90 
NATURE 
| May 25, 1899 
the methods of optical testing in use in the industry, are 
practically unknown, and science as well as the public will be 
gainers by the movement. A debt of gratitude is owing to the 
Court of the Spectacle-makers’ Company, and to its Master 
(Mr. W. E. Thornthwaite) for their efforts. The Company 
has lately received notable accessions of strength in having 
admitted to its freedom several of the highest names in science, 
including the Astronomer Royal, Captain W. de W. Abney, 
Sir William Crookes, and, last but not least, Lord Kelvin. 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
Oxrorp.—The seventh ‘‘ Robert Boyle” lecture of the 
Junior Scientific Club will be delivered by Prof. J. G. 
McKendrick, F.R.S., in the large lecture theatre at the 
University Museum, on Tuesday, June 6, at 8.30. The 
subject will be ‘‘The physiological perception of musical 
tone.” 
The 201st meeting of the Junior Scientific Club was held on 
Wednesday, May 17. After private business, Prof. E. B. 
Tylor, F.R.S., read a paper on the survival of the palzeolithic 
condition of man in the South Pacific region. Mr. R. D. 
MacGregor (Exeter) also read a paper on Indian butterflies. 
CAMBRIDGE.—The subject of the Rede Lecture, to be de- 
livered by Prof. Cornu on June 1, is ‘The Wave Theory of 
Light : its Influence on Modern Physics.” 
‘Admission to the ceremonies in the Senate House, in con- 
nection with the jubilee of Sir G. G. Stokes on June 2, will be 
by ticket. Applications must be made through members of the 
Senate not later than May 26. 
The General Board have proposed the detailed regulations for 
the Board of Agricultural Studies in connection with the new 
Department of Agriculture. County and Borough Councils who 
contribute annual grants to the funds of the Department are to 
nominate members of the Board. 
Honorary degrees are on June 2 to be conferred on Profs. 
Cornu and Darboux of Paris, Kohlrausch of Berlin, Michelson of 
Chicago, Mittag-Lefiler of Stockholm, Quincke of Heidelberg, 
and Voigt of Gottingen. 
Prof. Newton, who has recently been somewhat out of health, 
is to depute his lectures in zoology during the ensuing 
academical year to Mr. W. Bateson, F.R.S., of St. John’s 
College. 
Mr. Neville, F.R.S., of Sidney, has been appointed an 
elector to the chair of Chemistry ; and Mr. Larmor, F.R.S., of 
St. John’s, an elector to the Jacksonian professorship, in place 
or the late Mr. P. T. Main. 
THE endowment of a quarter of a million for the University 
of Birmingham has been secured. At a meeting of the canvass- 
ing committee on Thursday last, it was announced that since 
the previous meeting 24,000/. had been promised, and that this, 
added to the sum previously promised, including the 50,000/. 
from Mr Carnegie and the 37,500/. from the anonymous donor, 
brought the total up to 254,580/., or 4580/. in excess of the 
amount originally fixed upon. The anonymous donor, recognis- 
ing that the endowment of 250,000/., although sufficient for a 
Starting point, must soon be largely augmented, has offered, if 
the fund is raised to 300,000/. by the end of June, to contribute 
the last 12,5007. The committee have now to find 33,000/. to 
secure the additional 12,500/7. from the anonymous donor. If 
this is obtained, it will make 50,000/. altogether subscribed by 
Mr. Chamberlain’s friend. 
THE following additional endowments and gifts to educational 
institutions in the United States are recorded in Sczezce -—-An 
Appropriation Bill recently passed by the Illinois Legislature gives 
to the University of Illinois about 600,000 dollars. The Wis- 
consin Legislature has appropriated for the University of 
Wisconsin 151,000 dollars, of which 100,000 dollars is for an 
engineering building. The Colorado Legislature, besides 
passing a Bill giving its State University an income of one-fifth 
of a mill on each dollar of assessed valuation, has made grants 
amounting to about 110,000 dollars. In Nebraska, the State 
University has been given a one-mill tax, which will, it is esti- 
mated, yield about 168,000 dollars yearly.—Columbia Uni- 
versity has recently received a gift of 10,000 dollars, to be 
known as the Dyckman Fund for the encouragement of 
NO. 1543. VOL. 60] 
biological research, the interest of which will be granted to 
post-graduate students. 
