December io, 1908J 



NA TURE 



'77 



Mr. W . \',. Dixon has been appointed university lecturer 

 in pharaKu'ology. 



I'he office of superintendent of the museum of zoology 

 will be vacant on January 15, igog, by the resignation of 

 Dr. Harmer. The stipend at present attached to the office 

 is 200/. per annum. Applications should be sent to the 

 chairman of the special board for biology and geology 

 (Prof. 1-angley, The Museums) on or before January 21, 

 I goo. 



London. — Prof. A. Sedgwick, F.R.S., professor of 

 zoology and comparative anatomy in the University of 

 Cambridge, has accepted the professorship of zoology at 

 (he Imperial College of Science and Technology, South 

 Kensington. 



.\t a meeting on December 2 the Senate decided unani- 

 mously in favour of the appointment of a Royal Commission 

 to consider the relations between the University and the 

 Imperial College. It will be remembered that Mr. 

 McKenna undertook to recommend the appointment of a 

 Royal Commission if he received representations on the 

 subject from the Senate of the University. 



AIr. Lewis F. Day will give an address at the Sir John 

 Cass Technical Institute at the distribution of prizes and 

 certificates on Wednesday, December 16. There will be 

 an exhibition of students' work and apparatus in the 

 laboratories, workshops, and other rooms. 



Mr. S. \. Saunder, secretary to the Royal .Astronomical 

 Nuciety and a past-president of the British Astronomical 

 Association, has been appointed to the Gresham lecture- 

 ship on astronomy at Gresham College, London, rendered 

 vacant by the resignation of the Rev. E. Ledger. 



It is officially announced that letters patent have passed 

 ihe Great Seal of Ireland constituting and founding a 

 university, having its seat in Dublin, under the name of 

 the National University of Ireland, and a university, 

 having its seat in Belfast, under the name of the Oucen's 

 L'niversity of Belfast. 



Spe.-iki.ng at -Vbergavenny on December 4, Sir Edward 

 Strachey, M.P., commented upon the recently issued report 

 of the Departmental Committee which inquired into the 

 provision of education in England and Wales for affording 

 scientific and technical instruction in agriculture. Sir 

 Edward Strachey asked, Why should there not be in this 

 country a great State agricultural farm equipped with 

 evA-ything necessary for e.Nperiments and research and for 

 the education of teachers in agriculture? There might well 

 be in every county or group of counties an agricultural 

 county farm subsidised by the State and, to a certain 

 extent, from' the rates. These farm institutions should 

 be, he said, for assisting farmers and demonstrating the 

 value of science applied to agriculture. There should be, 

 too, a centre for experiments wherever local experiment 

 is necessary, and for demonstration where desirable ; but 

 the best form of demonstration, he pointed out, is on 

 various farms under different conditions of soils and 

 climates. Sir Edward Strarhev added that his suggestions 

 were those of one w'ho is a farmer, but that it is the duty 

 of the President of the Board of .\griculture to formulate 

 a scheme of national agricultural education somewhat on 

 the Irish lines. 



The report of the departmental committee on agri- 

 cultural education is under consideration in detail by a 

 committee of the Farmers' Club. \ memorandum dealing 

 w'ith its several provisions is being prepared, and the com- 

 mittee has expressed agreement with the views stated in 

 the report in the following resolutions : — (i) That the funds 

 at present available for agricultural education are wholly 

 inadequate, and considerably increased funds should be 

 provided, the main source of which must be the national 

 Exchequer. Such funds should be employed by the Board 

 of -Vgriculture, first, to aid existing and projected institu- 

 tions in respect of their staff and general equipment, and, 

 secondly, to aid local authorities in making provision for 

 the agricultural work conducted by them. (2) That since 

 complete cooperation between the Board of .'Xgriculture and 

 Education is essential, if the field of education is to be 

 ndeqiiatfly covered and overlapping avoided the committee 



Nf). 2041, \0\.. JC)] 



is of opinion that agricultural instruction, when provided 

 by universities, university colleges, agricultural colleges, 

 farm institutes, and winter schools, or by means of special 

 classes or courses of lectures in agriculture and kindred 

 subjects (e.g. dairying, horticulture), should be under the 

 direction of the Board of Agriculture, while all instruction 

 in agricultural subjects forming part of courses in primary, 

 secondary, or such evening schools as are in definite con- 

 tinuation of the education given in primary schools, should 

 be under the Board of Education. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Royal Society, November 5. — "On the Gencralion of a 

