118 
NATURE 
[ DECEMBER 3, 1903 
A Bit to carry out the recommendations of the Universi- 
ties Commission, those recommendations having been 
accepted by the Government of India after consultation with 
the local administrations, was introduced by the Hon. Mr. 
Raleigh on November 4 to the Supreme Legislative Council 
of India. We learn from the Times that the Bill reduces 
the number of ordinary fellows to 100 in the case of the 
senior universities, and to 75 in the cases of the Allahabad 
and Punjab Universities. The ‘‘ syndicate ’’ is also to be 
reduced in membership, so as to make it a compact working 
body, to be recognised as the executive authority of the 
university entrusted with certain powers independently of 
the Senate. The existing members of the Senate will be 
continued merely as honorary fellows, and be divested of 
any share in the active business of the university, excepting 
the right to vote for legislative or municipal representatives. 
The privilege of electing fellows will be maintained in cases 
where it exists. It will be for the Government to decide 
as to the extension or withdrawal of the affiliation of 
colleges, the function of the university in this respect being 
merely advisory. Sir Denzil I[bbetson announced that, with 
the approval of the Secretary of State, it had been decided 
to make for five years special grants-in-aid to universities 
and colleges the claims of which to special assistance in 
carrying out the contemplated reforms are established. 
Dr. Frepertc Rose, His Majesty’s Consul at Stuttgart, 
has made another report to the Foreign Office on technical 
instruction in Germany. This report is published as No 
600 in the miscellaneous series of diplomatic and consular 
reports, and is concerned with the building and engineering 
trades’ schools, the aims, organisation and equipment of 
the Baugewerkschulen being described. Dr. Rose gives 
very instructive accounts of the schools of this kind in 
Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, and Nuremberg, and concludes with 
a history of the development of similar technical institutions 
in Prussia. These building and engineering trades’ schools 
play an important part in German technical education, 
being intended, not to train captains of industry, but rather 
subaltern officers and the rank and file of the industrial 
army. The schools are in some cases State schools, in 
others municipal schools. In Prussia nineteen out of 
twenty-two existing are State schools. The instruction is 
given both in winter and summer in some schools, in others 
during the winter months only. lt varies to a certain 
extent at the various schools, both as regards duration and 
extent. For example, Prussian schools possess four classes 
of half a year each for building, whilst Nuremberg possesses 
five, and Stuttgart and Karlsruhe six classes for the same 
purpose. As illustrative of the aims of these schools, refer- 
ence may be made to that at Stuttgart, where in the build- 
ing departments instruction suitable for the following 
workers is given :—practical master builders, subordinate 
building officials, road and street inspectors, fire prevention 
inspectors, railway inspecters, and hydraulic engineering 
techniker; in the mechanical engineering department to 
managers of workshops and factories, overseers, machine 
draughtsmen, &c. ; and in the surveying department to public 
surveyors and drainage and irrigation supervisors. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
Lonpon. 
Royal Society, November 19.—‘‘ On the Rapidity of the 
Nervous Impulse in Tall and Short Individuals.’? By Dr. 
N. H. Alcock. Communicated by A. D. Waller, M.D., 
ERS. 
While the effect of varying conditions on the rapidity of 
transmission of the nervous impulse has been fully studied, 
no research has yet been made as to whether the stature 
of the individual and the corresponding difference in the 
lengths of homologous nerves have or have not any influence 
on this rapidity, and as recent work has rendered it desir- 
able that the question should be considered, the research 
here recorded was undertaken to this end. 
Two series of observations were made :—(1) On the frog; 
(2) on man. 
The results lead to the following conclusions :— 
(1) The rapidity of the nervous impulse per unit length 
is the same whatever be the stature of the individual. 
NO. 1779, VOL. 69] 
(2) The time taken by this impulse to travel from the 
centre to the periphery is greater in taller individuals. 
(3) The nodes of Ranvier exercise no influence on the rate 
of impulse. 
