
‘ 
June 16, 1923] 
NATU 
URE 

remain in session until July 6, is the second conference 
of its kind, the first having been held in 1911. The 
Chief of the Imperial General Staff convened an 
Imperial education conference in 1919, but this was 
limited to the discussion of problems which had 
eae themselves to the Imperial Education 
mmittee, War Office, as a result of the experience 
gained in the working of the educational schemes 
within the British Army and the Forces of the 
Dominions. Most of the discussions at the coming 
conference will take place in private, but there will be 
public (evening) sessions on June 26, June 27, and 
July 3 devoted to infant education, the boy-scout 
and girl-guide movements, and “‘ The Island and the 
Empire” (paper by Sir Charles Lucas) respectively. 
Educational films will be exhibited at the Central 
Hall, Westminster, on July 5, and an exhibition of 
the work of elementary schools and training colleges 
in England will be opened by the president of the 
Board of Education on June 25. No public official 
announcement has been made by the Board of the 
subjects to be dealt with in the course of the private 
discussions. 
TuE International Federation of University Women 
sends us a pamphlet (Occasional Paper, No. 2) con- 
taining, inter alia, anarticle by Prof. Kristine Bonnevie, 
of the University of Christiania, on the work of the 
League of Nations Committee on Intellectual Co- 
Operation, of which she isa member. Prof. Bonnevie 
is of opinion that the most fruitful field for intellectual 
' co-operation will be found in bibliography, and she 
notes that a special committee is investigating systems 
of cataloguing and other questions with the view of 
facilitating co-operation between libraries of different 
countries. Another special committee is studying 
exchanges of professors and students, equivalence of 
studies, degrees, and diplomas, and the establishment 
of international scholarship funds and international 
holiday courses. Information is also being collected 
about the condition of intellectual life and the 
conditions of life for intellectual workers (typically 
university professors and artists) in various countries. 
Particulars are given of the Federation’s campaign 
for raising funds for the acquisition of Crosby Hall 
as pa of an international university women’s 
residential club-house. 
Tue April number of ‘‘ The University Bulletin ” 
issued by the Association of University Teachers 
contains some interesting statistics of salaries of 
teachers in the English provincial universities, 15 of 
the London colleges, the Welsh colleges, and 4 other 
university colleges. From these statistics the follow- 
ing mean salaries of full-time teachers have been 
calculated: of 478 professors, 933/.; 970 assistant 
professors, readers, and lecturers, 450/.; 548 assistant 
ecturers and demonstrators, 299/. Another table, 
designed to indicate the extent of the hardship 
suffered by university teachers who have spent some 
years in school teaching through those years not 
counting towards pension, brings out the fact that in 
I2 universities and university colleges 175 teachers 
have had 1446 years of school service, while in some 
as many as one-third of the teachers have taught in 
schools. 
with teachers in universities in the Dominions Over- 
seas and in the United States. It is stated that 
university teachers’ associations already exist for 
South Africa, Australia, Melbourne, Queensland, 
West Australia, and Tasmania, and that others are 
ae for Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Adelaide, 
ydney, and Hong-Kong. The American Associa- 
tion, formed in 1915, embraces 180 institutions in the 
United States and Canada. 
NO. 2798, VOL. 111] 
Steps are being taken to cultivate relations | 
Societies and Academies. 
LonpDon. 
Royal Society, June 7.—Sir Charles Sherrington and 
E. G. T. Liddell: Stimulus rhythm in reflex tetanic 
contraction.—K. N. Moss: Some effects of high air 
temperatures and muscular exertion upon colliers. 
The mean daily energy value of the food consumed 
by the colliers investigated was 4712 calories. Men 
working in hot mines consume more food, and a larger 
proportion of salted food, than men in cool mines ; 
oxygen consumption per minute in various kinds of 
work at the face by an efficient collier varies from 
about 1300 c.c. to 2000 c.c.__In persons not acclima- 
tised to heat, the maximum amount of sweat lost per 
hour is about 1-4 lbs., whereas in a collier accustomed 
to work in a hot place the maximum loss was 54 lbs. 
The sweat contains about o-2 per cent. of chloride, 
and the loss of chloride during a shift is very con- 
siderable. A group of symptoms known to the men 
as miners’ cramp, or stokers’ cramp, is referred to 
water-poisoning brought about by the combination 
of great loss of chloride by sweating, excessive 
drinking of water, and temporary paralysis of renal 
excretion.—F. A. E. Crew: The significance of an 
anchondroplasia-like condition met with in cattle. 
Dexter cattle are remarkable for their bodily con- 
formation. They produce four classes of calves in 
such proportions as to suggest that the Dexter itself 
is a di-hybrid in respect of its characters—coat 
colour and bodily conformation. A proportion of 
these calves are still-born and characteristically 
deformed, presenting certain constant features simu- 
lating closely those which constitute the condition of 
anchondroplasia in the human. The proportions in 
which these monstrous calves occur suggest that the 
“ bull-dog ’’ calf results from the action of comple- 
mentary lethal factors which are amplifying factors 
producing an exaggerated form of the Dexter char- 
acterisation. The pituitary, thyroid, and adrenals 
are abnormal. The lethal factor in this case is 
probably such as affects the functioning of the 
pituitary. It may be possible to eradicate the 
“ bull-dog ”’ calf by breeding methods. 
Physical Society, May 25.—Dr. Alexander Russell 
in the chair.—C. H. Lees and J. E. Calthroo: The 
effect of torsion on the thermal and electrical con- 
ductivities of metals. A method is described of 
measuring the effect of twisting on the thermal con- 
ductivity of a wire. In each of the steel, aluminium, 
copper, and lead wires tested the twist decreases the 
conductivity along the wire by a small amount which 
is approximately proportional to the square of the 
twist per unit length. The change of electrical 
conductivity is in general less than the change of 
thermal conductivity, but is also approximately 
proportional to the square of the twist per unit length. 
A. Rosen: The use of the Wien bridge for the measure- 
ment of the losses in dielectrics at high voltages, with 
special reference to electric cables. One difficulty in 
the application of large potential differences to a 
bridge is the effect on the arm which has to with- 
stand the high voltage. In the arrangements due 
to Monasch and Schering, this arm is the known con- 
denser ; in the bridge used by the author the voltage 
is applied to the ratio coils. The errors introduced 
by earth impedance are eliminated by using the 
Wagner auxiliary bridge. Measurements can be 
made on cables, and the use of the double bridge in 
determining the ‘ wire-to-wire’’ and ‘ wire-to- 
sheath” losses in a multi-core cable is described. 
Corrections due to imperfections of the bridge arms 
and a simple quantitative theory of the double bridge 
