March 6, 19 13] 



NATURE 



23 



10,000/. The object of the gift is to defray the cost 

 of erecting' a new pathological block and institute of 

 hygiene. The scheme is one which the governors 

 have been anxious to carry out for some time, as the 

 present accommodation is wholly inadequate, but lack 

 of funds has hitherto proved an insurmountable bar- 

 rier to progress in this direction. The plans have 

 been prepared, and it is hoped the work will be started 

 almost immediately. 



At the meeting of the executive committee of the 

 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teach- 

 ing, held on February n, it was announced that Mr. 

 Andrew Carnegie had given an additional 250,000/. 

 to the foundation. The gift is in the form of 4 per 

 cent, bonds and the income is to be set aside for 

 special investigation relative to the purposes of the 

 original foundation of pensioning college professors. 

 The money is to be devoted to the endowment of a 

 division of educational inquiry and makes permanent 

 provision for studies hitherto conducted by the founda- 

 tion out of its general fund. It is the plan of the 

 trustees to proceed with the new endowment to make 

 other studies similar to those already published con- 

 ■■ 1 ning medical education and in particular to studv 

 )• gal ■ ducation in its relation to the supply of lawyers 

 and the cost of legal process. 



An appeal on behalf of the British and Foreign 

 Blind Association, 206 Great Portland Street, London, 

 W., signed by four blind members of the executive 

 council, including Mr. H. M. Taylor, F.R.S., is being 

 circulated. One of the chief objects of the association 

 is the maintenance of a printing press of works in 

 embossed type ; and properly to carry out this and 

 other good works the council finds that extended 

 premises are necessary. The sum of 10,000/. has 

 been expended in carrying out part of the work 

 entailed by the scheme for a new building, and the 

 completion of the work, including adequate equip- 

 ment, necessitates the raising of a further sum of 

 29,000/. The council is anxious that the invested 

 funds of the association, producing an annual income 

 of some 400/., should not be touched. To maintain 

 the work on an enlarged scale an increase of 1000/. in 

 annual subscriptions is needed. Donations or sub- 

 scriptions should be sent to the honorary treasurer, 

 Mr. Douglas A. Howden, or to the secretary-general. 



The report of the committee of University College, 

 London, for the year ending last month is full of 

 interesting particulars of the manifold activities of the 

 institution. The total number of students during the 

 session 1911-12 was 1679, being an increase of 79 

 over that of the preceding session. Of these students 

 403 were engaged in post-graduate study and re- 

 search. In the faculty of science there were 392 

 students, and in engineering 174. Of the 403 post- 

 graduate and research students, 117 were women. 

 There were 710 registered internal students of the 

 Liniversity of London, compared with 67S in the 

 previous year. We notice that the sums promised 

 and paid, together with interest on deposit and rents, 

 for the new chemical laboratories, amounted in July 

 last to upwards of 38,000/. A tender for the erection 

 of the fabric at a cost of 39,000/. has been accepted, 

 and the work is being pushed forward. A sum of 

 about 28,000/. will be required to complete the labora- 

 tories, and it is earnestly hoped that the necessary 

 amount will be speedily forthcoming, so that the com- 

 pletion of the scheme and the opening of the labora- 

 tories may not be delayed. 



The erection of new chemical laboratories is not the 



only important step in progress for the development 



of the buildings of University College, London. The 



recently published report of the committee of the 



NO. 2262, VOL. 91] 



college gives, in addition to an account of the formal 

 opening last December of the new Pharmacologv 

 Institute, particulars of the plans being adopted to 

 provide a great hall for examinations and ceremonial 

 occasions. The site of All Saints' Church, Gordon 

 I Square, the west wall of which adjoins the Can 

 Foster Laboratory, has been acquired at a cost of 

 5900/., which, together with legal expenses, has been 

 provided temporarily from current income, pending 

 the provision of the necessary sum. The Ecclesias- 

 tical Commissioners have approved the scheme for 

 the reconstruction of the existing church building. 

 Under this scheme the old building will be so altered 

 as to provide a hall capable of accommodating 1100 

 persons. The purchase of the site, together with 

 the expenses of reconstruction and refitting, will in- 

 volve an expenditure of 10,000/. ; it is desirable to 

 provide an organ, in addition to the ordinary fittings 

 at a cost of 2000/., making the total cost 12,000/. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Royal Society, February 27. — Sir Archibald Geikie, 

 K.C.B., president, in the chair. — F. Soddy : The 

 periodic law from the point of view of recent results 

 in radio-activity . — C. F. Jenkin and D. R. Pye : The 

 thermal properties of carbonic acid at low tempera- 

 tures. The paper describes a series of experiments 

 made in the engineering laboratory at Oxford, under- 

 taken with the object of checking by direct measure- 

 ments the accuracy of the accepted CO, entropy- 

 temperature diagram, due to Mollier, and of extending 

 the diagram to lower temperatures, i.e. from — 30 C. 

 to — 50 C. — E. Roberts: Re-reductions of Dover tidal 

 obseiVations, 1883-4, &c.— Prof. F. Keeble, Dr. E. F. 

 Armstrong, and W. N. Jones : The formation of antho- 

 cyan pigments in plants. Part iv., The chromogens. 

 The results of the experiments described in this paper 

 lend support to the hypothesis that the anthocyan 

 pigments of plants are produced by the oxidation of 

 colourless chromogens. Under certain conditions a 

 coloured flower may be caused to reverse its pigment- 

 forming process and to reduce the pigment which it 

 contains to a colourless state. By again changing 

 the conditions the pigment-forming mechanism may 

 be made to resume activity and to give rise to pig- 

 ments identical in colour with those of the normal 

 intact flower. Whether the flower forms pigment or 

 remains colourless depends on the degree of hydration 

 of its tissues. If water be withdrawn from the tissues 

 oxydase activity falls off, the activity of "reducing- 

 bodies " becomes increased — actually or relatively— 

 pigment formation is inhibited, and the pigment in 

 existence already is reduced to chromogen. The flower 

 becomes colourless. If water be supplied to the de- 

 colorised tissues, oxydase resumes its activity and 

 chromogens are oxidised to pigments. — W. N. Jones : 

 The formation of the anthocyan pigments of plant-. 

 Part v., The chromogens of white flowers. This 

 paper, which deals with the biochemistry of the pig- 

 ment-forming mechanism contained in white flowers, 

 is a continuation of the work summarised in part. iv. 

 of the present series of communications. As shown in 

 the latter paper, the pigments of flowers may be 

 reduced to the state of colourless chromogens and may 

 be re-formed by artificial means from those chromo- 

 gens. In the present paper it is shown that chromo- 

 gens may be obtained from some white flowers and 

 mav be caused by similar treatment to give rise to 

 pigments.— Mabel' P. FitzGerald : The changes in the 

 breathing and the blood at various high altitudes. 

 The observations described in the paper were made 

 during the summer of 191 1 on persons residing in 



