34 
NATURE 
[January 6, 1923 

value as to warrant publication. In more than a 
hundred centres in the surrounding counties affiliated 
continuation classes in science and technology were 
conducted by education authorities: nearly all 
evening students entering the college, except those 
from a considerable distance, present qualifications 
gained in such affiliated classes. The school of 
pharmacy is now thoroughly established, and several 
students are preparing for the B.Sc. degree in 
pharmacy of the University of Glasgow. 
REcENT developments in the Swedish national 
school system are described in an article by Prof. 
Hanninger of the Landskrona Training College in 
the November number of School Life—an official 
journal of the United States Bureau of Education. 
In 1919 the Government prescribed for use in the 
folk-schools a new instruction plan, the outstanding 
feature of which is ‘‘ home and community study,” 
involving lessons based on direct observation of the 
environment of home and school and linking the 
observed facts with geography, nature-study, history, 
drawing, and sloyd. About the same time were 
established two-year continuation schools with a 
total of 360 hours of instruction, directed in the main 
on practical lines, and including citizenship and the 
mother-tongue, and either a craft or natural history, 
sloyd, and horticulture. These schools are to be 
obligatory after 1924. Apprentice schools with 
two-year curricula, for which the continuation schools 
serve as a preparation, may be made compulsory at 
the option of the local community. In the apprentice 
schools the instruction comprises 6 to 12 hours per 
week during 8 or 9 months of the year. Beyond 
it is an optional crafts school with a one-year course. 
In a report just issued by a Grand School Commission 
proposals are made for substituting for the existing 
dual system (folk-school and vealskola) a common 
foundation school to be attended by children of all 
classes for six years, leading to a middle school with 
a four-year course, to be followed by a three-year 
““symnasium,”’ 
HicHway Engineering and Highway Transport 
Education problems were discussed at a conference 
held at Washington on October 26-28, under the 
auspices of the United States Highway Education 
Board. Between 1910 and 1922 the number of 
motor vehicles increased 2000 per cent. (to ten and 
a half millions), while the increase in funds for road 
building was only 400 per cent. Neither highway 
construction nor highway transport education have 
kept pace with the stupendous increase in automobile 
traffic. The trend in the colleges at present is 
towards a system whereby certain fundamental 
courses covering about 5 semester hours in highway 
engineering are required of all civil engineering 
students, while an equal amount of optional supple- 
mentary highway instruction in the subject is offered 
for intending specialists. 
Ir is announced in the British Medical Journal 
that the University of Paris has received two gifts 
of 100,000 francs each from Madame Edouard 
Nathan. The first of these is to be applied to the 
improvement of the scientific laboratories of the 
University, and to the promotion of research work. 
The second is to be set apart for the purpose of 
making loans to impecunious students of the Uni- 
versity to enable them to continue their studies. 
THE Chemiker Zeitung of October 28 reports that 
Prof. Pfeiffer, of the Technische Hochschule, Karls- 
ruhe, has been appointed Director of the “ Josefine 
und Eduard von Portheim-Stiftung fiir Wissenschaft 
und Kunst” in Heidelberg, and will direct the 
Chemical Research Institute of this Fund. 
NO. 2775, VOL. I11] 

Societies and Academies. 
Lonpon. 
Physical Society, December 8—Dr. Alexander 
Russell, in the chair—G. Shearer: The relation 
between molecular and crystal symmetry as shown 
by X-ray crystal analysis. By X-ray analysis the 
number of molecules associated with the unit cell 
is determined. The symmetry number for each of 
the 32 crystal classes is shown to mean the minimum 
number of asymmetric molecules necessary in the 
unit cell to satisfy the symmetry conditions. The 
symmetry number is the actual number of molecules 
in the cell when the molecule is asymmetric ; if the 
molecule possesses symmetry, this symmetry appears 
also in the crystal, and the number of molecules in 
the unit cell is obtained by dividing the symmetry 
number of the crystal by the symmetry number 
of the molecule.—E. A. Owen and G. D. Preston: 
Modification of the powder method of determining 
the structure of metal crystals. Plates of aluminium, 
iron, copper, lead, and magnesium have been examined 
by means of the Bragg X-ray spectrometer, employing 
radiation direct from a molybdenum anti-cathode. 
The maxima in the spectra are sufficiently intense 
to measure with accuracy, and the crystalline structure 
of the materials examined are readily determined.— 
A. B. Wood: The cathode ray oscillograph. The 
instrument is of the low-voltage type, in which a hot 
cathode is employed as a source of the electron 
current. This low-voltage type of oscillograph is 
much more sensitive than the high-voltage cold- 
cathode type of M. Dufour. There are various 
methods of focussing the cathode-ray stream, and 
it has been proposed to have an external (i.e. outside 
the vacuum) photographic film. Ordinary gelatin- 
coated roll films or plates are unsuitable, owing to 
the marked absorption of the cathode-rays by the 
gelatin. The best results have been obtained with 
Schumann plates containing calcium tungstate. This 
material phosphoresces with a light rich in ultra- 
violet, and consequently the secondary luminous 
effect on the Schumann plate is very great. Mechani- 
cal, electrostatic, and electromagnetic methods are 
described for generating a time-axis on the records. 
—R. Webb: A low-voltage cathode ray oscillograph. 
The instrument is designed to work at 300 volts. 
The cathode consists of a hot platinum filament 
coated with certain oxides, and formed into a circle 
coaxial with the path of the rays. It is protected 
from bombardment by positive rays, which would 
disintegrate it, by a screen in which is cut a circular 
hole slightly less in diameter than the filament. It 
has a life of about 200 hours. The anode isa platinum 
tube through which the rays pass. The deflecting 
fields are electrostatic, and are provided by two pairs 
of plates at right angles. The bulb is in the form 
of a conical flask, the cathode being at the narrow 
end so that the rays impinge on the flat bottom, which 
is coated inside with fluorescent matter. The 
luminous trace of the rays can be seen from outside 
through the bottom of the flask. 
Royal Meteorological Society, December 20.—Dr. 
C. Chree, president, in the chair.—C. J. P. Cave and 
R. A. Watson Watt: The study of radiotelegraphic 
atmospherics in relation to meteorology. Results 
obtained in 1915, at the Meteorological Office Radio 
Station, Aldershot. Radiotelegraphic direction find- 
ing on atmospherics was introduced as a means of 
locating thunderstorms, and successful observations 
were made, with the co-operation of the Admiralty 
coast stations, on storms as near as five miles to an 
observing station, and on other storms 1000 miles 
distant. The first thunderstorm thus located, and 