 Luminous Glow in an E.xhausted Receiver moving near an 

 Electrostatic Field, and the .Action of a Magnetic Field on 

 the Glow so produced, the Residual Gases being Oxygen, 

 Hydrogen, Neon, and Air." Part iii. By F. J. Jervis- 

 Smith, F.R.S. 



A silica bulb, as used in the experiments described in 

 Proc. Roy. Soc, A, vol. Ixxxi., p. 214, was rotated in a 

 magnetic and also in an electrostatic field, the residual gas 

 being oxygen. The inductor was charged until the bulb 

 glowed ; then it was slowly discharged through damped 

 thread, until the glow disappeared ; on establishing the 

 magnetic field the brilliant glow was restored. The mag- 

 netic effect was less marked when air was the residual gas. 

 When glass was employed instead of silica the glow was 

 greatlv reduced. The glow effects in widely differing gases 

 were compared. Sir William Ramsay kindly prepared for 

 the author of the paper a bulb in which the residual 

 gas was neon. The neon glow-bulb when treated 

 exactly in the same way as the oxygen glow-bulb gave 

 but I'ittle glow, of a reddish tint. The glow was 

 but feeblv affected by the magnetic field. A silica glow- 

 bulb, res'idual gas air, was rotated, as in the previous 

 experiments ; the inductor was charged to 800 volts, and 

 placed at such a distance from the bulb that it did not 

 show any glow. On establishing a magnetic field, in which 

 the bulb rotated, it glowed brightly. 



When hydrogen was the residual gas, in a glass bulb the 

 position of maximum glow was shifted through go" from 

 the position of maximum glow when oxygen was the 

 residual gas. 



The effect of a magnetic field on the generation of elec- 

 tricity was examined. A silica glow-bulb in contact with 

 a camel-hair brush was rotated between the poles of an 

 electromagnet. The pressure of the brush was so adjusted 

 that no glow was visible ; when the magnetic field was 

 established the bulb glowed brightly, and ceased the instant 

 the magnetic field was shut off. The experiment could 

 be easily repeated with certainty. 



In another experiment the brush, after being in contact 

 with the bulb, was removed. The bulb glowed the instant 

 the magnetic field was restored. The experiments illustrate 

 the profound change which takes place in the behaviour of 

 a moving static induction of electricity when the bulb in 

 which it occurs is in a magnetic field, and show how the 

 action of the magnetic field on the electric motion in the 

 residual gas is modified by the nature of the gas employed. 



Royal Microscopical Society, November iS. — Mr. Conrad 

 Beck, vice-president, in the chair. — A new growing cell 

 for critical observations under the highest powers : 

 .\. A. C. E. Merlin. — Studeria, a remark.able new genus 

 of .Alcyonarians : Prof. J. .\. Thomson. — The present 

 status of micrometry : Dr. M. D. Ewell. 



Entomological Society. November 18.— Mr. H. Rowland- 

 Brown, vice-president, in the chair. — Descriptions of micro- 

 lepidoptera from Bolivia and Peru : Iv Meyrick. 



Cambridge. 

 Philosophical Society, November 2^. —Prof. Sedgwick 

 president, in the chair. — The relationship between human 

 and bovine tuberculosis : Prof. Woodhead. The author 

 gave an account of some observations on 127 cases of 

 tuberculosis in children. He found that the disease seldom 

 occurred in children who died under one year of age, only 



