January 28, 1904] 
NATURE Ba 
ro) 
presentatives of all the great engineering associations in 
this country, the duty of which it would be to report as to 
the best mode of training British engineers in the future. 
We had at present no proper system of secondary education 
preparing students for entering technical institutes. In this 
respect the Germans had certainly stolen a march upon us. 
We should cease arguing for ever whether the classical side 
or the modern side of education was the best. The simple 
solution was that they should go on side by side. There 
should be a more generous recognition by employers of the 
necessity and value of the services of trained men. It was 
a sad thing to know that some of the researches originally 
made in this country had been first turned to practical 
account abroad. He knew one case where British manu- 
facturers were to this day paying large royalties in con- 
nection with a process of steel manufacture which was 
actually initiated in England. He looked forward to a 
system of technical education in London and throughout the 
country which would show the world that England was 
still the leader in industry and in resource. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
Lonpon. 
Mathematical Society, January 14.—Dr. E. W. Hobson, 
vice-president, in the chair—The following papers were 
communicated :—Various systems of piling: Prof. J. D. 
Everett. The method of ‘‘ steps’? for dealing with the 
structure of piles of equal spheres is applied to various 
arrangements which are of especial interest in crystallo- 
graphy.—The notion of lines of curvature in the theory of 
surfaces: Dr. G. Prasad. The object of the paper is to 
investigate conditions under which certain known theorems 
in the theory of surfaces can be extended to the case in 
which the coordinates of points on the surface are defined 
by non-analytical functions. The theorems in question 
are :—(1) The only surface of constant positive curvature is 
a sphere; (2) no surface of constant negative curvature with 
continuously varying tangent plane can extend to infinite 
distances.—Electric radiation from conductors: H. M. 
Macdonaid. It is shown that in general, when electrical 
oscillations on a conductor are taking place, no surface can 
be drawn to cut the lines of electric force at right angles 
and to be everywhere close to the surface of the conductor. 
If such a surface could be drawn there would be no decay 
of the oscillations by radiation. It is shown that surfaces 
can be drawn to have the property in question everywhere 
except near the nodal points of the oscillation, and it is 
concluded that the radiation takes place mainly in the 
neighbourhood of the nodes. It is pointed out further that 
the ordinary theory of electrical waves along wires involves 
an invalid limiting operation, by which the wires are treated 
as indefinitely thin and the electric force is taken, neverthe- 
less, to be everywhere at right angles to the wires; and the 
correction of the ordinary theory required to avoid this 
operation is discussed.—Groups of the order prg®: Prof. 
W. Burnside. By a consideration of certain properties of 
the group-characteristics of groups of the orders in ques- 
tion, it is shown that all these groups are soluble.—The 
solution of partial differential equations by means of definite 
integrals: H. Bateman. The paper deals with various 
generalisations of the known solutions of Laplace’s equation 
by means of definite integrals ——Open sets and the theory 
of content: Dr. W..H. Young. Two definitions of the 
content of an open set are given, and are shown to be in 
agreement for that class of open sets which has the property 
that the content of the set, obtained by adding to any 
member of the class any set of rion-overlapping intervals, 
is equal to the sum of the contents of the component sets. 
This class contains all known open sets, and all those 
obtainable from them by any of the ordinary processes.— 
Upper and lower integration: Dr. W. H. Young. All 
functions, whether integrable or not, possess upper in- 
tegrals and lower integrals. The problem of determining 
them is reduced in. the paper to that.of ordinary integra- 
tion. Tt is shown that an upper n-ple integral of a dis- 
continuous function can be expressed in terms of [ lak, 
where I is the content of the set of points at which the 
NO. 1787, VOL. 69] 
maximum of the function is not less than k, and the integral 
is taken between suitable limits.—List of primes of the 
form 4n+1 between 108 and 10°+10°: Dr. T. B. Sprague. 
Paris. 
