NATURE 
[Fepruary 18, 1897 
platform in rough weather, and that to obtain the necessary 
strength the weight would become excessive. 
Practically the carrying part of the structure rests on six 
floating vessels coupled together by a framework. It does not 
follow that because this principle as applied to the lightly-con- 
structed canoes used by the natives of the Polynesian Islands is 
successful, that it could therefore be applied to the enormous 
structure required for an Atlantic liner. The Ca/azs Douvre 
and other coupled boats which have been built for the cross- 
Channel passage, have certainly not proved a success. 
M. Bazin, the inventor, is an engineer well known in France 
for the originality of his ideas, and for the invention of a sub- 
marine machine that served for the attempt to raise the Spanish 
galleons sunk in Vigo Bay ; also for inventions in connection 
with gold-washing machinery, dredgers, cranes, &c. His roller- 
boat will no doubt attract a great deal of attention when it 
arrives in the Thames. 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
CAMBRIDGE.—The degree of Doctor of Science will be con- 
ferred on Dr, Nansen at a special congregation to be held at 
I p.m. on March 16. 
Prof. E. E. Barnard, of the Yerkes Observatory, Chicago, is 
to exhibit his photographs of the Milky Way, and other celestial 
objects, in' the Lecture Theatre of the Cavendish Laboratory, 
at 4 p.m. on February 20. 
Dr. A. C. Haddon is this term giving two well-attended 
classes (one elementary and one advanced) in physical anthro- 
pology at the Anatomy School. 
An examination for scholarships and exhibitions in natural 
science and engineering will be held at Trinity College on 
March 15. Details may be learned on application to the tutors. 
THE Cornwall County Council have had to further increase 
the salary attached to the lectureship on fisheries to £350 per 
annum, to enable them to secure a competent instructor. 
AT a meeting of the Council of the Royal College of Sur- 
geons, on Saturday last, the following resolution was adopted 
(subject to the approval of the Royal College of Physicians) : 
‘*That the Royal College of Physicians of London and the 
Royal College of Surgeons of England, in full accord with their 
previous action, express the earnest desire that her Majesty's 
Government will, at the earliest opportunity, reintroduce a Bill 
for the reconstitution of the London University by statutory com- 
mission on the general lines of the report of the Cowper Com- 
mission, and do assure the Government that such a course will 
have their approval and support.” It was further resolved that 
if the Royal College of Physicians adopted the foregoing reso- 
lution, copies of it should be forthwith forwarded to the Lord 
President of the Council, Mr. Balfour, and the Senate of the 
University of London. 
A PLEA for the establishment of a National University at 
Washington is made in Sczence of February 5. It is suggested 
that the University should be developed from the national in- 
Stitutions already existing at Washington. ‘‘ Workers in the dif- 
ferent Government divisions and others having the proper pre- 
liminary education could, on presenting a thesis showing original 
work and passing an examination, receive the doctorate of 
philosophy, and this would qualify them as a civil service 
examination for promotion. The present Commissioner of 
Education, and perhaps the Regents of the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion, could govern the University. Examiners could be appointed 
from leading representatives of science and learning, who would 
meet yearly for a week of convocation in Washington. We 
believe that, without radical changes, and with nominal expense, 
there could be established at Washington a National University 
likely to become the world’s greatest University.” 
AN annual report, received a few days ago, tells us that the 
past year was more than usually interesting in the history of the 
Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College, as being the 
centenary of the foundation of Anderson’s College, which 
received its charter of incorporation from the magistrates of the 
City of Glasgow on June 9, 1796. Besides being the oldest 
member of this composite institution, the interest attaching to 
Anderson’s College—apart from the fame of its medical school, 
now a separate institution—lies in the fact that it was the pro- 
NO. 1425, VOL. 55] 
genitor of mechanics’ institutions and the pioneer of technical 
education in this country. The record of successes of past and 
present students testifies to the soundness of the instruction 
given. The College is extending its operations rapidly over the 
West of Scotland, and, as its name implies, it is now more than 
a Glasgow institution. We notice that Mr. G. F. Scott Elliot 
has been appointed lecturer in botany, in succession to the late 
Mr. Thomas King, who occupied that position for many years. 
