588 
‘NATURE 
[OcroBeER 12, 1899 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
Oxrorp.—The following are among the lectures and practical 
courses announced for the present term :—General Pathology, 
Sir J. Burdon-Sanderson ; The Chemical Processes of the Body, 
Prof. F. Gotch; Elementary Physiological Chemistry, W. 
Ramsden ; Practical Histology, G. Mann ; Elementary Medicine. 
W. Collier; Minor Surgery, A. Winkfield ; Human Osteology, 
Prof. A. Thomson; Analytic Theory of Plane Curves, and 
Synthetic Theory of Plane Curves, Prof. W. Esson ; Elementary 
Mathematical Astronomy, Prof. H. Turner ; Physical Crystal- 
lography, Prof. H. Miers; Practical Crystallography, H. 
Bowman ; Electricity and Magnetism, Prof. A. Love; Theory 
of Numbers, Prof. E. Elliott ; General Morphology, and Varia- 
tion Inheritance and Natural "Selection, Prof. W. Weldon ; Ex- 
perimental Physics, Prof. R. Clifton; Structure of Simple 
Machines, Rev. F. Jervis-Smith; Silicon and Boron Com- 
pounds, Prof. W. Odling ; Subjects of the Preliminary Ex- 
amination in Chemistry, Dr. W. Fisher; Organic Chemistry, 
J. Watts; Physical Chemistry, V. Veley; Metabolism, J. 
Haldane; Muscular Activity, Prof. F. Gotch; Physiological 
Physics, G. Burch; Physical Geology, and Jurassic Fossils, 
Prof. W. Sollas ; Elementary Botany, Prof. S. Vines ; Clas- 
sification of Mankind by Race, Language and Civilisation, 
Prof. E. Tylor ; Bacon, and the Organon of Aristotle, Prof. T. 
Case; Mental Evolution, G. Stout; Inference and Scientific 
Method, J. Cook Wilson. 
CAMBRIDGE —Mr. John Sealy Edward Townsend, who 
entered the University as an Advanced Student in Physics, was 
on October 9 elected to a Fellowship in Trinity College. 
Dr. W. E. Dixon, late Salters’ Research Fellow in Pharma- 
cology, has been appointed Assistant to the Downing Professor 
of Medicine. 
Dr. L. Humphry has been appointed Assessor to the Regius 
Professor of Physic. 
A Scholarship of 50/. in Natural Science will be open for 
competition at Downing College to members of the University 
of less than four terms’ standing on Monday, November 27. 
Applications are to be made to the Tutor. 
Studentships for research have been awarded at Emmanuel 
College to R. G. K. Lempfert and B. W. Head. 
A GENERAL meeting of Convocation of the University of 
London was held on Tuesday to receive an interim report from 
the special committee appointed on June 27 to make represent- 
ations to and to confer with the London University Commis- 
sioners, the Senate, and other bodies with reference to the 
scheme of the Royal Commission. On the subject of faculties 
contemplated under Section 10 of the Schedule of the Uni- 
versity of London Act, the special committee made various 
recommendations, among which the following may be noticed :— 
There should be only one faculty of science with adequate 
representation on the Senate and the Academic Council. 
Engineering should be a distinct branch of the one faculty of 
science and not a separate faculty, but degrees should be given 
in engineering bearing a distinctive name. If it should be 
thought expedient to constitute a distinct branch of the faculty 
of science for any other scientific profession, there is not, in 
the opinion of the committee, any present occasion for giving a 
distinctive name to degrees to be taken in that branch. If, 
contrary to the opinion of the committee, the subjects of the 
faculty of science should be divided by the commissioners, for 
electoral purposes, into several faculties, the committee hope 
they may be afforded an opportunity of giving further consider- 
ation to the principles upon which such division should be 
effected, especially in connection with the effect which the 
division would have upon the University examinations and 
degrees. After discussion it was decided ‘‘that the report be 
received subject to the reconsideration by the committee of such 
points, if any, as this house may deem advisable.” 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES, 
PaRISs. 
Academy of Sciences, October 2.—M. van Tieghem in 
the chair.—The Mayor of Chantilly informed the Academy that 
he inauguration of the statue erected to the Duc d’Aumale would 
ke place on October 15.—Orbit of the shooting star of August 
ie by M. J. Comas Sola. This meteor, which was a very bright 
one, was observed at the Observatory of Catala, had a relative 
NO. 1563, VOL. 60] 
direction nearly east to west, disappearing near a-Capricorn. 
