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FEBRUARY 22, 1917] 
__- UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
- Oxrorp.—On February 20 Congregation took in 
consideration certain amendments to the statute estab- 
lishing the status of advanced student, the preamble 
_of which was passed on February 6. An amendment 
"substituting the title of Doctor of Philosophy for that 
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of Doctor of Letters or Doctor of Science, in the 
ease of the degree to be obtained under the statute, 
was proposed by Mr. Ball, fellow of St. John’s Col- 
lege, and Prof. A. C. Clark, Corpus professor of 
It was supported by Mr. Barker, fellow of 
New College, and opposed by Mr. Walker, fellow of 
_ Queen’s, and Dr. Marett, reader in anthropology. On 
a division it was carried by eighty-nine to nineteen. 
Another amendment, proposed by Dr. Schiller, fellow 
of Corpus, and Dr. Grenfell, fellow of Queen’s, which 
would have had the effect of abolishing a written 
examination for the new degree, was rejected by 
thirty-seven to fourteen. Under the former amend- 
ment the existing degrees of D.Sc. and D.Litt. will 
remain unaffected by the new enactment. 
Sir Joun Bianp-Surron has been appointed to 
deliver the next Bradshaw lecture at the Royal College 
of Surgeons. of England. 
Dr. J. M. Purser has been appointed Regius pro- 
fessor of physic in the University of Dublin, in suc- 
cession to the late Prof. J. Little. 
Tue title of associate professor has been conferred 
by the council of the University of Liverpoo! upon 
Mr. J. Wemyss. Anderson, lecturer in engineering 
design and drawing and in refrigeration, and dean 
of the faculty of engineering, in the University. 
Ir has been decided to make the erection of new 
science buildings for the University College of North 
Wales, Bangor, the North Wales memorial to men 
fallen in the war. The cost of the scheme will be 
150,000l. 
Mr. D. M. Forses, who died on December 13 last, 
has bequeathed to the University of Edinburgh his 
books relating to the Philippine Islands, and the resi- 
due of his property, which, with the property abroad, 
will amount, it is understood, to about 100,000l., for 
the purposes of education. 
A NEW chair of ‘“‘social providence and assistance " 
has been established in connection with the Collége de 
France, the funds for the maintenance of which will 
be provided by the Municipal Council of Paris and the 
General Council of the Seine. The teaching given 
from the chair will deal largely with sickness assur- 
ance, invalidism, old age, and infant protection. 
Tue following courses of lectures are announced for 
delivery at the Royal College of Physicians of Lon- 
don :—The Milroy lectures, by Dr. W. J. Howarth, 
on *‘ Meat Inspection,"’ on February 22, 27, and March 
1; the Lumleian lectures, by Dr. G. A. Sutherland, on 
“Modern Aspects of Heart Disease,’ on March 13, 15, 
and 20; and the Goulstonian lectures, by Dr. C. H. 
Miller, on ‘‘ Paratyphoid Infections,” on March 22, 27, 
and 29. 
Tue Department of Agriculture and Technical In- 
struction for Ireland has issued its programme of 
summer courses of instruction for teachers to be held 
during the present year. With the exception of the 
course in rural science, which begins on August 7, all 
the courses will commence on July 3 «and close’ on 
July 27. Teachers who attend the courses regularly 
and punctually will be allowed 3]. 10s. towards ‘their 
expenses while living at the instruction centre, and 
third-class railway fare for one return journey. The 
courses are open only to teachers who are more than 
NO. 2469, VoL. 98] 
NATURE. 
593 
twenty years of age and engaged by local committees 
of technical instruction or in schools receiving grants, 
from the Department. Among the subjects in which 
instruction is offered may be mentioned wool dyes and 
dyeing, internal-combustion engines, housewifery, 
hygiene and sick-nursing, manual training (wood- 
work), and rural science (including school gardening). 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
Lonpbon. 
Royal Society, February 8.—Sir J. J. Thomson, 
president, in the chair.—Lord Rayleigh ; The dynamics 
of revolving fluids. The fluid is supposed to be de- 
void of viscosity and the motion to be at all times 
symmetrical about an axis. In accordance with Kel- 
vin’s general theorem the circulation remains con- 
stant for each ring of fluid. In equilibrium the rings 
of fluid must be so arranged that the circulation is in 
cylindrical layers, and if the equilibrium is to be 
stable the circulation must increase outwards. An 
example is taken from fluid originally rotating like a 
solid and enclosed by: coaxial cylindrical walls. If 
these close in, a simple vortex motion of increasing 
intensity is superposed, and the difference of pressures 
at the walls also increases. When the motion is in 
three dimensions, exact solutions are’ scarcely prac- 
ticable, but some general considerations are appended, 
suggested by a recent paper of Dr. Aitken.—Prof. H. 
Lamb: The deflection of the vertical by tidal loading 
of the earth’s surface. This subject has of late excited 
renewed attention owing to its bearing on observa- 
tions of lunar disturbance of gravity. The present 
paper, after discussing a few typical problems, goes 
on to examine the effect of one or two considerations 
which have been hitherto left out of account, so far as 
the author is aware, in such calculations. In the 
first place, owing to the deformation of the surface 
and the altered distribution of density, an additional 
horizontal component of force on the pendulum is 
introduced. A more important point is that the action 
of gravity in resisting the deformation is ignored. It 
is true that the corrections involved are under certain 
conditions negligible, but they are of some theoretical 
interest, and it is found that at great distances from 
the load, and therefore in all cases of a widely dis- 
tributed load, they may attain considerable relative 
importance. In attempting to estimate the effect of 
gravity it has been found convenient, in order to avoid 
difficulties not altogether of a mathematical kind, to 
limit the investigation to the case of incompressibility. 
In the first instance, also, the disturbance in the field 
of gravity has been neglected in calculating the 
strains. When the alteration of the field is taken into 
account a curious point arises. For mathematical 
simplicity the ‘‘earth”’ has been regarded, as is usual 
in such investigations, as flat and infinitely extended. 
It apvears that in such a case the surface would be 
unstable, whatever the degree of rigidity, for disturb- 
ances exceeding a certain wave-length. This critical 
wave-length is, however, enormous, and reasons are 
given for the view that inferences can legitimately be 
drawn from the results as to the character of the 
effects actually produced.—C.- F. Brush and Sir R. 
Hadfield: Spontaneous generation of heat in recently 
hardened steel. Steel specimens of different composi- 
tion were hardened and then placed in Dewar vacuum. 
jars so arranged as to have equal thermal insulating 
efficiency. These were placed inside an air-tight 
cylinder of thin copper embedded in granulated coke 
placed in another box surrounded by an air space and 
a further box. The special apparatus employed is 
fully described in the paper. Carbon steel, also nickel- 
chromium steel specially susceptible to hardening, and 
other steels were then quenched from hardening tem- 
