466 
so determined that there can be no room for dispute 
about it, even if it should be removed or perish 
through age. This is enly to be effected by accurate 
survey work based ultimately on geodetic triangula- 
tion, and it is this work carried out by British officers 
in so many parts of the world, with the aid of modern 
light and efficient instruments, which is gradually 
working out the boundaries of nations, and, incident- 
ally, carrying geographical mapping into the remotest 
regions of the world. The invention of a portable 
receiver for the transmission of signals by wireless 
telegraphy is likely to be of the greatest importance 
to these workers in remote geographical fields. Here 
again the perfecting of a minor form of installation 
for wireless telegraphy is rapidly leading to develop- 
ments of which we are at present only dimly conscious. 
What the Society of Arts can do in this special field 
of activity, after teaching people to believe in science, 
is to foster by all means in its power such aids to 
the progress of knowledge as are to be found in new 
inventions, new developments, and adaptations of 
instrumental means for observation and measurement 
in the endless process of collecting information. 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
CamBrRIDGE.—Sir Arthur Evans has presented to the 
museum the last instalment of an interesting set of 
objects selected from the collections of his father, the 
late Sir John Evans. The gift consists of 121 
specimens ranging in date from prehistoric times to 
the eighteenth century. The value of the collection 
is greatly enhanced by the fact that all the specimens 
composing it were found in Cambridgeshire and the 
adjacent counties. ; 
Mr. C. S, Wright has been appointed University 
lecturer in surveying and cartography (Royal Geo- 
graphical Society lecturer). 
Dr. Assheton has been appointed University lecturer 
in animal embryology. 
Tue new Gresham College in Basinghall Street, 
London, E.C., was formally opened by the Lord 
Mayor on December 15. Mr. Sheriff Painter, chair- 
man of the City side of the Gresham Committee, gave 
a history of the Gresham Trust, which, he said, came 
into operation in 1596 after the death of the founder, 
Sir Thomas Gresham, and his widow. Under Gres- 
ham’s will seven lectureships were founded in divinity, 
astronomy, music, geometry, civil law, physic, and 
rhetoric. For the first 200 years those lectures were 
delivered at the mansion of Sir Thomas Gresham, in 
the parish of St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, where Gres- 
ham House stood. The first Gresham College was 
opened in 1843, and the lectures were delivered there 
until a few years ago, when as it became inadequate 
to present-day uses, it was demolished and the new 
building was erected. The building, which is larger 
than the old college, has a frontage to Gresham 
Street of about 71 ft. and to Basinghall Street of 
58 ft. The lecture hall and gallery will seat about 
430 persons. The hall is lined throughout with oak. 
Provision is made for a complete kinematograph appa- 
ratus for use in the scientific and medical lectures. 
The building has cost about 34,000l. 
SPEAKING at the National Liberal Club on the sub- 
ject of Liberalism and education, Lord Haldane said 
that when this nation came into existence as a great 
industrial nation it had practically no competitors. 
At that time dash and “go” and practical skill alone 
were required. Now the art of manufacture is linked 
with the science of education. 
NO. 2303, VOL. 92] 
NATURE 
.more favoured rivals. 
It is a business which | 
[DEcEMBER 18, 1913 
is controlled by scientific principles, and woe will 
befall the country which is lacking in the scientific 
equipment necessary to enable it’ to compete with its 
In Germany and America great 
progress is being made in the realisation of the truth 
that, not only must young men and women be pre- 
pared from an early age if they are to be made 
experts in their vocations in life, but that in their 
vocational training a large amount of general educa- 
tion must be given. The question will have to be 
faced in this country, and the only point is whether 
the public will give to the educational-movement that 
support without which no Chancellor of the Exchequer 
can make headway. An effort in the direction of 
higher education is necessary if this nation is to 
hold its own. Upon the same occasion Mr. J. A. 
Pease said that the view that education should be 
made compulsory up to the age of sixteen is an 
ideal which it is impossible to attain; but he hopes 
that the present limit may be raised to fourteen years. 
ARRANGEMENTS have been made for a large number 
of educational conferences in London early in the new 
year. Twenty-one educational associations are co- 
operating in a conference to be held in the University 
of London on January 2-10, which will be opened by 
an address by Mr. James Bryce on “Salient Educa- 
tional Issues." Among the associations taking part 
may be mentioned the Geographical Association, of 
which Dr. J. Scott Keltie is the president, whose 
address will be, ‘‘Thirty Years’ Progress in Geo- 
graphical Education”; the School Nature Study 
Society; the Association of Science Teachers; the 
Child Study Society; and the Associations of Teachers 
in Domestic Subjects and in Technical Institutions. 
The London County Council has arranged another 
conference of teachers, to be held at Birkbeck College 
from January 1 to 3.. One of the six meetings is 
to be devoted to a consideration of the subject of 
mental fatigue, another to memory drawing, and 
two others to educational experiments in schools. 
The Mathematical Association will hold its annual 
meeting at the London Day Training College on 
January 7. Among the papers to be read in the 
morning we notice one by Prof. J. E. A. Steggall on 
practical mathematics in school. In the afternoon the 
president of the association, Sir George Greenhill, 
will give an address on the use of mathematics, and 
Dr. W. N. Shaw will spealk on “Principia Atmo- 
spherica.”’ 
THE governors of the Imperial College of Science 
and Technology, at their meeting on Friday last, con- 
stituted two new chairs of chemistry, and ae 
two new professors—Dr. Jocelyn Field horpe, 
F.R.S., professor of organic chemistry, and Dr. 
James C. Philip, professor of physical chemistry. 
Four years ago Dr. Thorpe was elected to the Sorby 
research fellowship of the Royal Society, which he 
has held at the University of Sheffield. He was 
formerly research fellow and lecturer in chemistry 
at the University of Manchester, and received—his 
earlier training partly in London, at the Royal Col- 
lege of Science, and partly in Germany, where, at 
Heidelberg, he studied under Victor Meyer and Prof. 
Auwers. Dr. Philip has been on the staff of the 
Imperial College for some years latterly as an assist- 
ant professor. He is well known for his work on 
physical chemistry, and is now one of the secretaries 
of the Chemical Society. He is a graduate of Aber- 
deen and Gé6ttingen Universities. The department of 
chemistry in the Imperial College has now four pro- 
fessors—Prof. H. Brereton Baker, F.R.S., who is 
professor of chemistry and director of the laboratories ; 
Prof. W. A. Bone, F.R.S., professor of chemical 
technology (fuel and refractory materials), together 
