March 2, 1899] 



A- A rURE 



427 



The Curators of the University Chest have been authorised to 

 guarantee an annual stipend of lOoZ. to a Demonstrator in 

 Slineralogy, and to expend 90/. upon sanitary improvements in 

 the Physiological Laboratory. 



The annual grant to the Hope Department has been raised 

 from too/, to iio/., and that to the Pitt Rivers Museum from 

 150''. to 200/. 



The Board of the Faculty of Natural Science has issued new 

 regulations relating to the special subjects of crystallography 

 and mineralogy. 



Mr. H. T. Gerrans has been elected a Delegate of the 

 University Museum, and Mr. C. Leudesdorf a Visitor of the 

 University Observatory. Mr. D. R. Wilson has been appointed 

 lecturer in Chemistry at Magdalen College. 



The 198th meeting of the Junior Scientific Club was 

 held on Friday, February 24. — >Ir. E. H. J- Schuster, New 

 College, read a paper on " Theheredity of acquired characters." 

 — Mr. H. B. Hartley, Balliol, read a paper entitled "Notes 

 on the origin of the Japanese." The author held that four 

 waves of population have swept over Japan. The original 

 inhabitants were a race of people who possessed the art of 

 making pottery and lived in holes in the earth, roofed over with 

 branches. These were completely driven out in prehistoric 

 times by the Ainus, to whom the art of pottery making is still 

 unknown. The Ainus were, in their turn, driven northwards 

 or exterminated by an invasion of Mongols from Corea, and the 

 latter now constitute the bulk of the population, — the round- 

 faced type. Later still, apparently a second invasion of Mongols 

 took place, and these, constituting the oval-faced type cf 

 Japanese, are now the aristocrats of the land. The antiquity 

 of the first Mongol invasion is plainly evident ; it is con- 

 sidered that the early Japanese, up to the fifth century, did not 

 possess the art of writing. 



CAMBRIDGE. — Mr. G. W. Walker, of Trinity College, has 

 been elected to an Isaac Newton Studentship in Astronomy and 

 Physical Optics. 



The subject for the Adams Prize, 1901, open to all graduates 

 of the University, is " Electric Waves." The successful candi- 

 date will receive about 225/. 



Prof Lewis has acquired for the Mineralogical Museum the 

 Carne collection of Cornish minerals with their cabinets. The 

 cost (475/.) has been almost entirely defrayed by contributions 

 from members of the University and their friends, together 

 with donations from the Clothworkers' and Fishmongers' 

 Companies. 



The Museums and Lecture Rooms Syndicate report on the 

 urgent need of new buildings for the department of IJotany, and 

 propose that immediate steps be taken for their erection on the 

 site recently assigned by the Senate. 



The Antiquarian Committee in like manner press for a new^ 

 archssological museum, the present building, which was 

 originally but a makeshift, being now utterly inadequate for the 

 valuable ethnological and other collections. 



A grant of 300/ from the Works Travelling Scholars Fund is 

 to be mide to Mr. Skeat in aid of his scientific expedition to the 

 Malay Peninsula. 



We understand that there is a vacancy in the Examinations 

 Department of the City and Guilds of London Institute, for the 

 post of iissistant to the superintendent, from whom particulars 

 of the appointment may be obtained. Applicants are expected 

 to have graduated, and to have a sound knowledge of some 

 branch of science and educational experience. 



A COPY of the Calendar, for 1899, of the University of New 

 Brunswick, Fredericton, has been received. Among the 

 University medals, prizes and scholarships, we notice that a gold 

 medal is offered for competition among undergraduates this year 

 for the best essay on " The aims and methods of modern 

 science.' As showing how the alumini help their alma mater, 

 we may mention that the Alumini Association has founded 

 several scholarships and prizes, and that the graduation classes 

 of 1894 and succeeding years have contributed various gifts to 

 the University. 



Tm-; steady increase in the number of students who have 

 taken up advanced courses of technical science in Germany 

 during the past fifteen years is shown in the accompanying 

 diagram, reproduced from an article on the new laboratories of 

 the Zurich Polytechnic, contributed to the Revue Gaicralc dcs 

 Siiciiics by M. Pierre Weiss. There are in Germany nine 



NO. I 531, VOL. 59] 



polytechnics — it is hardly necessary to explain that they are 

 concerned with much more advanced work than our polytechnic 

 institutions — the one haring the smallest number of students 



Xumber of students i 



1 Polytechnics every year from 1882 to 1897 



being Brunswick, with 363 students, while Berlin, with 2906 

 students, is the most frequented. The total number of 

 polytechnic students is 10,000. If the average period of study 

 is taken to be three years, the number of trained technical men 

 who become available every year is thus about three thousand. 

 The diagram shows clearly the uniform rise in the number of 

 students of industrial science in all the German polytechnics 

 since about 1886 or 1887. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



Syiiions's Monthly Meteorological Magazine, February. — Re- 

 sults of meteorological observations at Camden Square (North- 

 west London) for forty years, 1858-97. This is a second series 

 of tables containing the means and other details for each separate 

 year, while the former series contained only the averages, t\;c. , 

 for the whole period. The results now published will be very 

 valuable for reference. The present number contains the ob- 

 servations for January.— Climatological records for the British 

 Empire in 1S97. The table contains the results for sixteen 

 representative localities. Most of the extremes have occurred 

 at the same stations in other years. The highest temperature 

 in the shade was 110° '8 at Adelaide, and the lowest -41 'O at 

 Winnipeg ; the former was also the driest station, mean 

 humidity 59, and had the highest temperature in the sun, 

 i66''3. The dampest station was Esquimalt, mean humidity 

 86. The greatest rainfall, 83 64 ins., occurred at Grenada, and 

 the least, I4-22 ins., at Malta. Strange to say, Grenada had 

 the least cloud, average amount 2 '5. This value is unpre- 

 cedented in the last twenty-one years, the nearest approach to 

 it being 2-9 at Malta, in 1885. 



lViede?nann's Annalen der Physik nnd Cheniie, No. i.— 

 Susceptibilities of some metals, by E. Seckelson. The magnetic 

 susceptibility of all metals examined is independent of the field 

 in a direction normal to the lines of force.— Structure of the 

 kathode light and nature of Lenard's rays, by E. Goldstein. 



