ae 
NATURE 
[SEPTEMBER 14, 1899 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
Mr. R. P. PARANJPYE, the Indian senior wrangler, has been 
awarded a special scholarship of 200/. by the Secretary of State, 
partly as a recognition of his remarkable and distinguished 
success, and partly to enable him to take the M.A. degree. 
Ir is announced that the annual distribution of medals and 
prizes obtained by the students of the Royal College of Science 
will take place in the lecture theatre, of the Victoria and Albert 
Museum on Thursday, October 5, when Prof, A. W. Riicker, 
F.R.S., will deliver an address. 
A cory of the Calendar of the Durham College of Science, 
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, has been received. The college forms 
an important part of the University of the north of England. 
The degrees of Durham in science and letters and its diplomas 
in engineering are open to students of the college. The courses 
of instruction in all natural sciences and in every department of 
engineering are practical and complete, and the chemical, 
physical and engineering laboratories are well equipped. In 
addition to the biological laboratories at the College, a marine 
biological laboratory has lately been opened at Cullercoats, and 
by the generosity of the Northumberland Sea Fisheries Com- 
mittee is available for college students. The agricultural 
department has been carefully organised, and has been entrusted 
with the scientific direction of the farm acquired for the purpose 
of experiment and demonstration by the County Council of 
Northumberland. 
Many friends of education will regret to learn of the death 
of Mr. Theodore Beck, principal of the Mahomedan College at 
Aligarh, at forty years of age. Writing to the 7zmes, a friend of 
the late principal says :—‘‘ Men who were at Cambridge in the 
early eighties will remember Theodore Beck, scholar of Trinity 
and president of the union, as one of the most conspicuous 
figures in the University life of the time. He disappeared from 
the horizon of his English friends, as do all men who go out to 
India, when he accepted the post of principal in the recently 
founded college in Aligarh. When he landed in India in 1883 
Sir Syed Ahmad was giving practical shape to that great 
rationalistic movement which was to regenerate the Mussulmans 
of India. Beck found himself thrown into the midst of a com- 
munity the bulk of which was sullenly hostile to the English 
and all their ways. Sir Syed Ahmad saw that his people did 
not need to acquire the sciences of Europe alone, but also to 
readjust their ideals by an English standard ; for such a change 
it was necessary not only that they should learn the matter of 
English text-books, but should also learn to love and admire 
individual Englishmen and follow them in the ordering of their 
lives. If Sir Syed was the founder, Theodore Beck was no less 
certainly the builder of the college in Aligarh and of the large 
hopes with which it is synonymous. It was he who gave 
practical form to the generous aspirations in Sir Syed’s mind, 
and who built up the internal organisation of the college so 
that it has become the type of a new system of collegiate edu- 
cation in India.” 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 
In the Journal of Botany for August and September, Mr. 
W. West, jun., contributes a description of some Oscil- 
latorioidez from the plankton, including a new marine species, 
Oscillatoria capitata, which is figured; Mr. Spencer Le M. 
Moore, in Part v. of his ‘‘ Alabastra diversa,”’ describes a number 
of new species of flowering plants, and Dr. A. B. Rendle several 
new grasses from South Africa; Mr. J. W. White adds Redus 
Bucknalli, sp.n., to the already too numerous British brambles. 
THE Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society for August 
contains a continuation (Part v.) of Mr. F. W. Millett’s report 
on the recent Foraminifera of the Malay Archipelago collected 
by Mr. A. Durrand, and a paper by the president, Mr. E. M. 
Nelson, on the evolution of the fine adjustment of the 
microscope, in which a new and important adjustment is 
lescribed, invented by Reichert. Among the more important 
paragraphs in the summary of current researches relating to 
zoology, botany and microscopy is a description of a new 
electrically heated stage, also invented by Reichert. 
NO. 1559, VOL. 60] 
SOCIETII-S AND ACADEMIES. 
PARIs. 
Academy of Sciences, September 4.—M. Maurice Lévy in 
the chair.— Observations of Swift’s Comet (1899 a), made with 
the large equatorial of the Bordeaux Observatory, by MM. G. 
Rayet and A. Féraud. The observations, twenty-one in num- 
ber, extend from May 18 to July 15. The mean positions for 
1899 are worked out both for the comet and comparison stars. 
—Remarks by the Director of the ‘‘ Instituto y observatorio de 
Marina de San Fernando,” offering facilities to astronomers 
wishing to observe the coming total eclipse of the sun in Spain. 
—Observations of the planet EP (J. Mascart, August 26, 1899), 
made at the Observatory of Besancon by M. Chofardet. Note 
by M. L. J. Gruey. The eight observations given extend from 
August 29 to September 1, the positions of the comparison stars 
and the apparent positions of the planets being given.—Obsery- 
ations of the Perseids made at Athens, by M. D. Eginitis.— 
On the surfaces of the fourth degree which admit an integral of 
the total differential of the first species, by Mr. Arthur Berry.— 
On the solidification of hydrogen, by Prof. James Dewar. A tube 
containing liquid hydrogen, and surrounded by another vacuum 
jacketed tube containing liquid hydrogen boiling in a vacuum, 
solidifies, the lower portion being a clear ice-like solid, the upper 
a solid froth. The density was found to be approximately ‘086, 
the liquid at its boiling point being ‘07. Solid hydrogen melts 
when the pressure of its saturated vapour amounts to 55 mm. 
The melting point, as determined by two gas thermometers con- 
taining hydrogen under reduced pressure, was found to be 16° 
above the absolute zero at 35 mm. pressure. The lowest 
temperature attained in these experiments was about — 259° C., 
or 14° absolute. —On the mode of growth in spirals of appendices 
in course of regeneration in the Arthropods, by M. Edmond 
Bordage. 
CONTENTS. PAGE 
The Correspondence of Huygens. By Dr. J. L. E. 
Dreyer. cere o 6 oO ONOREINO 457 
Metaphysics of Ee oom 458 
Our Book Shelf :— 
Koehler : ‘f An Account of the Deep-Sea Ophiuroidea 
collected by the Royal Indian Marine Survey Ship 
Investigator) Seman) +8 + 0) © nv em) 
Letters to the Editor :— 
Dark Lightning.—Prof. R. W. Wood. ..... 460 
Tides in the Bay of Fundy.—W. H. Wheeler. . . 461 
Ethnographical Collections in Germany 461 
The Dover Meeting of the British Association . . 463 
Inaugural Address by Prof. Sir Michael Foster, 
K.C.B., Sec.R.S., President of the Association . 464 
Section A.— Mathematics and Physics.— Opening 
Address by Prof, J. H. Poynting, F.R.S., 
President of the Section. .... oun 470 
Section B.—Chemistry. (W2th Pierant 1 Opening 
Address by Dr. Horace T. Brown, F.R.S., 
President of the Section . 474 
Notes. (J/lustrated.). .. ++. 483 
Our Astronomical Column :— 
Holmes’ Comet 1899 d@ (1892 III.) 487 
Vanadium in Meteorites . : 487 
Cordoba Photographs of Star- ane A 487 
University and Educational Intelligence 488 
Scientific Serials . 488 
Societies and Academies... . 488 
