24 



NATURE 



LJuly 6, 191 1 



main cases oi swelled-head in college graduates, a matter 

 which interferes with their employment in a good many 

 instances. Reference was also made in the discussion to 

 the plan followed at Bristol, whereby unsuitable students 

 are advised, through their parents, to withdraw from 

 college at the earliest possible moment. (It may be said 

 here that other colleges also follow this procedure.) 



Prof. Archibald Barr advocated a six months' sandwich 

 system, and pleaded that engineering institutions should 

 allow a wide latitude in the systems of training that they 

 will recognise. Prof. II. airy Louis did not think that the 

 six months' sandwich system is satisfactory, and suggested 

 the course followed by mining students of three years' 

 college followed by three years' practical work. 



Mr. John A. Brodie had little sympathy with those who 

 think it necessary that young engineers should work a 

 reduced number of hours in the workshop in order to 

 enable a greater time being given to study. If the youths 

 of our day cannol or will not stand the strain of the 

 severe training which has given good results in the past, 

 will probably have to take a position behind those 

 who are prepared to do so. There are other lines of life 

 in which young men can acquire both money and position 

 more easily and quickly than in the engineering profession. 



Prof. Stephen M. Dixon opened the subject of the value 

 of a university degree in engineering science in relation to 

 professional competence. There is a feeling in some 

 quarters that the university graduate is rather in the \\a\ in 

 an engineer's office. Matters, however, in this respect are 

 improving. When engineering firms recognise the advant- 

 age of having assistants thoroughly trained in the prin- 

 iples underlying practice, and whose training also spe. 1 all} 

 fits them for adopting new ideas rapidly, they will be only 

 too glad to cooperate with the universities in completing 

 ducation of the engineer. 



In dealing with the same subject, Prof. Charles 1-'. 

 Jenkin said that an engineering degree may be looked at 

 in three lights : as a guaranteed that the holder has had 

 the best theoretical training and has profited to some 

 extent thereby ; as the final step in that type of liberal 

 education at the universities of which England is justlv 

 proud ; as a broad basis on which State recognition of 

 the engineering profession may be founded. 



Prof. Fleming attacked vigorously the whole system of 

 degree examinations as being wrong and as liable to pass 

 candidates whose knowledge was of a very scrappy nature, 

 a view which was promptly controverted by another 

 spi aki r, who said that he had five degree men in his 

 London office and was entirely satisfied with the results. 

 1 he sami speaker had a good word to say for men who 

 iiad been trained in evening class,-,; he was of opinion 

 that swelled-head accounted for some failures in graduates, 

 but that these men were of use after they had been got in 

 hand. 



Profs. Dalby, Hopkinson, and Goodman dealt with the 

 subject ol ih- position an. I uses of engineering laboratories 

 in relation to education at college. All agree that small 

 are of more service in the work of education than 

 rl " very large pieces of apparatus—steam engines of large 

 powei an. I the like— which used to find favour. 



1 1 closing the conference, Mr. Vlexander Siemens sug- 

 gested that schoolmasters should trj to agree on a common 

 syllabus for leaving examinations. University teaching 

 should 1" 31 i- niiii. ami w i.|. m ii s , pe : the training ..I 



' '' i- all-essential. II- was ol opinion that pr; I 



training should begin by a year in the workshops to bi 

 followed by the college course, and then bark to the work- 

 shops again for completion of the practical training. 



TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE, TASMANIA, MAY, 

 1910.' 



J \ a short introduction the author and leader of the 

 expedition explains his motive in publishing in full 

 this account of a solar eel on which was, un- 



fortunately, unsuccessful in its main object. Tin site 

 chosen for the camp was in very wild, mountainous 



1 Report ol 1 I 1 . ; ■ \i . 



1010. By F. K. Med I , p l ,t ;,,„. 



Primed by R. 1 1 rl. Plat... reproduced by A. E. Unit and 



Co., Ltd. 



