334 
NAT ORE” 
[May 20, 1915. 


the case of the Navy, rank and ship. These particulars 
should be addressed to the Publications Secretary, 
University College, London (Gower Street, W.C.). 
Oxrorp.—The Halley Lecture will be delivered on 
May 20 at 8.45 p.m., in the hall of Queen’s College, 
by Sir Frank W. Dyson, F.R.S., Astronomer Royal. 
The subject of the lecture, which will be illustrated 
with lantern-slides, is ‘‘The Measurement of the 
Distances of the Stars.” 

Tue Year Book Press, 31 Museum Street, London, 
has been appointed by the Teachers’ Registration 
Council as publishers of the first ‘‘ Official List of 
Registered Teachers,’’ which will be issued as soon as 
arrangements have been completed. 
In the issue of Science for May 7 it is announced 
that Mr. Andrew Carnegie’s gifts to the Carnegie 
Institute and Institute of Technology—both at Pitts- 
burgh—have now reached a total of 5,400,000l., his 
latest contribution, announced on April 29, being 
540,0001. Of this latter amount 240,000l. is for new 
buildings, and 300,0001. for endowment. From the 
same source we learn that the campaign to raise 
277,000l. for the Stevens Institute of Technology in 
Hoboken, N.J., has been concluded successfully. The 
entire indebtedness of the college, amounting to 
77,0001., has been cancelled, leaving 200,000!. to be 
used for the erection of new buildings and for endow- 
ment. Gifts amounting to 14,58o0l., to be devoted to 
cancer research at the Harvard Medical School, have 
been announced. Of this sum 10,oo00l. is provided by 
the will of the late Mr. Philip C. Lockwood, of Boston. 
The legislature of Nebraska has granted 30,0001. for 
the erection of a teaching hospital for the University 
of Nebraska College of Medicine at Omaha, Nebraska. 
Tue Board of Education has issued a table of 
summer courses in England for instruction in many of 
the subjects of the school curriculum. The courses 
will be held on various dates during July, August, and 
September next. Nature-study appears to be one of 
the most popular subjects, and courses in it are being 
arranged at Ambleside, Bingley, Brighton, Falmouth, 
Great Yarmouth, Scarborough, Glastonbury, Newport, 
and Swanley. Geography, too, seems to be in great 
demand, probably in view of the growing popularity 
of practical methods of teaching the subject. Geo- 
graphical courses are being held at Ambleside, 
Brighton, Cambridge, Oxford, and Sheffield. Courses 
in science will be held at Oxford, Wye, and Bangor, 
and at five centres there will be lectures on the theory 
of education. The official table states the authorities 
responsible for the courses, dates, fees, subjects of 
instruction, addresses for further particulars, and gives 
useful general remarks. Copies can be obtained 
through booksellers at a cost of one penny each. The 
war will reduce the facilities for foreign travel, and 
teachers who desire to combine further study with their 
recreation during the long vacation should study this 
pamphlet. 

SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
Lonpon. 
Royal Society, May 13.—Sir William Crookes, presi- 
dent, in the chair.—Elizabeth A. Fraser and Prof. J. P. 
Hill: The development of the thymus, epithelial bodies 
and thyroid in the vulpine phalanger (Trichosurus 
vulpecula).—Elizabeth A. Fraser: Some observations 
on the development of the thymus, epithelial bodies, 
and thyroid in Phascolarctos, Phascolomys, and Pera- 
meles.—]. H. Brinkworth : Measurement of the specific 
heat of steam at atmospheric pressure and 104-5° C., 
with a preface by Prof. H. L. Callendar. The 
Mam2G77, VOL: 95) 


measurement of the specific heat of steam in the 
immédiate neighbourhcod of 100° C. permits extreme 
steadiness in the conditions of observation, and is 
important as the starting point for the investigation 
of the variation of the specific heat with pressure and 
temperature, but presents special difficulties owing to 
the possible presence of water in suspension when the 
superheat is very small. The majority of determina- 
tions, such as those of Regnault (125°-225° C.), and 
Holborn and Henning (110°-270° C.), have been made 
with highly superheated steam, and throw little light 
on the value near 100° C. Those of Knoblauch and 
Jacob, and Knoblauch and H. Molliér, when extra- 
polated towards saturation, appear to. indicate a very 
rapid increase in specific heat near the saturation 
point. The theory of the variation of specific heat 
with pressure is discussed in the preface in relation 
to some experiments by the Joule-Thomson method, 
the results of which were published in a previous 
communication. It is shown that the presence of only 
half-a-millionth of a gram-molecule of salt per gram of 
steam is sufficient to raise the apparent specific heat 
by 10 per cent. at 103° C., and that previous measure- 
ments near saturation were probably affected to a 
slight extent by this source of error. Special pre- 
cautions were taken in the investigation to secure 
pure dry steam, and the conditions of experiment were 
varied widely, especially with regard to external heat- 
loss. By using a silvered jacket of silica maintained 
at a high vacuum, the loss was reduced to about a 
tenth of that in previous experiments, and amounted 
to only two or three parts in 1ooo of electric energy 
supplied. The final result found was—S = 2030 joules per 
gram per 1° C., at 760 mm. and 104-5° C., which is 
equivalent to 0-485 mean calorie under the same con- 
ditions, and is in good agreement with Regnault’s 
result at 175° C., if allowance is made for the small 
variation deduced from the experiments by _ the 
throttling method.—C. F. Jenkin and D. R. Pye: 
Thermal properties of carbonic acid at low tempera- 
tures.—II. This is a continuation of the paper on the 
same subject published in the Phil. Trans., A, vol. 
ccxviii., p. 67. It contains a description of (1) a series 
of measurements of the total heat of CO, gas from 
which the specific heats are deduced; (2) a few re- 
measurements of the total heat of liquid CO,; and (3) 
a series of throttling experiments on CO, gas. By 
means of the first series the @@ chart, part of which 
was drawn in the former paper, is extended over the 
superheated gas area; its accuracy is then checked by 
means of the throttling experiments. Graphic methods 
are described for plotting the results of throttling 
experiments and thereby checking the specific heats 
of the gas and position of the gas-limit curve. Finally, 
an I@ chart is constructed for CO, based on the 
measurements described in both papers. To assist in 
the construction of this chart, a series of theorems 
connecting the total heat I with the other variables 
p, v, 6, and @ are worked out, and their use in checl- 
ing the accuracy of I@ charts for any substances is 
explained. The authors hope that the new Ig for CO, 
chart, which extends and corrects Mollier’s, may be 
of some technical value in the refrigeration industry. 
Physical Society, April 23.—Dr. A. Russell, vice- 
president, in the chair.—Prof. W. B. Morton and Miss 
Mary Darragh: The theories of Voigt and Everett 
regarding the origin of combination tones. Voigt con- 
nects the existence of difference and summation tones 
with the fact that the stationary points of the com- 
pound vibration-curve, when the primary tones have 
equal energies, can be grouped in a certain way on 
sine curves, which recur in the periods of these com- 
bination tones. As against this view it is urged (1) 
that the same points can equally well be grouped on a ° 




