358 
NATURE 
[ FEBRUARY II, 1904 
Education has now been published. The subjects included 
in the volume of 1176 pages relate to educational problems 
in all parts of the world; and prominence is given to the 
needs and condition of higher education in various countries. 
Among chapters likely to interest men of science may be 
mentioned the first instalment of a compilation of the general 
laws relating to colleges in the United States founded, 
under Acts of Congress, for the establishment and for the 
more complete endowment and support of colleges for the 
benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts. An account 
of education in British South Africa reviews the facts with 
reference to Cape Colony, and enumerates the efforts being 
made in the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony to 
supply efficient education. Interesting particulars concern- 
ing university work in France are given in an article on 
education in France. It appears that the number of students 
in the French State universities rose from 17,605 in 1887-88 
to 29,931 in 1901, of whom 3910 were registered in the 
faculty of sciences. It should be added that there are also 
in France 3500 students in State technical schools of a high 
order. A chapter on Italian education reveals evidence of 
the increasing favour in which technical instruction is held 
in Italy. In 1899-1900 there were 37,900 students attending 
the Government and private technical high schools, and of 
these 3900 were women. In Russia, according to an article 
by E. Kovalevsky, there are thirteen superior technical in- 
stitutions with 8000 students. It is impossible even to 
enumerate the complete contents of this valuable report ; it 
will provide students of education with material for much 
study and thought. 
A spECIAL subcommittee on technical instruction for 
women, appointed by the Technical Education Board of the 
London County Council, has issued a report. The sub- 
committee found that it could get little help from the study 
of foreign institutions, as the women’s technical schools in 
Continental countries are day schools in which general 
education and technical training are given together. 
Technical classes like those carried on at London poly- 
technics, and work-girl students like those who attend such 
classes, are practically unknown on the Continent. The 
report first reviews the opportunities for technical instruc- 
tion now open to women, and then proceeds to make sugges- 
tions for promoting further developments in such technical 
instruction. It is urged that, wherever possible, women 
teachers should be appointed for those trade classes which 
are reserved exclusively for women; that the attention of 
leading employers be directed to the action which has already 
been taken by certain firms in arranging for their appren- 
tices to attend technical classes; and that the attention of 
girls in the elementary schools be directed to the oppor- 
tunities for industrial training, and that every encourage- 
ment be offered to them to attend technical classes. 
Among the proposals—which number twenty-six—made by 
the subcommittee, a few seem of special importance. 
For instance, that classes be established for the training of 
women in hygiene and sanitation with the view of their 
taking up the occupation of sanitary, workshop, or public 
health inspectors, or of rent collectors; that in domestic 
economy schools more thorough instruction be given in the 
care and management of young children; that day classes 
for the training of daily servants or charwomen be con- 
ducted; and that technical day schools for girls, with a 
course planned to cover three years, be opened as opportunity 
offers. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
Lonpon. 
