528 

NATURE 
[JuLY 8, 1915 

tific assistance a comprehensive and representative 
index will shortly be forthcoming. 
Ar the last meeting of the council of the University 
College of Wales at Aberystwyth it was announced 
that Mr. S. G. Rudler has founded a scholarship in 
memory of his brother, the late Mr. F. W. Rudler, 
who was professor at the college from 1875 to 1879, 
before taking up his work at the Royal School ‘of 
Mines. Mr. Rudler has also allowed the college to 
acquire at a small cost the collection of scientific 
instruments, minerals, fossils, gems, and curiosities, 
and the library formed by his brother during a period 
of fifty years. The library includes not only standard 
works on geology, but also a collection of 3000 
pamphlets on geological and kindred subjects. 
THE issue of Science for June 18 announces the 
following gifts to American colleges. Two anonymous 
gifts of 30,o00l. and 20,0001. to the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology for dormitories; for funds to 
construct the mining building some 45,oool. has been 
offered by Messrs. C. Hayden, T. Coleman du Pont, 
and S. Pierre du Pont, past and present presidents of 
the du Pont de Nemours Powder Co. Mr. Coleman 
du Pont, with a gift of 100,000l., made the purchase 
of the technology site in Cambridge possible. Messrs. 
C. A. Stone and E. S. Webster have undertaken to 
provide a residence for the president. Mr. J. R. Lind- 
gren, of Chicago, has bequeathed half his estate, 
valued at 210,000l., to Northwestern University, sub- 
ject to certain life annuities. From the same source 
we learn that the sum of 6000l. has been given to 
Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., towards the en- 
dowment of a chair of anatomy, and it is stated that 
in the near future the sum will be doubled. 
Tue Calendar for the Imperial University of Tokyo 
is instructive reading, tracing as it does the develop- 
ment of a highly organised University where scientific 
research lives and thrives from what was, a genera- 
tion ago, little more than a high-class school. There 
are six colleges—law, medicine, engineering, litera- 
ture, science, agriculture—with a staff of professors, 
assistant-professors, and lecturers numbering close 
on 400, who teach and train some 1500 students. 
Barely 5 per cent. of these are students of science, 
while the law students number nearly 40 per cent. 
of the whole. Some idea of the specialisation attained 
may be gained from the statements that there are 
twenty-six professorial chairs to about seventy students 
in the College of Science, and that of these there are 
four chairs in mathematics, three in physics, two in 
theoretical physics, four in chemistry, three in zoology, 
three in botany, two in geology, and one each in 
mineralogy, geography, seismology, and anthropology. 
The journal of the college, which began publication 
in the year 1887, has now reached its thirty-fifth 
volume, and contains many important memoirs, chiefly 
in English, on all branches of pure science, contri- 
buted .for the most part by the Japanese themselves. 
With the exception of the Law College, all the other 
colleges also publish memoirs or bulletins. This is a 
remarkable record, and shows that the ideal aimed at 
is being successfully maintained. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
LonpDon. 
Challenger Society, June 30.—Dr. G. H. Fowler in 
the chair.—C. Tate Regan: The fishes of the Mac- 
quarie Islands. Attention was directed to the import- 
ance of these little-known islands from a faunistic 
point of view, lying as they do near the boundary 
between the Antarctic and Subantarctic zones.—Dr. 
\V. T. Calman: The distribution of Antarctic Pycno- 
NO. 2384, VOL. 95 | 
| gonida. 


This paper was based on a study of the 
collections obtained by the British Antarctic (Terra 
Nova) Expedition, 1910. No fewer than forty-three 
species were obtained, of which eleven will be de- 
scribed as new. These results accentuate the remark- 
able richness of the Antarctic Pycnogonidan fauna and 
its preponderance over that of the Arctic seas, re- 
garded until recently as the headquarters of the group. 
Only a few species have been definitely proved to have 
a circumpolar distribution, but it is certain that the 
number will be greatly increased by further collecting, 
although some cases of more restricted range (e.g. 
the species of Decolopoda) are already known. The 
isolation of the fauna is shown by the fact that not 
more than two or three species are definitely known 
to extend, in shallow water, into the Subantarctic zone. 
DUuBLIn. 
Royal Dublin Society, June 22.—Prof. W. Brown in 
the chair.—\V. D. Haigh: A method for the estima- 
tion of hygroscopic moisture in soils. In the ordinary 
method of determining the hygroscopic moisture in 
soils difficulties occur from the fact that other vapours 
besides hygroscopic water may be given off bv the soil 
when heated. The power of calcium carbide to ect 
as a desiccating agent has of recent years been put to 
practical use. It has been applied to the determina- 
tion of moisture in wool, explosives, ete. Calcium 
carbide possesses the advantage that the only ordinary 
substance which will react with it is water, and the 
acetylene evolved can be readily measured. The 
method consists of mixing the soil with an excess of 
finely powdered calcium carbide. The reaction is com- 
plete in a few minutes, and the volume of acetylene 
is measured in a nitrometer over mercury. It has been 
found that the results obtained are consistent and 
agree fairly closely with those obtained by heating in 
the oven; but in an ordinary soil the carbide deter- 
mination is generally from o-1 per cent. to 0-3 per cent. 
lower than that obtained in the oven. This has been 
found to be due to the presence of volatile material 
other than water vapour in the soil, such material 
being included in the reckoning with the hygroscopic 
moisture in the ordinary method of determination.— 
Dr. J. H. Pollok: The presence of bromine in the salt 
lagoon at Larnaca, Cyprus. The lagoon is about 
three square miles in area and is situated about one 
mile from the port of Larnaca, on the southern shore 
of the island. In the winter the lagoon fills either by 
infiltration or otherwise, and during the hot months 
of summer evaporates almost to dryness, leaving a 
deposit of excellent salt, from which the Government 
derives a considerable revenue. At the time of greatest 
concentration, towards the end of August, there is a 
pool of mother liquor in the centre of the lagoon, 
having a width of 1800 ft., a length of about 
3600 ft., and an average depth of about 3 in., giving 
an aggregate of about 60,000 cubic yards, or, say, 
40,000 tons of liquor. The latter was found on exam- 
ination to consist of an almost saturated solution of 
magnesium chloride, together with a small proportion 
of magnesium bromide. On estimation the liquor 
gave 5-7 grams of bromine per litre, which is equiva- 
lent to about 10 lb. weight per ton. Owing to the 
war there is at present a very serious deficiency in 
bromides, and even in magnesium salts, the supplies 
of which have hitherto been largely derived from Stass- 
furt, Saxony. The new supply from Cyprus should 
go a long way to diminish the present shortage. 
EDINBURGH. 
Royal Society, June 7.—Sir T. R. Fraser, vice-presi- 
dent, in the chair.—Prof. Cossar Ewart : Development 
of the horse during the third week. Much progress 
had been made during the last fifty years in working 