2175, VOL - 8"] 



country on the southern shores of Tasmania, and in these 

 circumstances it is evident that, going as a private party, 

 exceptional provision had to be made for the many details 

 of equipment, transportation, and maintenance of the 

 observers during the period of preparation for the observa- 

 tions. It was with the hope of giving useful information 

 on these questions that the author decided to present the 

 log of his journey at length. 



In chapter i. a very interesting account is given of the 

 general preparations for the eclipse, the prospecting 

 journeys for selection of site, that finally occupied being 

 on Hixson Point, Port Davey. After this was settled, 

 some time was occupied in arranging for and purchasing 

 tents, camp equipment, food and drink, and other details 

 necessary for nine persons during a stay of one month. 

 At the camp, nothing was available for food except fish, 

 wallaby, wombats, and kangaroos. A complete list is 

 given of the details of the equipment and stores ; in the 

 case of foodstuffs, 4c, both the quantities taken out and 

 the amount unused are given, from which future pioneers 

 in this class of work may learn wisdom ; for instance, 

 lime juice was evidently not the beverage most sought 

 after, as out of eighteen bottles taken, thirteen are re- 

 corded as unused. A very useful item is the actual cost 

 of the expedition, reckoned from Hobart out to Port 

 Davey, the stay there, and back to Melbourne — 347L 



As a more or less detailed account of the instruments 

 taken out for the work on the eclipse has already appeared 

 in Nature, it is only necessary here to say that, in spite 

 of most trying and tempestuous weather, the whole 

 apparatus was adjusted ready for the eclipse time. 

 Details of the work involved for each section are given, 

 with very clea- photographic illustrations of the progress 

 and methods adopted in transporting the heavy cases over 

 the difficult ground from the shore to the camp site. Pro- 

 vision had been made for obtaining photographs of the 

 corona with telescopes of various apertures and focal 

 lengths, and for the spectrum of the chromosphere and 

 corona with a powerful concave grating spectrograph. 



Included is a report on the observations made by 

 J. Brooks for the determination of the astronomical posi- 

 tion of the site, and a description of the corona photo- 

 graphs obtained by another party at Queenstown. After 

 examination of these plates, on which the diameter of the 

 moon's image is 4.4 mm., Mr. W. H. Wesley reports 

 that the extensions of the corona were very small, in no 

 part reaching beyond one quarter the moon's diameter 

 from the limb. On a plate submitted by another observer, 

 with a smaller image still, 1-5 mm., the extensions reach 

 about one diameter. The most striking feature was a 

 wide rift, fairly symmetrical with the South Pole, extend- 

 ing for nearly 50° along the limb. There was also a long 

 ray of synclinal character on the east of this southern 

 rift. 



The form of the corona appears to be of the type 

 associated with the period intermediate between the 

 maximum and minimum of solar activity. 



The volume is illustrated by thirty-five excellent photo- 

 graphic reproductions showing the interior of Port Davey 

 Harbour, incidents in the transportation and erection of 

 the various instruments, a scrub fire which very nearly 

 destroyed the camp, and the photographs of the corona 

 obtained at Queenstown by the Rev. L. S. Macdougall 

 and Mr. J. Booton. 



Charles P. Butler. 



THE CAMBRIDGE ANTHROPOLOGICAL 

 EXPEDITION TO WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 

 T N the early part of last year plans were made for an 

 anthropological expedition to Western Australia, and 

 Mr. A. R. Brown, Fellow of Trinity College. Cambridge, 

 who had been re-elected to the Anthony Wilkin student- 

 ship, was appointed leader, the main object of the expedi- 

 tion being to study the social organisation and magico- 

 religious beliefs and observances of the natives. Mr. 

 Brown left England at the end of July, 1010. Soon after 

 his arrival in Perth, mainly through the instrumentality of 

 Mrs. D. M. Bates, a donation of 1000/. was mad 

 expedition by Mr. Samuel P. Mackay of that State. This 



