their employees, and the interest shown b\ the 

 Chamber of Commerce will probably lead to 

 co-operation between the Education Committee and 

 the manufacturers. It is estimated that the whole 

 scheme will cost between ion, 000I. and 120,000! 



\; a meeting of the Committee foi the Furtherano 

 of University Education in South-West Engl 

 held at Exeter on January 27, a report was 

 given of the recent deputation to the President 

 of the Board of Education to urge the ma 

 The d ighi foi the approval of the Govern- 



ment for the schemi of a universit; Foi the South- 

 West, which should comprise colleges at Exeter, 

 Plymouth, Newton Abbot, and Camborne, each doing 

 the type of work suitable to its own locality. No fewer 

 than ninety-om publicly elected councils havi supported 

 the scheme, and more than 250 Labour organisations 

 an in favour. In reply, Mr. Fishei pointed "tit that 

 in the universit; thi South-West it 



appi ared that hi 51 ral Fai ultii s n ere to bi 1 

 separab would bi !■ 



MiImii, 1 ngineer- 



1! merce, at 



Plymouth, and the humanities and pun science at 



Exeter. In regai I ce, he felt that it would 



be difficult to establish a first-rate universit) of the 



-West with the funds which at present seemed 



likel) '" bi available. The number of universit) 



students would depend upon thi ent of 



. dui ation in om w hii h the uni- 



would draw. The 10,000 pupils given as the 



number in the secondan schools of the ana com 



might I i" yield rather fewei than 700 uni- 



and « ith some 2 f thi se probabl) 



going toOxford or Cambridge, there would scarcely be 

 enough left to justify thi creation "I a South-Wi 

 University. 1 1 • would be ver) glad to see a really 

 iversity sel up in thi West of F.ngland, 

 but at thi present moment, and in view of existing 

 circumstances, he did not think that then is a 



sufficient promise of students, teachers, or financial 

 support to ju-tii ablishment of a degree- 



giving body in the two western counties, and thai 

 ■ p could be propi rh taken a g iod 

 deal of preliminary work had still to bi accomplished, 



not only in the spri 1 secondan education, but 



also in the development of the higher forms of ed 

 Hon at both Exeter and Plymouth. With thesi views 

 bi fore it, thi committi 1 thi exi cu- 



NO. 2573, vol.. 102I 



ittee to in ;overn- 



1 il Universit y 1 , ] eter, Si ale-1 la) m 



. and thi Con ill S 1 oi Mi tallifi 1 ous 



Mini . is well as thi lucatii ; 1 ol thi 



South-West, to conic 1 them in regard to thi 



ol such institu- 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Royal Society, February o. -Sir J. J. Thomson, 

 , in the- chair. — A. Mallock : Note on the elas- 

 ticity of metals as affected by temperature. The 

 present note is an account of some preliminary ex- 

 periments on the variations with temperature ol 

 Voung's modulus for fifteen selected metals. ["hi 

 choice was influenced largely by the ease with which 

 specimens could be procured. No alloys are included 

 The metals chosen were rhodium, platinum, iron, 

 palladium, nickel, copper, gold, silver, magnesium, 

 aluminium, zinc, lead, cadmium, bismuth, and tin. 

 The procedure was to determine the frequency of the 

 vibrations of a stiff rod carried at its lower end by a 

 small thin plate of the material to be tested, the other 

 end ol the plate being clamped to a fixed support. 

 The plate and its support could be immersed in fluid 

 of any desired temperature without wetting the rod 

 or in any way interfering with the mounting. The 

 temperatures employed were those of liquid air, o° 

 Centigrade, ordinary temperature (io°-i5°), and as 

 near ioo° C. as was practicable. The measured fre- 

 quencies of vibration at these temperatures furnished 

 the necesary data for determining the changes in 

 Young's modulus. The results showed that the more 

 infusible the metal, the less the modulus was affected 

 for a given change of temperature, and this suggested 

 that there might be a real connection between the 

 variation of the modulus (M) and the melting point 

 t) M in Absolut' temperature. A diagram is given com- 

 paring the experimental results with what they would 

 have been had the relation dM/d6 = 9„ been true. If 

 this ,, [ation holds, and #,, 8, are two temperatures for 

 which the moduli are M„ M>, then would 



and if 



1 I \l 



Absolute zero and 9 2 = o° C, then in this 

 melting point Absolute 



—r- for any two 



melting point Centigrade 

 temperatures differing by 270° C. The experimental 

 results show a distinct resemblance to those obtained 

 on this supposition. -W. L. Cowley and H. Levy: 

 Vibration and strength ol struts and continuous beams 

 under end thrusts. In a previous communication, 

 "The Critical Loading of Struts and Structures," the 

 authors investigated the stability of .1 strut under end 

 thrust and simply supported at a number of inter- 

 mediate points. The method of analysis has been 

 extended in the present paper to include the more 

 i problem ol the vibration of such a systen 

 when thi lateral load is periodic and the supports are 



ed in .1 state ol \ ibi ation. The flexural 1 i; 

 and the end thrust, constant along each bay, are 

 taken for further generality to vary from ba\ to bay. 



These conditions >pond closely with those 



originated in a wing spar of an aeroplane when in 

 flight and influenced by engine-throbbing. \ very 



il form of the equation of three moments is 

 deri ed, and the conditions for resonance and crippling 



pressi d in a convenient determinantal form. I he 

 general case where the end thrust, the fli sural rigidity, 

 and thi mass per unit length van between the sup- 

 ports according to any assumed law is discussed, and 

 thi mi thod of solution illustrati d in thi partii ulai 1 a 