Its absolute velocity was 50 kilometres per second. A similar 
meteor was observed on August 28 at 7.45, but of smaller 
lustre. —On the identity of solution of certain problems of 
elasticity and hydrodynamics, by M. Georges Poisson. In a note 
presented to the Academy on May 2, 1898, M. Maurice Lévy 
remarked that in problems of elasticity in two dimensions the 
distribution of the pressures is independent of the value of the 
elastic coefficients. In the present note it is shown that in this 
case the determination of the pressures may often be reduced to 
the study of the permanent motion of a liquid. —On two chloro- 
bromides of tungsten, by M. Ed. Defacqz. In an attempt to 
prepare tungsten hexabromide, tungsten hexachloride was sealed 
up with liquid hydrobromic acid in excess, and the whole heated 
at 70° for four hours. The resulting product was not the desired 
hexabromide, but a chlorobromide having approximately the 
composition WCl.3WBr,. Ina second similar preparation the 
tube was not heated, but left for three days at the temperature 
of the laboratory ; the substance obtained was another chloro- 
bromide, represented by the formula WCl,.WBr,.—On copper 
hypophosphite and its decomposition by precipitated palladium, 
by M. R. Engel. Aqueous solutions of copper sulphate and 
barium hypophosphite are mixed in equal molecular proportions, 
the solution filtered, and the copper hypophosphite precipitated 
in the crystalline form by the addition of alcohol in excess. 
The solution of the salt is decomposed in a remarkable manner 
by the addition of precipitated palladium, copper being thrown 
down and hydrogen gas evolved according to the equation 
Cu(PO,H.).. +2H,O=Cu + 2H,PO,+ Ha, 
no copper hydride being formed. In the absence of palladium 
the copper hypophosphite is decomposed differently by heat, 
copper hydride being first formed, and then metallic copper, 
phosphorous and hypophosphorous acids.—Salicylic and ara- 
oxybenzoic aldehydes and salicylhydramide, by MM. Delépine 
and Rivals. A thermochemical paper.—On a double mon- 
strosity observed in the blastoderm of a fowl’s egg in the 
course of formation, by MM. Bonmariage and Petrucci.-— 
Completion of some observations on the Alps of the Vaudois, 
by M. Stanislas Meunier.—On an aérial voyage of long 
duration, from Paris to the Mediterranean, carried out on 
September 16 and 17, by M. Gustave Hermite. —Barometric 
deviations on the meridian of the sun on successive days of 
the tropical revolution of the moon, by{M. A. Poincaré. 
CONTENTS. PAGE 
Verworn’s ‘‘General Physiology.” By W. B. 
Hardy . dk Gita CEES oc 0 0) SOS 
Our Book Shelf :— 
Hopwood : ‘ Living Pictures ” 567 
Pullen: ‘‘ Tables and Data” . 567 
Letters to the Editor :— 
Halo Round a Shadow.—A. Mallock : 567 
The Skull of Hatteria.—Prof. W. Blaxland 
Benham 2% a elev. 
The Best Education for an Engineer. ‘By W.E. A. 568 
Research Work and the Opening of the Medical 
Schools, By Ea Wile : 569 
Dark Lightning Flashes. (J//ustrated.} By Dr. 
William J. S. Lockyer ess 57° 
Notes c 574 
Our Astronomical Column:— 
Comet Giacobini (1899 E) . 577 
Holmes’ Comet (1899 @) 577 
The Rotation of the Sun 577 
The Polaris Multiple Star one : nae 577 
Astronomical Camera Doublets. . . . . -... . 578 
Observation of Leonids es Te 
The Freedom of the City ‘of Manchester. By 
We. 1. 578 
Visit of the Institution of Electrical Engineers to 
Switzerland, August 31 to September 8. By 
Prof: Richard ThrelfallMRIRGS.. 9: . . © = ee To 
The British Association :— . 
Section K.—Botany.—Opening Address by Sir 
George King, K.C.I.E., F.R.S., President of 
the Section : 5S 
Mathematics at the British Association . 584 
Physics at the British Association 585 
University and Educational Intelligence 588 
Societies and Academies. . 0) OND 588 
