January i i, 1906] 



NA TURE 



261 



The organisers of the North of England Education Con- 

 ference, held this year at Newcastle-upon-Tyne on January 

 5 and 6, had to struggle with the fact that almost all 

 persons and bodies who were desirous of conferring together 

 had their handc, full with the difficulties of primary educa- 

 tion and its immediate continuations. The conference was 

 well attended by between two and three hundred members 

 drawn chiefly from the education committees of the county 

 councils, the permanent officials of such committees, and 

 schoolmasters and mistresses, and their interest was almost 

 entirely directed to the problems called into existence by 

 the duties now thrown upon the education committees. 

 Not a word was said as to higher education, very little 

 as to secondary education in any form, and, it may be 

 added, scarcely a word as to the religious difficulty. The 

 tone of the conference was distinctly optimistic, and it was 

 the general opinion that if the councils were less en- 

 cumbered by intervention of the Board of Education, and 

 deputed more of their own work to persons in each locality, 

 the difficulties that have declared themselves would work 

 themselves out. It was encouraging to see so much deter- 

 mination to cope with the questions, in spite of the heavy 

 tax of time thrown upon the education committees, and 

 it is very clear from the local patriotism exhibited that the 

 councils will not ultimately rest content with perfecting a 

 primary system. It is, however, a question of pounds, 

 shillings, and pence, and so long as the councils are left 

 without other resources than the rates it is clear that 

 improvements must wait a long time. 



The December, 1005, issue of the Bulletin of the Massa- 

 chusetts Institute of Technology comprises, as usual, a list 

 of the staff and students of the institute, with a statement 

 of the requirements for admission, a full description of 

 the courses of instruction, and an account of the Lowell 

 School for Industrial Foremen. It is interesting to note 

 that the institute offers summer instruction during the 

 months of June and July, supplementing the work of the 

 regular school year. Summer courses are undertaken 

 primarily for the benefit, first, of those who wish in dis- 

 tribute their work over a larger portion of the year, or 

 to gain more time for advanced work; and, secondly, ol 

 those who, through illness or other causes, have deficiencies 

 to make up. Moreover, to bring students into closer re- 

 lations with the practical side of their professions, pro- 

 fessional summer schools are held in the departments of 

 civil engineering, mining engineering and metallurgy, 

 architecture, chemistry, and geology. The students, 

 accompanied by instructors, give their time to field-work, 

 or visit and report on mines and industrial establishments. 

 I he Lowell School for Industrial Foremen is a free even- 

 ing school which includes, at present, mechanical and 

 electrical courses extending over two years. These courses 

 are intended to bring the systematic study of applied science 

 within the reach of young men who are following in- 

 dustrial pursuits and desire to fit themselves for higher 

 pi sitinns, but are unable to attend courses during the day. 

 This number of the Bulletin, with its 408 pages, provides 

 abundant evidence of the excellent work being accomplished 

 by this widely known institute. 



The annual meeting of the Geographical Association 

 was held on January 5, when the report for 1905 was 

 adopted. The report shows that the total membership of 

 tli association is 503, including teachers of every grade, 

 school inspectors, and others interested in geographical 

 education. An important advance was made during the 

 year by the formation of local branches. This is a valuable 

 expansion of the work of the association, enabling 

 members to meet at more frequent intervals, to discuss 

 the advantages presented by their own district for teach- 

 ing geography, permitting combination in excursions and 

 cooperation in the accumulation of lantern-slides and other 

 materials necessary for good teaching. The geographical 

 exhibits collected by the association in 1904 were on 

 view during the year at Liverpool, Huddersfield, Bedford, 

 and Oxford. Part of the exhibits were lent to Felsted 

 School for a local exhibition. The exhibition is now being 

 broken up, and exhibits lent to the association returned*! 

