FEBRUARY 12, 1914] 
would receive a sum of at least 46001, per annum, 
which might be applied to the relief of its most 
urgent. requirements. The heads of the various de- 
partments connected with the medical school have 
recently asked for a‘sum of 7oool. per annum to bring 
the manning and equipment of their departments up 
to date. It is obvious that no such sum could be 
expected, but a sum of 46001. per annum would relieve 
the most urgent needs of the school, would render 
the teaching more efficient, and would enable research 
to be carried out in the medical school on a scale 
commensurate with the importance of the University. 
The foreign mathematicians who attended the fifth 
International Congress of Mathematicians held at 
Cambridge in 1912 subscribed a sum to be devoted 
to a memorial of a permanent nature to the late 
Sadlerian professor, Dr. Cayley. Having in mind 
that the presidency of this congress so brilliantly car- 
ried through was the last public appearance of Sir 
George Darwin, his colleagues in the administration 
of the congress have desired to provide a memorial 
of his work in the same connection. Accordingly a 
brass plate with armorial decorations has been pre- 
pared, and is now offered by Sir Joseph Larmor on 
behalf of his colleagues to the University. It is 
proposed to fix this brass in the chief mathematical 
lecture-room in the new Lecture Rooms Building. 
The Botanic Gardens Syndicate again finds its 
income quite inadequate to the proper maintenance 
of the gardens. The increase in rates and taxes, in 
wages, and in the cost of fuel, is such that at the 
present time there is a deficit of 1o8/. In a report 
to the Senate the syndicate requests that the annual 
amount allowed to the Botanic Gardens be increased 
from 13501. to ‘1500l., and that the deficit be extin- 
guished. 
The Physiological Laboratory Building Syndicate 
has published a report giving details of the expendi- 
ture of nearly 160o0l. on fittings for the new laboratory 
which is rapidly approaching completion. Further 
fittings and furniture, however, are needed, and the 
syndicate is asking for power to spend an additional 
5o0ol. which has been provided by the University Asso- 
ciation. 
Dr. WarRINGTON YoRKE has been appointed to the 
Walter Myers chair of parasitology, recently estab- 
lished in the University of Liverpool. 
THE current number of The Fortnightly Review 
includes an article on continuation schools in Englan 
and Germany, which is a serious indictment of the 
conditions prevailing in this country with regard to 
the provision made for the continued education of 
children on leaving school at fourteen years of age, 
and in respect of the advantage which is taken of 
such provision, and a very unfavourable comparison 
is drawn with.the conditions prevailing in Germany. 
We have been accustomed to: believe that in respect 
of provision for evening education we have been 
easily in the front rank, but a glance at the figures 
presented by the Board of Education in its report for 
1g1I-12 will dispel the illusion. There were but 
708,000 students of all ages in the various evening 
schools throughout England and Wales, and of these 
only 307,000 were under seventeen, out of a total 
child population of these ages (not including those 
still at elementary and secondary schools) of not fewer 
than two and one-third millions, so that only 13 per 
cent. of the children at the most impressionable period 
of their ,lives :were receiving continued education in 
any form. But this is not all, for the attendance, 
taking the average of the whole country, is miserably 
low. In the county boroughs the average number of 
hours of instruction received was fifty-eight, -and in 
NO. 2311, VOL. 92] 
NATURE 
677 
the administrative counties,: forty-nine, whilst no 
less than 18 per cent., or nearly 124,000 pupils, 
received fewer than fourteen hours’ instruction for the 
session. Throughout Germany, on the other hand, 
laws have been passed and are in active operation 
for the compulsory attendance for about 240 hours 
per annum, or six to eight hours a week, of all 
children who have left school and until they are seven- 
teen years of age, chiefly in day continuation schools 
and within the hours normally devoted to labour, and 
the responsibility for the due execution of the law. is 
laid upon the employer. The course is vocational and 
general. As an example of the success achieved in 
Berlin during the year 1910-11, there were 32,000 
students in attendance at compulsory schools, in addi- 
tion to upwards of 36,000 of both sexes at optional 
schools. In the new session of Parliament a Bill will 
be introduced, promoted by Mr. Chiozza Money and 
others, for the enactment of compulsory continued 
education of children who have left school until they 
reach seventeen years of age. It is to be hoped that 
the Bill will receive serious attention. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
Lonpon. 
Royal Society, February 5.—Sir William Crookes, 
O.M., president, in the chair.—Prof. L. Hill, 
McQueen, and M. Flack: The conduction of the pulse 
wave and the measurement of arterial pressure.—J. 
Barcrofit, M. Camis, C. G. Mathison, I, Roberts, and 
J. H. Ryfiel: Report of the Monte Rosa Expedition 
of 1911. I. Curves representing the equilibrium be- 
tween oxygen and haemoglobin were determined for 
vesting individuals at Col d’Olen and the Capanna 
Margherita. These and all others were capable of 
representation by the equation 
| ee 
/loo= ae 
Sais 1x K," 
y=percentage saturation of hemoglobin with oxygen ; 
x=oxygen pressure; K-=equilibrium constant of 
reaction; m=average number of molecules of Hb 
assumed to be in an aggregate. Notwithstanding a 
fall in the CO, pressure of the blood, no change in 
K could be detected, except as the mean of a large 
number of observations, when a slight fall in K, indi- 
cating decreased alkalinity of the blood, was apparent. 
The curves were determined in the presence of the 
existing alveolar CO, pressure. II.. The blood was 
investigated similarly after exercise, which usually con- 
sisted in climbing 1000 ft. Climbs were made by the 
same individuals at—(1) Carlingford, co. Louth, from 
sea-level ; (2) Col d’Olen, from, gooo ft. A diminution in 
K invariably occurred. Climbing at a given rate the 
reduction in K was much greater at high altitudes. 
A given reduction in K involved much more rapid 
climbing at low altitudes. The change in K caused 
by exercise, whether at high or low altitudes, was 
entirely accounted for by production of lactic acid. 
Determinations of the hydrogen ion concentration in 
the blood of one have been made. These show a 
defined relation between C, and K, so that the one 
may be calculated from the other.—C. H. Martin and 
K. Lewin: Some notes on soil protozoa. Part i. The 
main purpose of this introductory paper is not the 
study of Amoebz from a specific point of view, so 
much as the proof of the existence. of a relatively 
frequent trophic Protozoan fauna in certain soils, and 
the rough indication of possible methods of dealing 
with this fauna. The startling success in the Lee 
Valley of the treatment of sick soils by partial steri- 
lisation, introduced by Russell, would seem to present 
a very strong. argument in favour of the view that 