THE fifth annual report of the Technical Instruction Sub- 
committee of the City of Liverpool, which has reached us, shows 
that the high standard of efficiency was maintained during 1896. 
Most educationists will agree with the Chairman, who says, in 
his prefatory remarks, that ‘‘it will be a considerable advantage 
to the cause of higher education generally when it is recognised, 
by legislative authority, that specialised technical instruction can 
only properly be carried on as part of a general scheme of 
secondary education, and when means are provided for en- 
couraging and developing general secondary education without 
attempting to force it too soon towards specialisation.” The 
detailed report of the Director shows that no part of the 
legitimate work of a local system of technical instruction has 
been neglected. The teaching of science and modern languages 
has been further improved and developed in the secondary 
schools, special attention being very properly directed towards the 
provision of every convenience for the necessary amount of 
practical instruction in chemistry and physics. Side by side 
with this provision for young boys and girls, we find an efficient 
system of evening classes in commercial and technical subjects 
for young men who have started upon the serious work of life. 
The Committee have shown their appreciation of their good 
fortune in having a University College at hand by helping it 
to the extent of £1700 during the past year, which has been 
marked by a much needed extension of the chemical laboratories, 
and by the establishment of a new Natural History Museum. 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 
Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, January. 
—“On the stability of a sleeping top” is the abstract of a lec- 
ture delivered by Prof. Klein before the Society at the Princeton 
meeting, October 17, 1896. It will be remembered that Prof. 
Klein delivered four lectures ‘‘On the theory of the top,” at the 
sesquicentennial celebration of the University. In these latter 
an attempt was made to simplify the formule for the motion of 
a top by turning to account the methods of the modern theory 
of functions. The later lecture before us considers from the 
same standpoint a much more elementary question, viz. the 
stability of a top rotating about an axis directed vertically up- 
wards. The point of support is supposed to be fixed. When 
the rotation is very rapid the behaviour of the top is as if its 
axis were held fixed by a special force. Some interesting re- 
sults are arrived at.—Bibliography of surfaces and_ twisted 
curves, by Dr. J. E. Hill, consists mainly of extracts from a 
paper read before the Society in May last. It attempts to re- 
present a compilation and classification of all articles, with cer- 
tain exceptions, upon these surfaces and curves which have been 
published during the present century. The paper itself should 
be, judging from these extracts, extremely useful to students. — 
Linear differential equations is a review, by Prof. M. Bécher, 
of Schlesinger’s ‘‘ Handbuch der Theorie der Linearen Differen- 
tialgleichungen,” and, like the previous work by Prof. Bécher'’ 
in the Bz//etzz, is thorough. The writer’s conclusion is that 
though the book fails to meet some of the demands which it 
seems to him may fairly be made of a handbook, it is certain to 
fill an important place in a_ mathematical library, owing to the 
great amount of information which it contains in accessible 
form.—Messrs. R. W. Willson and B. O. Peirce furnish 
a table of the first forty roots of the Bessel equation J.(x) = 0. 
with the corresponding values of J,(«). This is a paper which 
was presented to the Society at its summer meeting, September 
I, 1896.—The final article, not counting the notes and publica- 
tions, is entitled ‘‘ Notes on the Theory of Bilinear Forms,” and 
is by Prof. H. Taber. It was read at the November meeting. 
Wiedemann’s Annalen der Physik und Chemie, No. 2.—On 
the dissipation of electricity from a conductor into the air, and 
on the influence exerted by an increase of temperature of the 
conductor upon this process, by A. Oberbeck. A thin wire, to 
which an electric charge is imparted, loses its charge more 
