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[JuLy 27, 1899 
school since 1865 with great success, will retire from his post 
at the close of this session. 
Dr. W. SOMERVILLE, professor of agriculture and forestry 
at the College of Science, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in connection 
with the University of Durham, has been elected to the new 
professorship of agriculture in Cambridge University. 
PARTICULARS concerning British, Continental and Canadian 
Universities, with special reference to institutions having courses 
open to women, are given ina ‘‘ Handbook ”’ compiled by Dr. 
Isabel Maddison for the Graduate Club of Bryn Mawr College, 
and published by the Macmillan Company, New York. We 
notice that Queen’s College, London, which celebrated its 
jubilee last year, has been omitted. As the volume is primarily 
intended to indicate colleges for women students, the omission 
of a college of this kind possessing a Royal Charter is unfortunate. 
THE departmental committee appointed by the Lord Presi- 
dent of the Council to consider the question of the reorgan- 
isation of the Education and Science and Art Departments 
consists of Sir Horace Walpole, K.C.B. (chairman), Sir G W. 
Kekewich, K.C.B., Secretary of the Education and Science 
and Art Departments, Captain W. de W. Abney, C.B., 
principal assistant-secretary of the Science and Art Depart- 
ment, Mr. S. Spring Rice, C.B., of the Treasury, and Mr. W. 
Tucker, C.B., principal assistant-secretary of the Education 
Department. 
THE ninth summer meeting of University Extension Students 
will be opened at Oxford on July 29. Many prominent 
members of the University have arranged to take part in the 
meeting. In the scientific section Prof. Gotch will deal with 
“*The Physiology of Sensation,” Prof. Sollas will lecture on 
“‘The Geology of Oxford,’ Prof. H. A. Miers on ‘*The 
‘Growth of a Crystal,” Mr. H. N. Dickson, New College, on 
“*The Influence of Climate,’ Mr. G. C. Bourne, University 
lecturer in Anatomy, on ‘‘The Growth of the Living 
Organism,” Mr. G. J. Burch on ‘‘ Wireless Telegraphy,” and 
Dr. Arthur Ransome on ‘‘ Microbes and Disease.” 
Mr. A. F. Stantey Kent has been appointed pro- 
fessor of physiology in University College, Bristol. Mr. Kent 
received his scientific training at Oxford, which he left 
upon being appointed demonstrator of physiology in Owens 
College, Manchester. In 1889 he was invited by Sir J. S. 
Burdon-Sanderson to take charge of the histological department 
-at Oxford, to lecture on special points in physiology, and to 
assist in the teaching of general physiology. Since 1892 he has 
been assistant lecturer in physiology and histclogy at St. 
Thomas’s Hospital, and has carried out a number of researches, 
the results of which have been published in various journals, 
iproceedings, and reports. 
SECONDARY as well as elementary schools are now beginning 
o appreciate the advantage of having upon their staff one or 
more teachers. who thoroughly understand the application of the 
theory and practice of hygiene in school life ; and the desirability 
of emphasising the necessity of this knowledge in the code for 
elementary schools is now being pressed upon the Education 
Department by memorials from several important bodies. To 
encourage the systematic study of the subject, the Council of the 
Sanitary Institute have decided to arrange a thorough theoretical 
and practical examination, which will be open to both classes of 
teachers and to those preparing as teachers. The first examin- 
ations will be held during February and June next year. 
THE first of a series of articles dealing with the provision 
made by local authorities for the technical education of miners 
appears in the July number of the Record of Technical and 
Secondary Education, the information given having reference 
to the County Councils of Cornwall, Durham, Northumberland, 
and the West Riding of Yorkshire. The permanent schools of 
mining in Cornwall are at Camborne and Redruth, in the 
centre of the Cornish mining district, and they thus afford 
exceptional facilities for the acquisition of a practical as well as 
a theoretical knowledge of mining and its allied subjects. As 
regards the provision of practical work other than that con- 
cerned with elementary scientific principles, the Committee 
of the Redruth School have made arrangements with the 
managers of neighbouring mines for the practical instruction of 
the students. The Committee of the Camborne School adopt 
the same system to some extent, but are also themselves the 
owner of a portion of a mine, having purchased the same in 
1897 for the use of students. Cornwall thus furnishes a unique 
NO. 1552, VOL. 60] 
instance of educational procedure by reason of this purchase of 
a mine by a local school committee. 
