224 
of agriculture at the University of Leeds. The 
University Council has provided a site for the new 
building, and much of the experimental work will be 
done at the Manor Farm, Garforth. 
MancuesterR.—Mr. A. R. Wardle, assistant demon- 
strator in zoology in the Royal College of Science, Lon- 
don, has been appointed lecturer in economic zoology in 
succession to Mr. J. Mangan, who resigned at the 
end of last session to take up the position of assistant 
to the professor of biology in the Government Medical 
College, Cairo. 
Mr. W. McBretNney, headmaster of the Storey 
Institute, Lancaster, has been appointed headmaster 
of the new Secondary School and Technical Institute 
at Wallsend. 
Four Gresham Lectures on Harvey, Darwin, and 
Huxley will be delivered on October 28, 29, 30, and 31, 
by Dr. F. M. Sandwith, Gresham professor of physic. 
The lectures, which will be given at the City of Lon- 
don School, Victoria Embankment, E.C., are free to 
the public, and will begin each evening at six o’clock. 
Ir is stated in Science that M. Ernest Solvay, the 
discoverer of the Solvay process for the manufacture 
of sodium carbonate, celebrated the fiftieth anniver- 
sary of that discovery on September 2 last at Brussels 
by giving more than 200,001. to educational and charit- 
able institutions and the employees of his firm. The 
Universities of Paris and Nancy each received 20,000). 
THE new engineering laboratories at University 
College, Dundee, were opened on October 14, by Sir 
Alexander Kennedy, F.R.S. The chair of engineering 
was one of the first to be established at Dundee Uni- 
versity College, and in 1882,, Prof. (now Sir Alfred) 
Ewing, K.C.B., was elected as its first occupant. For 
some few years after the foundation of the college, the 
facilities for the experimental teaching of engineering 
were meagre, and it was not until 1887 that an 
engineering laboratory on an adequate scale was pro- 
vided. In January, 1911, the University authorities 
decided to build and equip a new engineering block, 
utilising for the purpose a grant of 10,o00l. made by 
the Carnegie Trust for the development of the Scottish 
Universities. This department has been erected at 
a cost, including equipment, of about 15,5001. Owing 
to the completion in 1910 of the Peters’s Electrical 
Engineering Laboratory, the college is well equipped 
for the study of this branch of engineering, and the 
present laboratories are devoted to the investigation of 
problems involved in civil and mechanical engineering. 
The heat-engine equipment at present includes an 
experimental steam engine, a gas engine, and a petrol 
motor, while provision is made for the installation of 
a Diesel oil engine and a steam turbine in the near 
future. The heat engine-room also contains all the 
apparatus necessary for the measurement of the heat 
value of solid and gaseous fuels, for the analysis of 
flue, exhaust, and fuel gases, and for the measure- 
ment of the dryness of steam, &c. The equipment of 
the strength of materials laboratory consists of a 
50-ton Buckton single-lever testing machine, fitted 
for tension, compression, and cross-breaking, and with 
autographic recorder, an alternating stress machine, 
and cement testing machine, along with apparatus 
for determining the moduli of elasticity and rigidity, 
and for investigating the strength of struts and 
the elastic vibrations and deformations of structures. 
The hydraulic equipment includes a 24-in. Pelton 
wheel, a o-in. inward flow pressure turbine, an elec- 
trically-driven centrifugal pump, capable of discharg- 
NO. 2294, VOL. 92] 
NATE 
[OcroBER 16, 1913 
ing 450 gallons per minute, an Oddie-Barclay high- $ 
speed differential-ram reciprocating pump, a flume, — 
3 ft. broad and 45 ft. long, for the study of weir and 
channel flow, and apparatus or studying the friction 
of fluids in pipes, the impact of jets, &c. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
Paris. p 
Academy of Sciences, September 29.—M. C. Jordan in 
the chair.—J. Guillaume: Observation of the occulta- 
tion of the Pleiades by the moon, made September 20, 
1913, with the coudé equatorial at Lyons Observatory.— 
Léopold Fejér: Harmonic polynomials.—H: Tietze ; 
Continuous representations of surfaces on themselves. 
—C. Beau: The relations between tuberisation of roots 
and the attack by endophytic fungi in the course of 
development of Spiranthes autwmnalis. 
October 6.—M. P. Appell in the chair.—H. 
Deslandres : Remarks on the general electric and mag- 
netic fields of the sun. A full discussion of the work 
of Hale in comparison with that done at Meudon by 
the author.—A. Chauveau; A comparison of human 
and bovine tuberculosis from the point of view of 
innate or specific aptitude of receiving or cultivating 
the bacillus. A development of views put forward in 
an earlier paper. The author holds that no human 
being, whatever the state of health, is incapable of 
receiving the tubercle infection, and regards this as a 
necessary consequence of his experiments on cattle. 
In the case of human beings exposed to infection and 
escaping, it is not the stronger subjects alone who 
escape. The practical conclusion is drawn that in the 
battle against tuberculosis, it is the bacillus which 
must be attacked, and hence that concentration on 
strengthening the vitality of the possible patient is 
-unscientific.—R, Lépine and M. Boulud: The origin of 
the sugar secreted in phlorizic glycosuria. The results 
of experiments are cited contradicting the hypothesis 
that the sugar eliminated in phlorizic glycosuria arises 
from the renal cells. The point of attack in the 
kidney appears to be especially the vascular endo- 
thelium.—Charles Depéret: The fluvial and glacial 
history of the Rhéne valley in the neighbourhood of 
Lyons. The Rhéne glacier reached the Lyons region 
at a later period than the Quaternary epoch.—J. 
Bosler: The spectrum of the Metcalf comet, 1913). 
Photographs taken at Meudon show a feeble continu- 
ous spectrum with three condensations corresponding to 
hydrocarbons (Swan spectrum) and cyanogen. It is 
nearly identical with the spectrum of the Schaumasse 
comet.—Michel Plancherel : The convergence of series of 
orthogonal functions.—Georges Rémoundos; Families 
of multiform functions admitting exceptional values 
within a domain.—Emile Jouguet ; Some properties of 
waves of shock and combustion.—Léon Guillet and 
Victor Bernard: The variation of the resilience of 
some commercial alloys of copper as a function of 
the temperature. The alloys examined included seven 
bronzes with tin, ranging from 3:5 per cent. to 20 per 
cent., four brasses, and one aluminium bronze. The 
results are given graphically in two diagrams.— 
Charles Nicolle and L. Blaizot: An atoxic antigono- 
coccic vaccine. Its application to the treatment of 
blennorrhagia and its complications. The authors 
have obtained a stable, atoxic antigonococcic serum 
by a method not disclosed, and give details of its 
curative action in a considerable number of cases.— 
Ch. Dhéré and A. Burdel: The absorption of the 
visible rays by the oxyhzmocyanines. Three repro- 
ductions of photographs of spectra are given. There 
would appear to be one absorption band common to 
J 