Physical Society, November 27.—Dr. R. T. Glazebrook, 
F.R.S., president, in the chair.—Mr. Horace Darwin ex- 
hibited an electric thermostat. The thermostat shown at 
the meeting was made for Lord Berkeley, and is similar 
to one made for the spectrograph of the 24-inch refractor 
of the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope. The vessel 
the temperature of which is to be maintained constant is 
surrounded by oil contained in a bath. In the oil are 
placed two heating-coils, through which electric currents 
pass. By automatically controlling these currents the 
temperature of the oil, and consequently of the inner vessel, 
is kept very nearly constant. The control is effected by 
means of a Wheatstone-bridge in the outer oil-bath. This. 
bridge has two opposite arms of copper and two of 
manganin, so that it is only balanced at some definite 
temperature. Its deviations from balance affect the position 
of a long horizontal boom attached to the suspended coil 
of a galvanometer. The position of the boom determines 
the greater or less descent of a ‘‘ hit or miss”? arm which 
is periodically raised by a rotating-cam, and can only fall 
to its lowest position when the galvanometer-boom is to 
one side and allows it to pass; this position of the boom 
corresponds to a fall of temperature of the controlling- 
bridge. Thus the position of the “‘ hit or miss’’ arm at 
its lowest position depends on the temperature, and it is 
the variation of this position which regulates the amount 
of current passing through the heating-coils. ‘The thermo- 
stat supplied to the Cape Observatory is capable of keep- 
ing the temperature within 1/100° C. for a period of eight 
hours. —On the occurrence of cavitation in lubrication, by 
Mr. S. Skinner. The experiments described in the paper 
arose from an observation made when determining the re- 
fractive index of a liquid by means of Newton’s rings. As 
Newton showed, the rings can be obtained when a liquid 
is run into the space between the lenses. If when the 
liquid has been introduced the upper lens be rolled on the 
lower, the observer sees following the central dark spot a 
crescent-shaped space, very bright provided the illumination 
be sufficiently oblique. This is a vacuous or vapour-filled 
space, for when the motion of rolling ceases the liquid flows 
into the space and completely fills it- The inflow of the 
liquid depends in some way on the viscosity, and the effects 
are more pronounced when a more viscous liquid is used. 
The most convenient mode of observation is to use a deeply- 
coloured liquid, and to look at the space by transmitted 
light. The author has found that a convenient liquid is a 
strong solution of fuchsin in glycerin. The cavities which 
are formed must be produced either by splitting the liquid 
itself or by tearing the liquid from the glass surface. The 
effect may be described as a case of ‘* cavitation.’? Some 
experiments were made to imitate the actual case of a fully 
lubricated axle rotating under a bearing. In ball-bearings 
completely immersed in oil, the experiments show that there 
must be a small cavity near the point of nearest approach 
of each ball to its neighbours, and also to the surface on 
which it is running. As the friction of the bearing is the 
viscous friction of the oil, it follows that the friction must 
be considerably reduced by the formation of these cavities, 
which are filled with relatively non-viscous vapour. The 
high lubricating property of oils owes its origin not only 
to their superior viscosity, but also, possibly, 
with which cavities may be formed in them.—Prof. R. 
Threlfall exhibited and described the following instru- 
ments which he has used in the testing of electric generators 
by air calorimetry :—(1) A “ hot-wire voltmeter *’ accurate 
to 1/100 volt. The wire in this instrument is very fine, and 
special precautions are taken to keep the tension on it con- — 
stant, so that the elongation measured is due only to the 
expansion of the wire caused by the heating effect of the 
current. (2) A ‘‘ Pitot tube’’ for the measurement of air 
velocity, the velocity being proportional to the square root 
of the pressure produced in the tube. (3) A *‘ manometer ” 
for determining pressure differences in Pitot tubes with 
accuracy. This consists essentially of two bottles contain- 
ing coloured water, which are connected by a syphon, and 
the air-space of each bottle is put in communication with 
to the facility — 
en 
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