356 



NA TURE 



[February 8, 1906 



Svaelgfos being now in course of utilisation would furnish 

 23,000 horse-power. The Norwegian company had further 

 projects in hand for the utilisation of three other water- 

 falls, including the Rjukanfos, the most considerable fall 

 in Telemarken, which would yield more than 200,000 horse- 

 power. According to the statement of Prof. Otto Witt, 

 the yield of the Birkeland-Eyde furnaces was more than 

 500 kilograms of nitric acid per year for every kilowatt 

 of power. The conditions in Norway were exceptionally 

 good for the furnishing of power at exceedingly low rates. 

 Hence the new product could compete with Chili saltpetre 

 on tin- market, and would become every year more valuable 

 as the demand for nitrates increased, and the natural 

 supplies became exhausted. 



A 



POLAR EXPLORATION. 

 FTER discussion at a meeting of explorers and geo- 

 graphers interested in the study of the polar regions, 

 a statement was submitted to the congress held at Mons 

 in September, 1905, setting forth the expediency of found- 

 ing an International Association for the Study of the Polar 

 Regions, with the objects of " (1) obtaining an inter- 

 national agreement upon different questions associated with 

 polar geography ; (2) making a general effort to reach the 

 terrestrial poles ; (3) organising expeditions having for their 

 object an extension of our knowledge of the polar regions 

 in every respect ; and (4) forming a programme of scientific 

 work to be carried out in the different countries during the 

 existence of the International Polar Expeditions." The 

 congress unanimously passed a resolution expressing the 

 wish " (1) to see the formation of this Association in 1906 

 by a previous meeting of a general Conference of the larger 

 scientific and maritime nations, who have taken part in 

 the principal polar expeditions up to the present time ; and 

 (2) to see that the Belgian Government takes the initiative 

 in approaching the Governments of other countries." 



We have received a copy of a letter which has been 

 addressed by M. Lecointe, to whom the congress entrusted 

 the work of making the necessary preliminary arrange- 

 ments, to the presidents of academies and of learned 

 societies all over the world. It is proposed to hold the 

 first conference at the beginning of May, for the consider- 

 ation of general questions, and to discuss in detail " (1) the 

 basis of a series of polar expeditions ; (2) the programme 

 of term of observations to be carried out in all the observ- 

 atories ; and (3) the text of the working arrangements of 

 the international Association " at a second conference, 

 composed of State delegates and delegates from academies 

 and learned societies, in September. The conclusions 

 arrived at by the second conference will be transmitted 

 for examination to the Belgian Government, which 

 eventually will ask the support of other countries for the 

 new association. 



In connection with the proposed International Association 

 for the Study of the Polar Regions, M. Lecointe invites 

 polar explorers to send him papers or notices dealing with 

 questions which will be considered at the general con- 

 ference in May next. A paper of the kind has been issued 

 in which M. Henryk Arctowski makes a number of 

 suggestions for work in the future. M. Arctowski ex- 

 presses the opinion that in future Arctic research much 

 use may be made of ice-breakers of the type of Makaroff's 

 Yermak. With regard to Antarctic exploration, the settle- 

 ment of the continental question is admittedly of primary 

 importance, but M. Arctowski strongly urges the advisa- 

 bility of exploring thoroughly the circumpolar areas as a 

 preliminary, especially by hydrographical expeditions. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 

 Cambridge. — The recommendation of the Forestry 

 Syndicate with regard to the general management of the 

 examinations, the schedules of the proposed forestry ex- 

 amination, &c, passed the Senate last Thursday. The 

 most important of these recommendations is that the 

 general conduct of the examinations and the prescription 

 of courses of training are to be entrusted to a committee of 

 the Board of Agricultural Studies. Such a committee will 



NO. 1893, VOL. 73] 



include the professors of agriculture, botany, chemistry, 

 and geology, and the reader in agricultural chemistry, 

 together with three other members of the Board of Agri- 

 cultural Studies. The committee will have the power to 

 co-opt annually, if it thinks fit, four other persons. 



The professor of experimental physics gives notice that 

 a course of three lectures on " The Life-history of Surface 

 Air Currents " will be given by Dr. W. N. Shaw, F.R.S., 

 director of the Meteorological Office, in the Cavendish 

 Laboratory on Wednesdays, February 14 and February 21, 

 and Thursday, March 1. 



London. — Prof. E. A. Minchin commenced at University 

 College on Monday a course of lectures on " Parasitic 

 Protozoa." Prof. Minchin recently returned from Uganda, 

 where he was engaged as one of the special commissioners 

 of the Tropical Diseases Committee of the Royal Society 

 in research on the life-history of the trypanosome of sleep- 

 ing sickness. 



Prof. Drude has been elected rector of the Dresden 

 Technical High School for the ensuing year. 



During January, Dr. Bolam, lecturer on chemistry at 

 Queen Margaret College, Glasgow University, delivered 

 in Leith Nautical College a short course of lectures 

 on " The Chemistry of Dangerous Cargoes " to large 

 nautical audiences. Mr. James Currie (of Messrs. James 

 Currie and Co.) presided, and pointed out the importance 

 of the course in view of the very complex cargoes merchant 

 ships were now carrying. 



Mr. H. F. Trippel directs attention to an important 

 point in connection with army entrance examinations in 

 a letter to the Pall Mall Gazelle of February 3. Mathe- 

 matics is a compulsory subject for every candidate com- 

 peting for admission to the Royal Military Academy, 

 Woolwich ; yet Mr. Trippel says that in the recent ex- 

 amination one of the competitors who scored zero in mathe- 

 matics was placed among the successful candidates. It 

 appears, therefore, that though it is compulsory to take 

 mathematics in the competitive examination, a candidate 

 may do so without having any serious intention of gaining 

 a single mark in the subject. Now that the attention of 

 the authorities has been directed to the defect in the regu- 

 lations which permits this course to be followed, it is to 

 be hoped that a minimum standard of marks to be gained 

 in mathematics by all candidates will be prescribed, or 

 some other remedy found. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Geological Society, January 10. — Dr. J. E. Marr, F.R.S., 

 president, in the chair. — The clay-witli-flints : its origin 

 and distribution : A. J. Jukes-Browne, Until recently 

 the clay-with-flints has been regarded as being, in the 

 main, a residue from the slow solution of the Chalk. Of 

 late years, the opinion has been growing that it consists 

 very largely of material derived from the Eocene. The 

 present paper is devoted to an examination of the facts, 

 with the view of ascertaining whether the clay-with-flints 

 could possibly be derived from the Chalk, or whether the 

 theory of its derivation from the Eocene is confirmed by 

 more detailed inquiry. From several lines of investiga- 

 tion the author concludes (1) that the clay-with-flints 

 cannot have been formed from mere solution of the Upper 

 Chalk ; (2) that all its components, except the unbroken 

 and angular flints, could have been furnished by the Read- 

 ing beds ; (3) that the positions occupied by it are such 

 that no great thickness of Chalk can have been destroyed 

 to form it, the tracts being seldom more than 30 feet or 

 40 feet below the local plane of the Eocene base, or the 

 presumed level of that plane. — Footprints from the Permian 

 of Mansfield (Nottinghamshire) : G. Hickling. These 

 fossils were discovered in 1897 by Mr. Francis Holmes in 

 the Rock Valley Quarry, Mansfield, in a local, lenticular 

 mass of sandstone intercalated in the Magnesian Lime- 

 stone. The prints present some resemblance to those 

 named Ichnium acrodactylum, from the Upper Permian of 

 Thuringia. 



