ii6 



NA TURE 



[December 5, 1901 



detected influence upon the course of chemical digestive changes 

 in mammals. The question remained, " Is the spleen con- 

 nected with production of blood corpuscles ? " The methods he 

 and his colleagues had employed were (l) comparison of cor- 

 puscles in blood entering and leaving the spleen ; (2) effect of 

 removal of spleen on number of blood corpuscles ; (3) the rate of 

 recovery of the number of corpuscles in animals with and in 

 animals without spleen after hivmorrhages and after hx-molytics. 

 The results obtained by these methods were : — (i) No dif- 

 ference observed in blood of splenic vein and splenic artery. 

 RoUett's well-known statement in Strieker's " Handbuch " of the 

 great relative increase of leucocytes in the blood of the splenic 

 vein was therefore not confirmed. (2) Removal of the spleen 

 (dog, rabbit, cat) produced no perceptible change in the number 

 of corpuscles in the blood. (3) Recovery of number of cor- 

 puscles after h;vmorrhage and hemolytics proceeded as fast in 

 the animals without spleen as in those with spleen. 



Dr. W. Brodie Hrodie (Glasgow) made a communication on 

 the action of oxalates on the calcium of muscle. From a 

 series of observations made it was argued (i) that the action of 

 o.xalates in destroying muscular irritability was only manifest 

 when the muscle was thrown into repeated contractions ; (2) 

 that the irritability of resting muscles was not injured by 

 oxalates ; (3) that it was probable that calcium was liberated 

 from a complex compound when the muscle entered into 

 contraction. 



Dr. W. H. R. Rivers (Cambridge) communicated the results of 

 testing the vision of natives of Murray Island and that of a 

 number of English people with the visual illusion known as 

 the Miiller-Lyer. This well-known illusion is one in which 

 additional straight lines lengthen or shorten in appearance an 

 original straight line according to the inclination of the direction 

 toward it. By means of a slide the line could be made of the 

 same length as a standard line. Observations were carried out 

 on forty-two English people and thirty-eight natives of Murray 

 Island, between New (}uinea and Australia. Each person made 

 ten trials. The standard line measured 75 millimetres ; to the 

 average English person the line compared with it appeared equal 

 to it when of 53 millimetres length. The average Murray 

 Islander made the line 60 millimetres, so that the illusion was 

 less pronounced with him than with the average English 

 observer. There was marked agreement among the Murray 

 Island men, who were as uncultured and unskilled in the 

 European sense as any population could be. The Murray 

 Islanders, though they could be regarded as savages, were yet 

 able to make these observations very well. When Dr. Rivers 

 went out on his expedition he anticipated great difticulty in 

 getting people of that degree of civilisation to enter into the 

 making of such observations. He had, however, in fact found 

 that they made them with even more attentiveness than the 

 average Englishman could be induced to give to the test. The 

 English individuals tested could be divided into two classes, 

 those acquainted with the illusion, such as students of psycho- 

 physiology, and those who were roughly acquainted with it 

 through the advertisements of soap manufacturers, &c. It was 

 interesting that the results obtained from both these classes were 

 practically the same. The English individual when told to 

 make the two lines equal as he saw them no doubt sometimes 

 involuntarily corrected to some extent the tendency developed 

 in the illusion. The Murray Islanders gave more consistent 

 results than the Europeans. This greater consistence may have 

 been due to the total ignorance by the Islanders and their thus 

 remaining uninfluenced by speculation founded on knowledge of 

 the illusion. Prof. McKendrick, in thanking Dr. Rivers for his 

 valuable communication, urged the great interest, both practical 

 and theoretical, of the labour of psycho-physiologists. At present 

 the labour was chiefly the accumulation of facts many of which 

 as yet were difficult to coordinate into general laws. It was 

 exceedingly important that the subject should be .seriously taken 

 up in this country. In the American schools a great deal of 

 useful progress was being inade. 



On Tuesday, .September 17, Dr. C. S. Myers (Cambridge) 

 communicated the results of a series of observations made with 

 Galton's whistle upon the hearing of the Murray Islanders and 

 some inhabitants of liuchan, Aberdeenshire. The result showed 

 that the Murray Islanders could not at any age hear such high- 

 pitched notes as the people of Buchan. The latter had from 

 childhood upward a finer perception for high-pitched notes than 

 the former. 



