NovEMBER 19, 1896] 
NATURE 
69 
enable one, listening to the latter, to hear the pitch of the former 
loudly reproduced when the magnet is struck like a tuning-fork 
so asto vibrate. This shows that the field of the magnet changes 
at the same rate as the vibrations. 
Assume that the magnet becomes smaller and smaller until it 
is of the dimensions of an atom, say, for an approximation, the 
fifty-millionth of an inch. It would still have its field ; it would 
still be elastic and capable of vibration, but at an enormously 
rapid rate; but its vibration would change its field in the 
same way, and so there would be formed those waves in the 
ether, which, because they are so short that they can affect 
he eye, we call light. The mechanical conceptions are legi- 
imate, because based upon experiments having ranges through 
nearly the whole gamut as waves in ether. 
The idea implies that every atom has what may be loosely 
called an electro-magnetic grip upon the whole of the ether, 
and any change in the former brings some change in the 
latter. 
What I would like to emphasise is, that the action in the ether 
snot electric action, but more properly the result of electro- 
magnetic action. Whatever name be given to it, and however it 
comes about, there is no good reason for calling any kind of an 
ether action electrical. 
Electric action, like magnétic action, begins and ends 
in matter. It is subject to transformations into thermal and 
mechanical actions, also into ether stress—right-handed or left- 
handed—which, in turn, can similarly affect other matter, but 
with opposite polarities. 
In his ‘‘ Modern Views of Electricity.” Prof. O. J. Lodge 
warns us, in a way I quite approve, that perhaps, after all, 
there is no such ¢Azzg as electricity—that electrification and 
electric energy may be terms to be kept; but if electricity as a 
term be held to imply a force, a fluid, an imponderable, or a 
thing which could be described by some one who knew enough, 
then it has no degree of probability, for spinning atomic 
magnets seem capable of déveloping all the electrical phenomena 
we meet. 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
OxrorD.—The election to the Professorship of Geology, 
vacant through the death of the late Prof. Green, will take place 
in Hilary Term, 1897. Candidates are requested to send their 
applications, together with such evidence of their qualifications 
as they may desire, to the Registrar of the University on or 
before February 1, 1897. The Professor is required to lecture 
in Geology and Paleontology in two of the three University 
Terms, and to take charge of the Geological and Palzontological 
collections belonging to the University. He is entitled to 
receive £400 per annum from the University chest, which sum 
may be augmented to not less than £700 nor more than £900 
per annum, if the University revenues permit, and unless pro- 
vision for the payment of a corresponding amount shall have 
been made from some other source. Mr. W. B. Prowse is at 
present acting as Deputy Professor. 
Mr. W. Ramsden has been elected Sheppard Medical Fellow 
of Pembroke College. 
The Burdett-Coutts Scholarship will not be awarded for 1896, 
the only candidate who presented himself having withdrawn 
before the close of the examination. 
Prof. E. B. Poulton has recently returned to Oxford from a 
visit to America. 
The following have been approved by Convocation as 
Examiners in Medicine for 1897, 1898, and 1899 :—1. For the 
first M.B. Examination: Prof. A. Macalister (Cambridge), in 
Human Anatomy. 2. For the second M.B, Examination : 
Prof. W. MacEwen (Glasgow), in Surgery. Dr. David Berry 
Hart (Edin. ), in Midwifery. 
The Junior Scientific Club held its first meeting this term on 
Friday, November 6, when Mr. D. Meinertzhagen (New Coll.) 
gave an interesting account of ‘* Hawks and Hawking,” and Mr. 
W. Garstang read a paper entitled, ‘‘The Ancestry* of the 
Vertebrata as a Physiological Problem.” The Committee for 
the present term is composed as follows :—President: H. P. 
Stevens. Treasurer: A. W. Brown. Secretaries: E. H. 
Hunt and I. B. Billinghurst. Editors: R. A. Buddicum, A. E. 
Boycott, A. C. Pilkington and A. R. Wilson. 