Academy of Sciences, January 18.—M. Mascart in the 
chair.—The application of the general theory of the flow 
of sheets of water infiltrated in the soil to large springs of 
permeable strata, and, in particular, to several of those 
supplying Paris: J. Boussinesq. ‘The mathematical 
theory previously worked out by the author has been applied 
to the three sources of Dhuis, Cérilly, and Armentiéres. It 
is found that for important springs in permeable ground 
the basin of supply is considerably extended downwards 
below its edge—On the first numbers of the photographic 
catalogue of the sky published by M. Trépied: M. Loewy. 
—On the dispersion of the n-rays and on their wave- 
length: R. Blondlot. The dispersion was studied by 
means of aluminium prisms and lenses, and it was recog- 
nised that the radiation was separated into eight bundles, 
the refractive indices of which varied from 1-04 to 1-85. 
The wave-lengths were determined by two methods: by a 
diffraction grating and by the formation of Newton’s rings. 
The results of the two methods were concordant within the 
limits of experimental error, the wave-lengths determined 
proving to be much shorter than those of light. These 
radiations would appear to be different from the rays of 
very short wave-length discovered by M. Schumann, inas- 
much as the latter are strongly absorbed by air and the 
n-rays are not.—On the peroxides of zinc: M. de Forcrand. 
A discussion of the results of M. Kuriloff with regard to 
the formula of peroxide of zinc.—On a characteristic 
property of the families of Lamy: Alphonse Demoulin.— 
On the genre of the derivative of an entire function and on 
the exceptional case of M. Picard: A. Wiman.—The action 
of radium bromide on the electrical resistance of bismuth: 
R. Paillot. The radiations emitted by radium bromide 
diminish the electrical resistance of bismuth. The action is 
practically instantaneous, rapidly falling off with the 
distance of the radium tube from the bismuth and vanish- 
ing when this distance amounts to 1 cm.—On a self-record- 
ing differential speed measurer : J. Richard.—The influence 
of the physical nature of the anode on the constitution of 
electrolytic peroxide of lead: A. Hollard. If the lead were 
deposited as the dioxide, the analytical factor would be 
0-866 to convert the dioxide into lead. Experiments with 
an anode of roughened platinum gave a factor of 0-853, this 
being independent of the amount of lead in solution.—The 
chemical nature of colloidal solutions: Jacques Ductaux.— 
A method of separating alumina and iron by the use of 
formic acid: A. Leclere. A modification of the hypo- 
sulphite of sodium method, in which the aluminium is 
separated as the basic formate.—The estimation of chlorates, 
bromates, and iodates: Léon Débourdeaux.—The prepar- 
ation of primary alcohols by means of the corresponding 
amides: L. Bouveault and G. Blane. The higher fatty 
amides, reduced by sodium in boiling ethyl alcoholic solu- 
tion, give yields of from 25 to 30 per cent. of the theoretical. 
Normal hexyl, normal nonyl, and phenylethyl alcohols were 
prepared in this way.—The synthesis of sugars, starting 
from trioxymethylene and sulphite of soda: A. Seyewetz 
and M. Gibello.—A new method of synthesis of tertiary 
alcohols by means of organomagnesium compounds : 
\V. Grignard. The magnesium compound R.MgX is con- 
verted into R.CO,.MgX by the action of carbon dioxide, and 
this is then treated with an additional molecule of R’.MgX, 
the object being to prepare the ketone R.CO.R’. The re- 
action was found, however, to. result in the production of 
the tertiary alcohol R.R’/,.OH. The new alcohols prepared 
by this method include diethylisoamyl carbinol, isobutyl- 
diisoamyl carbinol, and phenyldiethy! carbinol.—The in- 
fluence of radium rays on the development and growth of 
the lower fungi: J. Dauphin. The radium rays arrest the 
growth of the mycelium of Mortierella, but the spores and 
mycelium are not killed, but are in a latent state, and, re- 
placed under normal conditions, can germinate and continue 
to grow.—Researches on the transpiration of the leaves of 
Eucalyptus: Ed. Griffon. In opposition to the views 
generally expressed, it is found that the leaves of Eucalyptus 
have not an unusually large transpiratory capacity com- 
