November 16, 1905J 



NA TURE 



second plane mirror, mounted in a fork at the upper 

 extremity of an iron column, on a carriage which can be 

 moved along heavy iron rails. The position of this carriage 

 on the rails depends upon the declination of the observed 

 object ; with a low sun the second mirror stands close to 

 the ccelostat, but with a high sun it must be moved away 

 in order to intercept the reflected beam. The ccelostat 

 itself may be moved east or west on its own rails, so that 

 a low object near the meridian may not be hidden by the 

 second mirror or its support. 



With the exception of the solar and stellar spectro- 

 scopes, for which suitable gratings could not be obtained, 

 the Snow telescope was practically completed in the 

 autumn of 1903. On October 3 of that year it was 

 formally presented to the University of Chicago by Miss 

 Snow, in the presence of a number of guests. 



In designing the new ccelostat house on Mount Wilson 

 I was influenced by two principal considerations : — (1) The 

 importance of placing the ccelostat as far as possible above 

 the ground, which had been indicated by observations 

 made with a telescope in a tree at elevations ranging 

 from 20 feet to 70 feet ; (2) the importance of constructing 

 the house in such a way as to reduce to a minimum the 

 heating and the radiation of the floor, walls, and ceiling, 

 with the purpose of keeping the air within the house at 

 the same temperature as the outer air. 



The ccelostat, and the supports for the plane mirror 

 and the 60-feet concave mirror, are now in place on the 

 piers, but heavy storms have prevented the mirrors from 

 being mounted. The concave grating stellar spectrograph 

 is nearly ready to be set up, and work is well advanced 

 on the smaller of the two spectroheliographs. The ultra- 

 violet glass prisms and lenses for the stellar spectrograph 

 have been completed by the Carl Zeiss Company, and 

 orders have been placed for the optical parts of the 30-feet 

 spectroheliograph and the Littrow spectrograph. Through 

 the courtesy of the president and trustees of the University 

 of Chicago, the Snow telescope and some of its accessories 

 will be used by the Solar Observatory for some time. It 

 will subsequently be replaced by a similar telescope con- 

 structed in our own instrument shop. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Oxford. — The following examiners have been appointed 

 in the science schools : — in physics, Mr. W. C. D. 

 VVhetham ; in anatomy, Mr. A. H. Young ; in physiology, 

 Mr. Leonard Hill ; in pathology, Dr. E. W. Ainley 

 Walker ; in forensic medicine. Or. A. L. Ormerod ; in 

 medicine, Dr. J. R. Bradford; in surgery, Mr. H. J. Stiles; 

 in obstetrics, Sir Arthur V. Macan ; in preliminary physics, 

 Mr. C. E. Haselfoot ; in preliminary chemistry, Mr. A. 

 Angel ; in preliminary botany, Prof. J. Reynolds Green. 



The Burdett-Coutts scholarship for 1905 has been awarded 

 to Mr. James A. Douglas, Keble College. 



The Junior Scientific Club held its 276th meeting in the 

 museum on November 8. Prof. Gotch exhibited the 

 Gotch ophthalmic spinthariscope, and Dr. H. M. Vernon 

 read a paper on the chemical constitution of protoplasm. 



Cambridge. — The election of the well known scholar 

 Mr. F. C Burkitt, of Trinity College, to the Norrisian 

 chair of divinity has a certain interest outside theological 

 circles. It is, we believe, the first time that a layman has 

 been elected to a chair of theology in the University of 

 Cambridge. The Norrisian chair is open to laymen, but 

 until this year has invariably been held by clergymen. 

 That the heads of houses, who form the electing body, 

 should have made this departure is perhaps a sign of the 

 times. 



Mr. C. T. R. Wilson, Sidney Sussex College, has been 

 re-appointed demonstrator of experimental physics for a 

 period of five years from Michaelmas, 1905. 



< )n Monday, November 6, the following were elected to 

 vacant fellowships at St. John's College : — Mr. J. W. H. 