 Dr. (,. R. Parkin, secretary of the Rhodes Scholarship 

 I rust, who was in the chair, dealt in his address with 



NO. 1889, VOL - 7o] 



the general question of geography. In war, he said, 

 geography is of the greatest importance. If our com- 

 manders at the battle of Colenso had possessed an elemen- 

 tary knowledge of the geography of the country thousands 

 of precious lives might have been saved. In a nation like 

 ours, which may any day find it necessary to send an 

 expedition to a frontier place in India or to some corner 

 ■ if Africa, the intimate study of geography is an essential 

 condition of national safety and honour. In commerce, 

 too, geography is everything. Only last year the great 

 cotton districts of Lancashire began to realise that the 

 supplies of cotton were not sufficient for the demand, and 

 Sir Alfred Jones organised a company to discover what 

 places under the British flag are suitable for raising cotton. 

 This is largely a geographical work which a great com- 

 mercial country like ours should be carrying on as a 

 Government measure. As the great workshop of the 

 world, which almost requires the world from which to 

 draw raw material and food, no nation ought to know so 

 much about geography as ourselves, and yet up to the last 

 eight or ten years hardly a subject has been shown so 

 little consideration. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Zoological Society, December 12, 1905. — Mr. Howard 

 Saunders, vice-president, in the chair. — Exhibitions.— 

 Twelve enlarged photographs of whales taken at the fin- 

 whaling factories in east Finmarken in 1SS3-S9 : A. H. 

 Cocks. The species represented were Megaptera longi- 

 mana, Balaenoptera sibbaldii, B. musculus, and B. borealis. 

 -The tail-vertebra; of a dormouse of the genus Eliomys, 

 which showed the phenomenon, hitherto unrecorded among 

 Mammalia, of the regeneration of a bony structure in case 

 of accident : Oldfield Thomas. The caudal vertebra, in 

 this case the twelfth, which had been originally broken 

 across, had grown out into a slender styliform appendix 

 15 mm. in length and rather less than 1 mm. in diameter, 

 the normal vertebra; of this part of flu- tail measuring 

 about 6X2 mm. On further search two other specimens 

 exhibiting the same structure had been found, and it 

 appeared, therefore, that dormice, like lizards, were able 

 partly to regenerate their tails, when these important 

 balancing-organs got accidentally broken. — Microscopic 

 sections of the skeletal tube found in the restored tail of one 

 of the dormice (Graphiurus) exhibited by Mr. Thomas : Dr. 

 W. G. Ridewood. The wall was made up of close-set 

 lamella;, producing in a transverse section a fine concentric 

 striation. Lacuna; with numerous branching canaliculi 

 were disposed regularly in relation with the concentric 

 striations, and the general effect was that presented bj 

 a transverse section of the humerus or femur of a frog. 

 Internally to the bony layers, and contiguous with the 

 central jelly, was a moderately thick layer, which was 

 clear, homogeneous, and highly refractive. Dr. Ridewood 

 also exhibited, by way of contrast, slides of the skeleton 

 of the restored tail of an iguana lizard, the skeletal tube 

 in this case being composed of calcified fibro-cartilage and 

 not of bone. — Papers. — Observations and experiments on 

 the habits and reactions of crabs bearing sea-anemones in 

 their claws : Prof. J. E. Duerden, — Notes on a large 

 collection of snakes made by Mr. Alan Owston in Japan 

 and the Loo Choo Islands : Captain F. Wall. — A collection 

 of South Australian spiders of the family Lycosidae con- 

 tained in the mus.-um at Adelaide: 11. R. Hogg. Thirteen 

 spei ies were remarked upon, ten of which were described 

 as new. — A collection of mammals obtained by Colonel 

 A. C. Bailward during a shooting trip through Persia and 

 Armenia during the past summer, and presented to the 

 National Museum: Oldfield Thomas. Thirty-one species 

 were enumerated, and special attention was directed to the 

 discovery of Calomyscus, a primitive murine, the onlv 

 ally of which, amongst recent forms, was the North 



American Peromyscus. — The colour-variation of the I tie 



Gonioctena variabilis : L. Doncaster. The material on 

 which the paper was based was collected almost entirely 

 at Granada, and the author found that, although the insect 

 was extraordinarily variable, when a large collection was 

 examined the beetles could be classified into two chief 