Geological Society, January 6.—Sir Archibald Geikie, 
Sec.R.S., vice-president, in the chair.—On a Paleolithic 
floor at Prah Sands, in Cornwall: Clement Reid, F.R.S., 
and Eleanor M. Reid. Prah Sands lie about 7 miles east 
of Penzance, and have long been known as exhibiting a 
good section of “‘ head ’’ or rubble-drift, over raised beach, 
which rests on a wave-worn rocky platform. Recent storms 
have cleared away the talus at the foot of the cliff, and 
have exposed, between the ‘‘ head ’’ and the raised beach, 
a Paleolithic land-surface, consisting of loamy soil pene- 
NO. 1789, VOL. 69] 
trated by small roots. In and above this occur black seams 
full of small fragments of charcoal and bone; these are 
particularly abundant round groups of large flat stones, 
which seem to have formed ancient hearths. | The black 
seams contain implements made of vein-quartz. For a few 
feet above this land-surface the angular ‘‘ head ’’ consists 
mainly of loam with fragments of vein-quartz, some of 
which are worked. This seems to be the first record of 
Palzolithic man in Cornwall.—Implementiferous sections at 
Wolvercote (Oxfordshire): A. M. Bell. This section shows 
the following beds :—(1) Oxford Clay; (2) old surface, in 
which are pits or troughs chiefly filled with gravel and en- 
veloped in weathered clay; (3) a large river-bed, containing 
gravel at the base, and layers of clay above; (4) Neolithic 
surface-layer, 2 feet thick. The gravel of the river-bed con- 
tains quartzite-pebbles, some of exceptional size, and is 
covered by a thin lenticular layer of peat and sand, yielding 
thirty flowering plants and many mosses; the clays over 
this have probably been formed in a lake, possibly due to a 
beaver-dam. In the gravel-bed are found implements 
formed of flint quarried from the Chalk, or of quartzite 
from pebbles of the Northern Drift, all remarkable for their 
size, beauty, and freshness, together with the remains of 
large mammals, including the mammoth. The old surface, 
from which the river-bed has been eroded, has also yielded 
implements associated with quartzites, quartz-pebbles, and 
lydianstone, gravel from the Thames Valley, limestone- 
pebbies, Oolitic fossils, and sand. 
Zoological Society, January 19.—G. A. Boulenger, F.R.S. 
vice-president, in the chair.—A communication from Mr. 
Guy A. K. Marshall, entitled ‘‘ A Monograph of the 
Coleoptera of the Genus Hipporhinus, Schh.,’’ was read. 
It contained an enumeration of 138 known species of the 
genus, of which 50 were described as new.—Dr. Walter 
Kidd proposed the use of two additional characters in the 
description of genera and species of certain mammals. 
These were the arrangement of the hair on the naso-frontal 
region and the distribution of hair-whorls.—Dr. W. G. 
Ridewood read a paper on the skull of the giraffe, based 
on sections made in five different places through a skull of 
that animal.—Mr. F. E. Beddard, F.R.S., read a note on 
the brains of the potto (Perodicticus potto) and the slow 
loris (Nycticebus tardigradus), and made some observations 
upon the arteries of the brain in certain primates that had 
died in the society’s menagerie.—Dr. C. W. Andrews read 
a paper on the pelvis and hind-limb of the ratite bird 
Mullerornis betstlet, and described a new struthious bird, 
from the Upper Eocene beds of the Fayum, Egypt. 
Royal Meteorological Society, January 20.—Annual 
general meeting, Captain D. Wilson-Barker, president, in 
the chair.—The Symons gold medal for 1904, awarded to 
Hofrath Dr. Julius Hann, of Vienna, in consideration of 
his eminent services to the science of meteorology, was 
received by Count L. Széchenyi, First Secretary to the 
Austro-Hungarian Embassy, on behalf of Dr. Hann.—The 
President in his address dealt with the present condition 
of ocean meteorology, and began by referring to the early 
workers in meteorological science, Lieut. M. F. Maury in 
America and Admiral R. FitzRoy in England, also to the 
address on the same subject delivered to the society by Dr. 
R. H. Scott, F.R.S., in 1886. He then sketched the pre- 
sent state of our knowledge, illustrating his remarks by 
numerous maps. He reviewed the meteorological work of 
different nations, pointing out the energetic action of the’ 
United States in particular, and of Germany and England. 
He regretted the want of liberality shown by the Govern- 
ment in affording financial aid for the development of this 
important science, and in conclusion he urged the necessity 
of interesting the youth of the country in the matter by 
making it a special subject of school and college curricula. 
Royal Microscopical Society, January 20.—Annual 
meeting, Dr. Hy. Woodward, F.R.S., president, in the 
chair.—The curator, Mr. C. Rousselet, exhibited an old 
microscope by Plossl, of Vienna, which had been sent on 
approval.—Dr. Woodward, the retiring president, gave 
his annual address, taking as his subject ‘‘ The Evolution 
of Vertebrate Animals in Time.”’ 
