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NATURE 
[Marcu 4, 1897 
Scholarships and Exhibitions have been announced for com- 
petition as under:—In Natural Science, at Merton, New, and 
Corpus Christo Colleges, on July 6, 1897 ; in Mathematics, at 
Ch. Ch. and Hertford Coll., on June 2, 1897; in Classics, 
Mathematics, Modern History, or Natural Science, on April 
27, 1897. 
CAMBRIDGE.—Nine members of the Syndicate on Degrees for 
Women have reported in favour of granting by diploma the title 
of B.A. to women who pass a final Tripos examination after re- 
siding at Newnham or Girton for nine terms. They propose 
that the like grant should be made retrospectively to women who 
have already taken the qualifying examinations, and that after 
the usual periods the higher titles of M.A., D.Sc., and D.Litt. 
should be open to the titular B.A. Lastly, they regard it as 
desirable that women should be made eligible to degrees in Arts, 
Law, Science, and Music, honoris causa. A minority report 
signed by five members advocates that special titles such as 
Magistra in Litteris (M.Litt) should be devised for duly quali- 
fied women, on the ground that these would remove any dis- 
ability under which Cambridge women students may labour for 
want of a formal degree, while it would preclude any agitation 
for full membership of the University, with its concomitants of 
franchise and governing power. They apparently deprecate, for 
the same reason, the exclusion of students other than those of 
Newnham and Girton from participating in the proposed con- 
cession. The reports have yet to be discussed by the whole 
Senate, and it is not improbable that they may be referred back 
to the Syndicate. 
The Special Boards of Studies concerned with the Natural 
Sciences Tripos propose that candidates in physics and chemistry 
be allowed to send in, for the inspection of the Examiners, note- 
books showing the records of practical work done by them, and 
bearing the signature of their teacher as a guarantee of their 
boni-fides. 
Prof. A. W. Williamson, F.R.S., has been appointed an 
Elector to the professorship of Chemistry and the Jacksonian 
professorship of Natural Philosophy; and Mr. M. H. N. 
Story-Maskelyne, F.R.S., an Elector to the chair of Mineralogy. 
According to the lists just issued it appears that while there 
are only ninety-seven candidates for the Mathematical Tripos 
(Parts I. and II.), there are 144 for the two parts of the Natural 
Sciences Tripos in the Easter Term. 
By the will of the late Dr. Robert H. Lamborn, states the 
American Anthropologist, the Academy of Natural Sciences of 
Philadelphia has been bequeathed his entire estate, aggregating 
about 40,000/., the interest of which is to be used for biological 
and anthropological research. 
By the will of the late Mr. George Gordon Nicol, states the 
British Medical Journal, important bequests have been left 
to Aberdeen. Of sundry trust funds, the income on which 
accrues to his wife during her lifetime, 20,000/. are to be in trust 
for the University of Aberdeen, to found bursaries and scholar- 
ships or exhibitions to the English Universities, for Aberdeen 
students who are natives of Aberdeenshire. 
THE following are among recent announcements :—Dr. 
Edwin Klebs, the well-known German pathologist, appointed 
to be professor in the Rush Medical College, Chicago, will also 
occupy a position in the post-graduate medical school of the 
University of Chicago ; Dr. A. C. Abbott, Professor of Hygiene 
in the University of Pennsylvania, to be chief of the Bacterio- 
logical Department of the Philadelphia Health Bureau ; Dr. 
Karl Futterer, Associate Professor of Mineralogy and Geology 
in the Technical High School at Karlsruhe, to be professor ; 
Dr. Pauly, Associate Professor of Applied Zoology in the 
University of Munich, to be professor, and also director of the 
Zoological Department of the Forestry Experimental Station 
at Munich; Dr. Felix to be professor of anatomy at Viirich ; 
Dr. Karl Kaiser to be professor of physiology at Heidelberg. 