Prof. Marcus llartog demonstrated a model showing the 

 mechanism of the frog's tongue. 



NO. 1675, VOL. 65] 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



O.M'OKl). — The 230th meeting of the Junior Scientific Club 

 was held on November 29. Dr. Guslav Mann (New College) 

 read a paper on the theory of dyeing and staining, and Air. 

 D. A. Gilchrist one on agricultural experiments at Reading 

 and in Canada 



Mr. A. J. Jenkinson, of Hertford College, has been elected 

 to the John Locke scholarship in menial philosophy. 



Mr. G. W. S. I'armer, of Balliol College, has been appointed 

 Litchfield lecturer in clinical surgery for two years. 



C.VMBRIDGE. — The Allen scholarship for research in medicine, 

 mathematics, physics and chemistry, biology and geology, or 

 moral science, will be awarded in the ensuing Lent Term. The 

 emolument of the student is 250/. for one year. Any graduate 

 of the University is eligible, provided he is not moie than twenty- 

 eight years of age on January 8, 1902. Candidates must send 

 their names, with a definite statement of the course of research 

 they propose to undertake, to the Vice-Chancellor by February 

 I, 1902. 



The annual prize distribution and members' and students' 

 conversazione of the Northampton Institute, Clerkenwell, will 

 be held to-morrow, December 6. The Marquis of Northampton 

 will distribute the prizes. 



Mr. HERBliRT J. Fi.EURK, a student of Prof. Ainsworth 

 Davis at University College, Aberystwyth, h.as been elected a 

 Fellow of the University of Wales. The Fellowship is one of 

 the highest distinctions of the University, and its conferment for 

 the first time upon a student who has been engaged in zoological 

 research is of noteworthy interest. 



The influence which the universities in Germany have had 

 upon industrial progress was emphasised by Prof. Senier in an 

 address entitled "Bonn on the Rhine : Pages from its History 

 and Stray Thoughts on Education" (Dublin: Edward Pon- 

 sonby), recently delivered at (Jueen's College, Galway. It is 

 sometimes thought that the advance of German industry has 

 been due to technical schools, but Prof. Senier remarks : " Pro- 

 bably it would be more correct to say that the technical schools 

 are due to the rise of industries. No doubt technical schools 

 have had and will have some eflfect in assisting manufactures. 

 But the main source of those industries depending upon science 

 has always been and must always be science itstll, the outcome 

 of university work." In this opinion Prof. Senier follows what 

 the readers of Nature have been familiar with during the last 

 twenty years. 



A GIFT of 5000/. has been offered to the University of St. 

 Andrews by Dr. T. Purdic, professor of chemistry in the 

 University, for the purpose of building and equipping a small 

 chemical research department. In his letter to Principal Don- 

 aldson intimating the gift. Prof. Purdie says that their univer.sities 

 are very poorly provided for research when compared with those 

 of foreign countries, and that scientific industries suffer in con- 

 sequence. .Xt St. Andrews in particular, except in zoology, 

 there is no special provision in any of the science departments 

 for original investigation. He therefore trusts that the Univer- 

 sity Court will accept his gift for the purpose mentioned, and 

 that means may soon be found to equip other science depart- 

 ments. The success of the scheme, however, presupposes that 

 scholarships will be available to encourage students to undertake 

 postgraduate work, and also that an annual grant of money 

 will be provided for laboratory expenses. He makes it a 

 condition of his gift that the Carnegie trustees shall regard the 

 scheme with favour and signify their willingness to help in the 

 diiection indicated. The gilt is made in memory ot his late 

 uncle, Mr. Thomas Purdie, of Castlecliffe. 



So many subjects are dealt with in the latest report of the 

 U.S. Commissioner of Education that it is impossible to do 

 more than mention a few matters considered in this volume, 

 the contents of which occupy as many as 12S0 pages. An 

 account is given of the origin, growth, influence and relation 

 to the public of the great secondary schools of f:ngland. The 

 change in the character of secondary instruction in some 

 schools from the old exclusively classical .system to one related 

 to modern rcquiiemcnts is pointed out in connection with its 

 cause— the demands of commerce and industry. The national 

 conservatism appears in the slow rate of change and the spirit 

 in which science is even now accepted in the secondary school 