NO. 1412, VOL. 55] 
| 
CAMBRIDGE.—An election to an Isaac Newton Studentship 
of 200/. a year for three years will be held in the Lent Term, 
1897. The student is to devote himself to research in Cambridge 
in astronomy or physical optics. Candidates must be Cambridge 
B.A.s under the age of twenty-five on January 1, 1897. Ap- 
plications are to be sent to the Vice-Chancellor not later than 
January 25. 
Mr. S. F. Harmer has been appointed Chairman of Examiners 
for the Natural Sciences Tripos, 1897. 
The Sedgwick Memorial Museum Syndicate propose that the 
site granted by the University near the new museums should be 
abandoned, and that a new site on the ground formerly belong- 
ing to Downing College, and recently acquired by the University, 
should be assigned instead. Some difference of opinion is likely 
to arise on the expediency of the proposal, which will involve 
the preparation of new plans and further delay. 
The following awards in Natural Science were made at Trinity 
College on November 14: Major Scholarship (80/.), O. W. 
Richardson, Batley School ; Minor Scholarship (50/.), G. Barger, 
High School, The Hague; Sizarship, R. E. Robinson, New- 
castle (Staffs.) School ; Exhibitions (40/.), H. Gaskell (Rugby), 
G. Savory (Harrow), and E. E. Walker (Bradford). 
Dr. Puitterp LENARD has removed from Aachen, to take 
up a professorship of theoretical physics in the University of 
Heidelberg. 
Mr. Tuomas TICKLE, of the School of Pharmacy, has been 
elected to the Salters’ Company Research Fellowship in 
Chemistry, tenable in the Research Laboratory of the Pharma- 
ceutical Society. 
WITH reference to the note on the University College, Bristol, 
in last week’s NATURE (p. 46) we are informed that the Bristol 
Town Council has altogether given the College 4000/7. The 
Council gave 2000/. towards the Engineering wing, just opened 
by Mr. Wolfe Barry, and has recently granted another 2000/. 
towards the capital sum of 10,000/. which the College authorities 
are trying to ralse. 
A RECENT law restored to the various French University 
centres the title of University, together with some measure of 
self-government ; whereas since the time of Napoleon they had 
simply been sections of one University, and with the title of 
faculties. The Z7zes correspondent at Paris states that arrange- 
ments have been made to celebrate the opening of term under 
the new system to-day by a gathering of professors and students, 
over which M. Faure will preside. 
Av the distribution of prizes at the Barking Technical School, 
by the Countess of Warwick, on November 11, an address on the 
technical education movement was delivered by Prof. R. Mel- 
dola, F.R.S., of the Technical Instruction Committee of the 
Essex County Council. In the course of his remarks, the 
speaker deplored the line of action so generally followed through- 
out Essex, as well as in other counties, and which resulted in the 
greater part of the fund ai their disposal being frittered away in 
small efforts at evening instruction. The main portion of the 
address was devoted to pointing out the true position of evening 
work in the scheme of technical education. It was contended that 
this kind of instruction, although to a certain extent useful, and 
even necessary, was not in itself more than an aid to true technical 
education, and could not, unless crowned by higher efforts, be 
of any use to the country at large as a means of enabling us to 
compete successfully with our foreign rivals in manufacturing 
and agricultural industries. For this reason the speaker, while 
admitting the good work which had been hitherto carried on at 
Barking, felt bound to express his regret that so much of the re- 
sources available for technical instruction had been used up in 
the formation of classes for cookery, ambulance, dressmaking. 
and other subjects, which, in his opinion, should have been sub- 
sidised from other sources, or else taught in schools. Reference 
was made to the recent correspondence in the papers on the 
state of technical education on the continent as compared with 
that in this country, and figures were quoted showing the relative 
amount of endowment of technical high schools and polytechnics 
in Germany and Switzerland as compared with those in England. 
The speaker described from personal experience, and in high terms 
of praise, the zeal and energy with which men engaged all 
day in arduous work will come to evening classes to improve 
their knowledge of scientific principles. He felt sure, however, 
that such men were sensible enough to see how hopeless it was 
to make headway against the expert knowledge of highly-trained 
and specialised students from the German schools, who devote 