 Atkins, lecturer in English at the Victoria University, 

 Manchester, and Mr. Frank Horton, for research in 

 physics, 1903, Allen student, 1904 ; D.Sc. London and 



NO. 188 1 \<JL. 73] 



Mackinnon student of the Royal Society. Mr. 

 joined the university as an advanced student. 



In connection with Sir Donald Currie's offer of 20,000/. 

 to Queen's College, Belfast, on condition that a similar 

 sum is raised by those interested in the welfare of the 

 college, President Hamilton announced on November 11 

 that subscriptions forthcoming to that date amount to 

 nearly 16,000/. The remainder of the sum must lie sub- 

 scribed, according to Sir Donald Currie's conditions, before 

 Christmas. 



We learn from Science that Mr. Andrew Carnegie has 

 offered 20,000/. to Union College, for an engineering build- 

 ing, on condition that the institution raises a like amount 

 for this purpose. Mr. Carnegie has also offered to give 

 Smith College one-half of 25,000/. required for a biological 

 laboratory. It is worthy of note that the first of the 

 initial group of seven structures that form the new Carnegie 

 Technical Schools, in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, has been 

 opened with a class of 120 students, selected from more 

 than 600 applicants. 



The Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction 

 for Ireland will award in July, 1906, not more than ten 

 open scholarships and ten limited scholarships to assist 

 students of domestic economy to undertake the full course 

 of instruction at the Irish Training School of Domestic 

 Economy, Dublin. Scholarships will entitle the holder;, to 

 free admission to the full course of training. The school is 

 not residential, and no subsistence allowance is given. 

 The scholarships will be awarded as the result of a com- 

 petitive examination. Forms of application may be obtained 

 from the secretary of the department after Januarv 1, 

 1906. 



A Times correspondent reports that the trustees of tin 

 Witwatersrand Council of Education have decided to dis- 

 pose of a sum of 115,000/., raised in 1899 to provide 

 elementary education for the Uitlander community, in the 

 following manner. The Transvaal Technical Institute is 

 to receive 60,000/., and 30,000/. is to be used to found a 

 public school at Frankenwald on the lines of an English 

 public school. The remaining 25,000/. will probably be 

 divided between Jeppestown High School and Johannes- 

 burg College, but is held over until the publication of tin- 

 report of the Government Commission on Secondary 

 Education. 



It is announced that a school for post-graduate medical 

 study, to be named " The London School of Clinical 

 Medicine," is to be established by the Seamen's Hospital 

 Society at the Dreadnought Seamen's Hospital, Greenwich. 

 The hospital contains 250 beds, and by the addition of 

 eminent members of the medical profession to the present 

 staff, and by an affiliation for teaching purposes witli 

 other special hospitals south of the Thames, it is hoped 

 that a complete curriculum for post-graduate study may- 

 be arranged. The new school will be complemental to the 

 same society's School of Tropical Medicine at the Albert 

 Dock, which has proved such a success. 



At the session of council of University College, London, 

 on November 6, the following resolution was adopted and 

 ordered to be communicated to Mr. Bawden and Mr. 

 Speyer ; — " That the most grateful thanks of the council 

 be offered to Mr. E. G. Bawden and Mr. Edgar Speyer 

 for providing and allotting the sum of 16,000/. — to be 

 known as ' the Bawden Fund ' — to the fund for advanced 

 university education and research, thereby making up the 

 balance of the sum of 200,000/. necessary to complete the 

 financial arrangements for the incorporation of the college 

 in the university. The council are of opinion that by pro- 

 moting the incorporation of the college in the university 

 they can most effectually realise the purposes for which 

 the college was founded and can best advance the cause of 

 learning and science. They therefore feel that they can 

 congratulate Mr. Bawden and Mr. Speyer on helping to 

 complete an arrangement that is likely to have a far- 

 reaching influence in the furtherance of. advanced education 

 and research in London." 



