- 
ES ee 
January 8, 1914] 
NATURE 
545 
in working hours without loss of wages, there had 
been keenness and improved efficiency among the 
staff. Mr. Pease pointed out that the problem was 
of national importance, and that while there might 
be immediate loss to the employers there would be 
ultimate gain not only for the employers and the 
employees, but for the nation at large. He suggested 
that no employment was beneficial that did not allow 
reasonable time off for continued education, and 
charged the business community with the responsi- 
bility of a national duty to effect some improvement, 
which he was sure the London County Council would 
facilitate. 
Tue annual report of President Butler on the work 
of Columbia University, New York, for the year end- 
ing June 30, 1913, has now been published. We find 
that during the year the sum of 123,600l. was given 
to the University to establish permanent furds or to 
add to existing resources; 67,5001. to purchase land 
or to erect and equip buildings, and 93,3001. to be ex- 
pended for specific purposes, making a total of 
284,400l.; and yet President Butler says ‘‘it is still 
necessary to repeat words that were used eleven years 
ago: ‘Columbia University as now organised and 
equipped, may be likened to a giant in bonds. 
Strength, power, zeal for service, are all at hand, 
but the bonds of insufficient funds hold them in on 
every side.’’? The unparalleled growth and expan- 
sion of the University have far more than kept pace 
with the new resources that have been provided. The 
enrolment of students as compared with that for the 
year 1911-12 shows an increase of tor6, the net total 
of regular students in every subject reaching 9379. 
If to the regular students be added those receiving 
extension teaching and those studying in evening 
technical classes, the grand total receiving instruction 
is 13,120. The teaching staff in 1913 numbered 847, 
as compared with 781 in 1912. President Butler, 
commenting on these very large numbers, says :—We 
should deplore growth in numbers unless it were 
accompanied by a steady increase in the quality of 
the students. The fact that a rigid examination is 
insisted upon for admission . . . and that all creden- 
tials offered by those who seek advanced standing or 
who wish to enter the graduate and professional 
schools are subjected to the closest scrutiny, and the 
further fact that no student is allowed to shirk his 
work and to remain long upon the rolls of the Univer- 
sity, are an indication of the spirit with which the 
several faculties, administrative boards, and adminis- 
trative officers view their responsibilities.” 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
Lonpon. 
Geological Society, December 17, 1913.—Dr. Aubrey 
Strahan, F.R.S., president, in the chair.—C. Dawson 
and Dr. A, Smith Woodward, with an appendix by 
Prof. G. Elliot Smith: Supplementary note on the 
discovery of a Palzolithic human skull and mandible 
at Piltdown (Sussex). The gravel at Piltdown 
(Sussex) below the surface-soil is divided into three 
distinct beds. The first, or uppermost, contains sub- 
angular flints and “‘eoliths,” and one palzeolith was 
discovered there in situ. The second is a very dark 
bed, composed of ironstone and subangular flints. All 
the fossils so far found in the pit have been discovered 
in, or traced to, this bed, with the exception of the 
remains of deer. A cast of a Chalk fossil, Echino- 
corys vulgaris, from the zone of Micraster cor-testu- 
dinarium, occurred as a pebble. The third bed was 
recognised only in 1913, and consists of reconstructed 
material from the underlying Wealden rock (Hastings 
NO. 2306, VOL. 92] 
Series). It is only about 8 in. thick, and contains 
very big flints (8 to 15 in. long) which have been 
little rolled, and are not striated. They are saturated 
with iron, and have undergone considerable chemical 
change. They differ very markedly in appearance 
from the smaller flints in the upper strata. No imple- 
ments, ‘‘eoliths,’’ or fossil bones have been met with 
in this bed. The floor of the gravel, where the re- 
mains of Eoanthropus were discovered, has been care- 
fully exposed, and many irregularities and depressions 
have been found to exist. In some of these 
depressions small patches of the dark overlying bed 
remained, and new specimens were discovered. The 
method adopted in excavation is described. The finds 
made in 1913 are few but important, and include the 
nasal bones, and a canine tooth of Eoanthropus dis- 
covered by Father P. Teilhard de Chardin; also a 
fragment of a molar of Stegodon and another of 
Rhinoceros; an incisor and broken ramus of Beaver 
(Castor fiber); a worked flint from the dark bed; and 
a Paleolithic implement from the débris in the pit. 
It will be noted that the remains are those of a land 
fauna only. The further occurrence of bedded flint- 
bearing gravels in the vicinity of the pit is noted. 
The authors’ former conclusions, as to the Pliocene 
forms having been derived, are maintained. A fur- 
ther study of the cranium of Eoanthropus shows that 
the occipital and right parietal bones need slight re- 
adjustment in the reconstruction, but the result does 
not alter essentially any of the conclusions already 
published. The nasal bones, now described, are typic- 
ally human, but relatively small and broad, resembling 
those of some of the existing Melanesian and African 
races.—In a note appended to the paper Prof. Elliot 
Smith points out that the presence of the anterior 
extremity of the sagittal suture, which hitherto had 
escaped attention, had enabled him to identify a ridge 
upon the cranial aspect of the frontal bone as the 
metopic crest, and thus to determine beyond all ques- 
tion the true median plane. It is 21 mm. from the 
point of the large fragment (in the frontal region). 
The backward prolongation of the frontal median 
crest cuts the parietal fragment precisely along the 
line determined by Dr. Smith Woodward on other 
grounds. 
Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, December 18.— 
'Mr. Bedford McNeill, president, in the chair.—C. O. 
Bannister and G. Patchin: Cupellation experiments: a 
simple method for the detection of the platinum metals 
in cupellation beads. Following up previous investi- 
gations, the authors presented in this paper, and by 
means of a series of fine lantern slides, illustrations 
of the method they submit for the detection of 
platinum and its kindred metals in cupellation beads 
composed of gold and/or silver. ‘The method consists 
in transferring the beads, after cooling, and without 
any squeezing, hammering, or brushing, direct from 
the cupel on to a plasticine mount attached to a micro- 
scopic slide, and examining it with a low-power 
objective, with vertical illumination preferably. This 
method possesses the marked advantage that no pre- 
paration of the bead by polishing, etching, &c., is 
necessary before examination, the only precaution 
advisable being the prevention of undue spitting. The 
results of the authors’ investigations and experiments 
with gold and silver beads containing varying quan- 
tities of platinum, iridium, rhodium, ruthenium, and 
palladium were to show that, by a simple micro- 
scopic examination it is possible to detect platinum in 
cupellation beads when present below 1-6 per cent.; 
that is to say, when present below the amount neces- 
sary to cause crystallisation visible to the naked eye; 
the presence of iridium in small quantities may be 
| detected in silver beads; that rhodium and ruthenium 