As the result of a conference between representatives of the 
London School Board and London County Council, having 
for its object the prevention of overlapping of classes, the 
representatives of the former body have resolved to recommend 
the Board to adopt the following proposals among others :— 
(1) The School Board will limit its instruction in science and 
art in all its evening schools to such grades as can be con- 
veniently taught in its premises, and will look to the Technical 
Education Board to give the advanced instruction in the pre- 
mises under their control. (2) The School Board will not 
conduct classes in technological subjects, and will not offer 
instruction specially intended for university degrees. (3) The 
School Board proposes to conduct preparatory classes in 
elementary experimental science, in elementary freehand, 
geometrical, and model drawing, and in the drawing of 
simple pieces of mechanism; in mensuration and workshop 
arithmetic, and in algebra, to enable pupils to understand the 
meaning of an algebraical formula. (4) The School Board 
proposes to conduct evening classes in manual training, wood- 
work, and metal-work as part of a general education, and as 
preparatory to commercial workshops, but to refer students 
who are members of specific trades, and require trade teach- 
ing, to the Polytechnics and Technical Institutes. 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 
Symons’s Monthly Meteorological Magazine, July.—Meteoro 
logical extremes: Pressure. Mr. Symons has undertaken to 
give, in alternate numbers, a list of extremes of the various 
meteorological elements. The task is by no means easy, as the 
information is scattered, in many books and languages, and 
some of the statements will no doubt lead to useful criticisms. 
The highest recorded barometric pressures (reduced and 
corrected) are 31°78 inches at Irkutsk, January 14, 1893 ; 
31°72 inches at Semipalatinsk, December 16, 1877; and 
31°62 inches at Barnaul, December 14, 1877. Dr. Woeikof 
doubts the accuracy of the first reading, zzzte alia, because the 
temperature for reducing wf to the freezing point had been 
taken at — 51°34 F., and had been assumed to prevail from 
Irkutsk to the sea. [le maintains that the reading of 
31°62 inches at Barnaul is really the best established baro- 
metrical maximum as yet on record. The reduction to sea- 
level from stations some thousands of miles from the nearest sea 
renders the statements more doubtful than readings taken near 
the sea-shore. The highest readings in the British Isles are 
31108 inches at Octertyre, and 31°106 inches at Fort William, 
both on January 9, 1896. The highest reading in the neigh- 
bourhood of London since 1858 (the date of commencing observ- 
ations at Camden Square) is 30°934, January 9, 1896. The 
lowest pressures are those referred to in NATURE, vol. xxxv. 
p- 344, viz. 27°135 on September 22, 1885, at False Point on 
the coast of Orissa. In the Quarterly Journal of the Royal 
Meteorological Society, vol. xiii. p. 212, Mr. C. Harding 
pointed out that for comparison with English standards a further 
subtractive correction of ‘o1r inch has to be applied, which 
would make the lowest reading 27°124 inches. The next lowest 
reading occurred at Octertyre on January 26, 1884, viz. 27°332 
inches. The lowest reading at Camden Square is 28°295, 
December 9, «1896. 
Buiietin of the American Mathematical Soctety, July.—The 
asymptotic lines of the Kummer surface, by Dr. J. I. Hutchin- 
son, was read at the April meeting. These curves have been 
discussed by Klein and Lie, Reye, Segre and Rohn from the 
point of view of line geometry. This notelet gives a simple 
solution by making use of the parametric representation of the 
Kummer surface in terms of hyperelliptic functions. —On a de- 
finitive property of the covariant, by C. J. Keyser, was read at 
the same meeting. The writer refers to three proofs, due to 
Jordan, Elliott and Fiske respectively.—Yet another paper 
read at this meeting was the known finite simple groups, by 
Prof. L. E. Dickson. This is in part a r¢sz7z¢ of previous work 
done by the author, and gives a table which should aid in the 
determination of the status of a newly-discovered simple group. 
—Reviews follow, viz. of Schoenflies’ ‘‘ Geometrie der Bewegung 
in Synthetischer Darstellung,” and of Speckel’s ‘‘La Geometrie 
du Mouvement Exposé: Synthétique,” by Prof. F. Morley; a 
short notice of the second edition of the second volume of Weber’s 
“Lehrbuch der Algebra,” by Prof. Pierpont. Shorter notices 
