46 
INGA RAE 
[ NovEMBER 12, 1896 
probable that an effort will be made to obtain at once the full 
stipend of £500. F 
Dr. J. T. Bottomley, F.R.S., has been appointed an Examiner 
in Physics, and Mr. L. Fletcher, F.R.S., an Examiner in 
Mineralogy, for the Natural Sciences Tripos. 
At St. John’s College, the following awards in natural science, 
for candidates not yet in residence, were made on November 9 : 
O. May, Tollington Park College, and G, A. Ticehurst, Ton- 
bridge School, Foundation Scholarships of £70 a year; L. 
Lewton-Brain, Firth College, Sheffield, Foundation Scholarship 
of £50 a year; L. Miall, Yorkshire College, Leeds, Minor 
Scholarship of £50 a year; A.J. Harding, Christ’s College, 
Brecon, Johnson Exhibition. 
Prof. A. C. Haddon, of the Royal College of Science, Dublin, 
has been approved for the degree of Doctor of Science. 
We regret to announce the death, at Naples, on November 8, 
of Mr, J. E. Gray, of King’s College, Harkness Scholar, who 
had just been appointed to occupy the University’s table in the 
Zoological Station under Dr. Dohrn. 
At St. John’s College, the subjects included in the examina- 
tions for Entrance Scholarships and Exhibitions in Natural 
Sciences. held in and after 1897 will be Chemistry, Physics, 
Zoology, Botany, Physiology and Physical Geography. Copies 
of the new scheme showing the scope of the examination 
in Chemistry, Physics, Botany and Physical Geography, and 
including specimen papers in Zoology and Physiology, may be 
obtained on application to any of the Tutors—Dr. Sandys, Dr. 
Donald MacAlister, or the Rev. C. E. Graves. 
THE East Riding County Council have decided to devote 
£2000 of the grant received under the Local Taxation Act, 1890, 
to the relief of the rates. We looked for better things from York- 
shire. The action affords another argument in favour of a Bill 
for securing the whole of the ‘‘ whisky money ”’ to education. 
DONATIONS amounting to about four million dollars have 
recently been conferred on, or promised to, the University of 
California; the largest gifts being from Mrs. Phebe Hearst, 
widow of the millionaire Senator. The money is to be paid 
after the State has expended half a million dollars in erecting 
new buildings. Mrs. Hearst has sent a note to the trustees, 
enclosing 15,000 dols. to be used in securing plans for the build- 
ings. The architects of all nations will be invited to compete and 
to submit plans for a group of buildings of similar design, which 
will surpass anything of the kind in the world. Mrs. Hearst 
stated that she would erect two buildings at her own expense, 
one of which would be a memorial to her late husband. 
WHEN it was decided to do something for technical education, 
six years ago, no worse blunder was ever committed than that of 
entrusting to newly-created Technical Education Committees the 
whole of the funds arising from the Customs and Excise dues, 
instead of allocating a definite proportion of the money to the 
already existing University Colleges, and for scientific investiga- 
tion. The result of the neglect is that several of the University 
Colleges are continually in need of funds, and their development 
is checked on all sides by the ogre of expense, while Technical 
Education Committees in different parts of the country have a 
difficulty in spending the moneys under their control. The 
University College at Bristol is an example of an institution 
which has suffered, rather than profited by the Local Taxation 
Act of 1890. The Calendar shows that complete instruction 
for the London University degrees in science, art, and medicine, 
can be obtained at the college ; and systematic instruction is given 
in those branches of applied science which are more nearly 
connected with the artsand manufactures. The results obtained, 
and the constitution of the professoriate, are sufficient evidence 
of the thoroughness of the instruction given; yet the college 
has practically no endowment—a paltry £75 a year, and that 
derived from a fund started by the students, and called ‘‘ The 
Students’ Endowment Fund.” The other sources of income 
are: £1200 from the Government, £500 from the Bristol Town 
Council (for the maintenance of ten free students), £100 from the 
Company of Clothworkers, a few odd amounts, and the balance 
from students’ fees. The income from annual subscriptions 
amounts to about £600. It is hardly necessary to say that the 
college cannot be kept going on such a small budget. Last 
year the accounts showed an adverse balance of £950, and a 
total indebtedness of more than £6000, part of which is due to 
a decrease of the Sustentation Fund, while the rest has been 
spent in building. An appeal for £10,000 was made in the 
early summer, and £8044 has been collected, £2000 of this 
NO. I4II, VOL. 55 | 
being contributed by the Bristol Town Council, on condition 
that it should be used in the building of an engineering wing, 
which has now been completed, and was opened last week. 