THE subjoined table, showing the ratio of the teaching staff 
to the number of students in ten of the largest universities of the 
United States, is printed in Sczence. The first column gives 
the number of persons composing the faculty, including 
instructors of all grades; the second gives the total number of 
students enrolled in the institution ; the third, the proportion 
students to teachers. 
Faculty. Students. Ratio 
Johns Hopkins PZB a4) 1 (O4KC 572 
Cornell... at ETS 20 2038 672 
Columbia ... or ew 303 2185 72) 
California ... 286 2391 83 
North-western 222 2019). wee NOE 
Harvard BoP Ate ALL 300K ~ -sanm OA: 
Yale bc6 es ca e255 2500% sven One, 
Chicago 212 2307 10°9 
Pennsylvania 258 2834 109 
Michigan ... 222 3192 -14'4 
Totals 2620 24,008 QI 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 
American Fournal of Mathematics, vol. xxi. No. 2, April.— 
On systems of multiform functions belonging toa group of linear 
substitutions with uniform coefficients, by E. J. Wilczynski. 
In this memoir, the author attempts to prove the existence of 
certain general functions, studied herein, he believes, for the 
first time. The existence of a large and important class of 
these functions is demonstrated by an indirect method, which con- 
sists essentially in generalising the hypergeometric functions ina 
proper manner. The work is connected in a way with the 
researches of Fuchs, Schwarz and Neumann (on Riemann’s 
theory of Abelian functions, and of Klein (A/ath. Ann., Bd. 41). 
Oskar Bolza states that his principal object, in his paper on the 
partial differential equations for the hyperelliptic @and a functions, 
is to replace part of Wiltheiss’s work (Cve//e, Bd. 99, and AZath. 
Ann., Bd., 29, 31 and 33) by simpler and more direct proofs.-— 
E. B. Van Vleck contributes an article on certain differential 
equations of the second order allied to Hermite’s equation. The 
treatment is thorough, and the work is accompanied with 
numerous diagrams.—Note on differential invariants of a 
system of 7 points by projective transformation, by E. O. 
Lovett, shows that to generalise a theorem of Henry Smith’s 
relative to tangent curves (cf on the focal properties of homo- 
graphic figures (Proc. London Math. Soc., vol. ii.) and the 
theorem relative to parallel curves, it is only necessary to sub- 
stitute ‘‘ surface” for ‘* curve” and ‘‘ measure of curvature ” for 
«radius of curvature.’’ A second (short) paper by Bolza is en- 
titled ‘* Proof of Brioschi’s recursion formula for the expansion of 
the even o functions of two variables.” The author believes that 
no proof of these theorems has hitherto been published. Brioschi 
merely stated them in a note (Goettingen Nachrichten, 1890, p. 
237).—E. Jahnke supplies a two-page note to Prof. Craig’s 
memoir, ‘‘ Displacements depending on one, two and three para- 
| meters in a space of four dimensions.” —There is an interesting 
prefatory notice, from which we learn that Prof. Craig, after 
seventeen years’ connection with the editorial work of the 
Journal, is succeeded by Prof. Simon Newcomb, who writes 
this exceedingly modest notice. 
Symons’s Monthly Meteorological Magazine, May.—Ozone, 
by D. A. van Bastelaer. Since 1886, the author has per- 
sistently registered the amount of ozone and submitted reports 
to the Royal Society of Public Health of Belgium, and has 
also published five-day means throughout the year, with the 
idea of their being used in connection with the death-rate. 
Although at individual stations the amount of discoloration 
varies greatly from day to day, the means remain very steady 
both for months and for years. Some places, especially 
Flanders and the neighbourhood of the Ardennes, have con- 
stantly much higher means than others. Mr. Symons remarks 
that it has sometimes been objected that the discoloration of 
ozone papers is not solely due to the presence of ozone, so 
that the subject is generally neglected, but there is probably 
no equally simple and trustworthy indication of the freshness 
of the atmosphere, and he therefore urges that such records 
should be kept. 
