520 
At the Headmasters’ Conference, held on December 
23 and 24, at Reading School, Sir Alfred Ewing, 
director of naval education, gave an address on the 
scheme of special entry for public schoolboys into the 
Navy. This scheme of special entry was introduced 
last year at very short notice, and the number of 
candidates who came forward was probably not at all 
so great as may be expected in the future. The can- 
didates numbered ninety-two, and forty-one were 
taken for the training. Sir Alfred Ewing said hitherto 
the naval tradition has been unbroken which has 
required that officers shall join the service at so early 
an age that they can owe little or nothing to public 
school training and influence. Now, for the first time 
in British history, the Navy has said to the public 
schools, **Send us of your finished product.” He 
asked the cooperation of the headmasters because 
anything which affects the supply of officers for the 
Navy, whether the volume of the supply or its 
efficiency, is a matter of profound national concern. 
By the scheme of special entry public schoolboys may 
enter the service at the age of eighteen, and undergo 
a brief period of professional training for eighteen 
months, after which they become midshipmen. The 
qualification desired in naval cadets entered in this 
way is substantially a good general education not 
specifically classical, but an education in which, apart 
from the more humane elements, there is a consider- 
able bias towards mathematics, physical science, and 
mechanics. The reason of the bias is that these sub- 
jects form so much of the professional knowledge 
which a naval officer has to possess, and so what is 
substantially the Woolwich entrance examination, 
without one or two features of the present examina- 
tion, has been adopted. In taking the public school 
boy and giving him a brief professional training, it 
would be very hard to give all the practical mechanical 
knowledge which the naval officer ought to possess 
in so short a time, unless there was initially some 
foundation for such knowledge or at least some apti- 
tude for practical mechanics on the part of the candi- 
date. Therefore the Woolwich list of examination 
papers is supplemented by introducing a paper on very 
elementary engineering—a paper intended rather to 
test the aptitude than the training of the candidate. 
This is an attempt to attract those who have a special 
bent towards engineering. Other subjects discussed 
at the conference were the Teachers’ Register and 
several points in connection with classical education. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
Lonpon. 
Royal Meteorlogical Society, December 17.—Mr. 
C. J. P. Cave, president, in the chair.—R. C. Moss- 
man and Mr. C. Salter; The great rain storm at Don- 
caster, September 17, 1913. On that day during a 
period of disturbed weather, a very heavy and local 
fall of rain took place in the vicinity of Doncaster. 
The storm lasted fourteen hours, and in that time 
more than 4 in. of rain fell at six stations, of which 
four had more than 5 in. The small area embraced 
by the heavy rain is shown by the circumstance that 
more than 4 in. fell over only sixty-one square miles, 
while more than o-50 in. fell over 2336 square miles. 
Over the latter area 47,330 million gallons of water 
were precipitated. No adequate explanation of the 
storm can be offered, and the phenomenon affords an 
opportunity for special investigation.—Dr. J. E. 
Church, Jun.: Recent studies of snow in the United 
States. The author first gave a description of the 
snow sampler and weigher, which is an instrument he 
has designed .for quickly measuring the depth and 
the water content of snow upon mountains. He then 
NO. 2305, VOL. 92] 
NATURE 
[January 1, “1 
te 
referred to some of the phases of the snow , 
which were susceptible of solution by the aid 
instrument, and showed that the evolution of th: 
leads directly to the practical problem of the re.at 
of mountains and forests to the conservation of “sno 
This is of vital interest wherever irrigation is essenti 
to agriculture, as in the western portion of the United 
States and in Australia. It is also closely related to: 
the problem of stream control.—C. E. P. Brooks: The 
meteorological conditions of an ice sheet and their 
bearing on the desiccation of the globe. As the ré > 
occupied by extensive ice-sheets at the present day, © 7. _ 
Antarctica and Greenland, are the centres of per- 
manent high-pressure areas, with slight precipitation, 
the author infers that the regions occupied by similar 
ice-sheets in the glacial period were likewise occupied 
by permanent anticyclones. The maximum extent of 
glaciation occurred at about the same time in different 
regions of the globe, and also coincided with the 
maximum of the pluvial period, or period of greater 
rainfall than the present, in the unglaciated regions. 
But a general decrease in temperature should lead to 
a decrease, not an increase, in the amount of evapora- 
tion, and hence of precipitation. The explanation of 
the paradox lies in the different distribution of the 
precipitation. i 
EDINBURGH. 
Royal Society, December 4, 1913.—Prof. Hudson 
Beare, vice-president, in the chair.—Dr. W. N. Shaw: 
Principia atmospherica—a study of the circulation of 
the atmosphere. Section I. consisted of five axioms 
or laws of atmospheric motion, viz. the relation of 
motion to pressure, the computation of pressure and 
of the application of the gaseous laws, the law of 
convection, the law of the limit of convection, and 
the law of saturation. Section II. contained two 
lemmas or postulates regarding the relation between 
temperature and pressure in the stratosphere and in 
the troposphere, and the average horizontal circulation 
in the northern hemisphere. In Section III., which 
formed the bulk of the address, Dr. Shaw laid down 
for discussion six propositions, three of which had 
been already dealt with in a communication recently 
made to the Scottish Meteorological Society and 
published in the journal of the society for 1913. The 
remaining three were then considered in some detail, 
viz. : (1) the conditions necessary to maintain a steady 
atmospheric current; (5) the calculation of the dis- 
tribution of pressure and temperature in the upper 
air from the observations of structure represented by 
soundings with a pilot balloon; (6) to account for the 
general circulation of the atmosphere in the northern 
hemisphere.—Sir William Turner: Observations or 
the auditory organ in the Cetacea. The paper was 
in two parts, in which were treated respectively the 
external auditory meatus and ear-wax, and the 
tympano-petrous bones. One of the specimens of ear- 
wax exhibited was about 20 in. long, and had been 
obtained from a blue whale near the South Shetland 
Islands. Sir William Turner also read a note upon 
a siliceous sponge of the order Hexactinellida, con- 
sisting of white delicate thread-like spicules collected 
into two tufts or bundles. 
December 15.—Prof. James Geikie, F.R.S., presi- 
dent, in the chair.—Prof. C. R. Marshall: The phar- 
macological action of tetra-alkyl ammonium com- 
pounds—part ii., the action of tetra-ethyl-ammoniunt 
chloride; part iii, the action of methyl-ethyl- 
ammonium chlorides. Tetra-ethylammonium chloride 
resembles tetra-methyl-ammonium chloride in inducing 
paralysis by an action on the myo-neural junctions. 
It needs, however, much larger doses. Unlike tetra- 
methyl-ammonium chloride, it has no action on vagal 
terminations, and it is difficult to produce with it 
temporary cessation of the respiration. Trimethyl- 
a 
-_-6dh ee 
eee ee 