There still remains £2000 to be collected if the college is to be 
kept out of debt ; and we trust that some of the rich merchants 
in Bristol will subscribe this amount in recognition of the 
valuable work done, and of the high reputation the college has 
earned. If any of the great Livery Companies of London are look- 
ing for a worthy object to take under their fostering care, as the 
Drapers’ Company have taken the University College at Cardiff, 
| we commend to their attention the University College at Bristol. 
Two or three weeks ago the Home Secretary held out hopes 
that there would be an increase of the grant which the State now 
gives to University Colleges ; and this assistance, when it arrives, 
should place the college at Bristol in a more satisfactory position, 
though it will not do everything. Never has it been more 
necessary than now that the various professions and industries 
should receive the benefits of special scientific education. To 
let institutions where sound secondary and university education 
can be obtained be perpetually struggling for existence is, there- 
fore, to neglect one of the most, if not the most, important 
branch of our educational system. 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 
Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, vol. iii. No. 
1.—The number opens with an account of the third summer 
meeting of the Society, which was held in the week after the 
meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of 
Science, in deference to the desire expressed by that body. The 
titles ofthe papers read, and abstracts of them follow. We give 
the ensuing abstract of Prof. J. McMahon’s paper on the hypo- 
thesis of the successive transmission of gravity, and the possible 
perturbative effect on the earth’s orbit. Suppose that the sun is 
moving in a straight line with velocity #, and that the whole 
system shares this translatory motion. Suppose, also, that the 
gravitational influence issues continually from the sun in waves 
that move outward with velocity w (perhaps equal to the velocity 
of light), and that when any wave reaches the earth the latter is 
attracted towards the wave-centre or point of space from which 
the wave issued. This effective centre of acceleration is at a 
distance from the sun, which varies between the limits 4a (1 —e) 
and a (1 + e) where / is the ratio of z to 7, a is the semi-axis 
major and ¢ the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit. Then the orbit 
of the earth relatively to the sun is that which would be due to a 
centre of force that performs small oscillations about its mean 
position. The law of this oscillatory motion was determined, 
and the equations of acceleration of the earth in its orbit, along 
and perpendicular to the radius vector, were corrected for this 
small disturbance. Appropriate solutions of the resulting dif- 
ferential equations were given as far as terms in Ze, The most 
important perturbative terms were examined, and their effect on 
the orbit determined.—‘‘ Celestial Mechanics” is a review, in 
Prof. E. W. Brown’s exhaustive style, of astronomical papers 
prepared for the use of the American Ephemeris and Nautical 
Almanac (vols. v., vi., vii. ; Washington, 1894~5).—Especial 
attention is directed to a result obtained in a memoir by Prof. 
Newcomb. ‘‘If the coefficients in the time in the argu- 
ments and of the periodic terms in Delaunay’s results were all 
expressed in terms of L, G, H, a’, e’, the perturbations due to the 
indirect actions of the planets would be obtained by merely in- 
serting the variable instead of the constant values of a’, e’.” Prof. 
Newcomb remarks that this curious theorem may embody some 
principle applicable to the disturbed motion of three bodies 
which has not yet been fully mastered. It seems probable, in 
Prof. Brown’s opinion, from the way in which the result has been 
obtained, that it is a direct consequence of the use of canonical 
equations, and of the form in which the time appears in the 
result. The notes are very full, as also is the list of new 
publications. 
Wiedemann’s Annalen der Physik und Chemie, No. 10.— 
Measurement of low temperatures, by L. Holborn and W. 
Wien. Baths of pure liquid oxygen are very constant, and may 
be used for maintaining a temperature of —182°C. Liquid air 
changes from — 189*1" to — 184°8° in half an hour, owing to the 
evaporation of the nitrogen. Oxygen with 7°6 per cent. nitrogen 
boils at —183°2° under atmospheric pressure. Higher tem- 
peratures may be maintained by melting ethylbromide ( — 129°5°), 
ether (—117°6°), carbon bisulphide (—112°8°), methyl formate 
(—107°5°), toluol (-102°0), and ammonia (-78:8°).—Tem- 