ON Friday last, at a meeting of the delegates from institutions 
named in the report of the Cowper Commission on the Univer- 
sity of London, Lord Lister moved the following resolution :— 
‘‘ That this meeting of delegates represents to Her Majesty’s 
Government the great injury caused to the educational interests 
of the metropolis by the delay in establishing a teaching Uni- 
versity for London, and urges upon them the necessity of taking 
immediate steps for the constitution of a statutory commission 
NO. 1427, VOL. 55] 
for the reconstruction of the University of London on the lines 
of the recommendations of the Cowper Commission.” The 
motion was seconded by Prof. Riicker and carried unanimously. 
Lord Lister said that his varied experience had shown him how 
much more beneficial to the progress of medical science and to 
the instruction of students the Scottish system of teaching and 
examination was than the purely examinational system of the 
University of London. After remarks in support of the reso- 
lution by other speakers, Lord Reay said that in no other 
country in Europe would such a company of distinguished men 
of science and of learning have urged on its Government the 
necessity of founding a teaching University without the Govern- 
ment at once acceding to their wishes. 
EVERY one interested in educational matters knows that eacl 
report of the U.S. Commissioner of Education is a mine of 
information upon educational progress throughout the world. 
The seventh of these annual reports, referring to events and 
developments during the year ending June 30, 1895, has just 
come to hand. It is in two volumes, each running into about 
twelve hundred pages. Though largely taken up with informa- 
tion referring to elementary schools, higher education is very 
fully dealt with, both statistically and from the pedagogical point 
of view. The movement for the admission of American students 
to French universities is surveyed. A measure has been secured 
which enables students from the United States to enter the 
faculty of sciences in French universities as candidates for the 
degree of licentiate on the basis of their American diplomas. 
After the degree has been attained, the doctor’s degree may be 
secured on substantially the same terms as in Germany, An 
account is given of continuation and trade schools in Germany, 
especially in Berlin. It shows how the German school 
authorities endeavour to prepare for skilled labour, and thus 
increase the productiveness of their sources of wealth. A chapter 
on the condition of the agricultural and mechanical colleges in 
the United States, endowed by the national land grants of 1862 
and 1899, is preceded by an historical review of early attempts to 
introduce the subjects of physics, chemistry, manual arts, and 
agriculture into schools. There is also a chapter on American 
medical schools. Information on many other educational 
subjects will be found in the recently-published report. 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 
Symons's Monthly Meteorological Magazine, F ebruary.— 
Water at unusually low temperatures. On November 30, the 
observer at Camden Square found that the water supply for 
the wet bulb thermometer on a Glaisher screen was not frozen, 
though the air temperature was 291°, and that congelation 
would not take place after stirring the water. The water was 
afterwards subjected to chemical examination; the somewhat 
negative character of the results seems to show that the exposure 
to a smoky atmosphere in the open glass vessel had increased 
the tendency to resist freezing. In another glass vessel on the 
same screen, more protected from radiation, but more exposed 
to the wind, the water was frozen into a solid mass.—An attempt 
to determine the velocity equivalents of wind-forces estimated 
by Beaufort’s scale, by R. H. Curtis. This is a summary of a 
paper read before the Royal Meteorological Society on 
December 16, 1896, a notice of which has already appeared in 
our columns. In the discussion which followed, the opinion 
was generally expressed that the publication of velocities ob- 
tained by the use of the usual factor 3, which assumes that the 
cups of the anemometer move with one-third of the wind 
velocity, should be discontinued, the results being considerably 
in excess of the true values. The revised factor, as deduced by 
Mr. Dines and others, is found to be nearer 2°2.—A tornado at 
Este’s Park, Colorado, by H. C. Rogers. The height of the 
Park is 7500 feet above sea-level. The chief interest in the 
paper lies in the usual impression that tornadoes are generally 
restricted to the plains. Information upon this point is desir-. 
able, also as to whether they escape notice owing to their force 
being less, or whether they occur less frequently because the 
conditions of heat and moisture necessary for their formation do 
not exist. 
Memoirs ( Trudy) of the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists, 
vol. xxvi., 1896: Section of Botany.—Can algze assimilate free 
nitrogen? by P. S. Kossovich.—It is known that Schloesing and. 
