June 12, 1913] 



NATURE 



389 



not allow mention of the other reports, all of which 

 contain matter of interest. 



Dr. T. K. Monro has been appointed professor of 

 practice of medicine in the University of Glasgow, in 

 succession to the late Prof. S. Gemmell. 



Mr. P. F. Kendall, junior assistant curator of the 

 zoological museum of the University of Sheffield, has 

 been appointed lecturer in zoology and geology in the 

 South-Eastern Agricultural College at Wye. 



The widow of the late Dr. Hervieux, who died six 

 years ago, has given 4000/. to found two bursaries for 

 poor students. We learn from the Revue Scien.tif.que 

 that Mme. Hervieux has also bequeathed to the Paris 

 Academy of Medicine a bust of her late husband. 



Under the auspices of the Edinburgh Mathematical 

 Society, a mathematical colloquium will be held in 

 Edinburgh during the week beginning Monday, 

 August 4, and lasting five days. The following courses 

 of lectures have been arranged: — "The Theory of 

 Relativity and the New Physical Ideas of Space and 

 Time," Prof. A. W. Conway; "Non-Euclidean Geo- 

 metry and the Foundations of Geometry," Dr. 

 D. M.Y. Sommerville ; "Practical Harmonic Analysis 

 and Periodogram Analysis : an Illustration of Mathe- 

 matical Laboratory Practice," Prof. E. T. Whittaker, 

 F.R.S. Further particulars may be obtained from 1 the 

 honorary secretary of the Edinburgh Mathematical 

 Society, 19 Craighouse Terrace, Edinburgh. 



The prospect of early educational legislation has 

 led lately to much discussion and to many speeches 

 by prominent persons on various aspects of the 

 problem of providing an adequate and properly 

 organised system of education. Opening the new 

 buildings on June 6 of the Newcomen's Foundation 

 Domestic Trade School for Girls in London, the 

 President of the Board of Education, Mr. Pease, said 

 that when the history of the past fifty years comes 

 to be written it will show that there has been too 

 great an effort to make individuals read books. The 

 result has been that people too often take their 

 opinions from books, instead of forming them for 

 themselves as the result of their own experience, their 

 own thought, and their own work. — On June 6 and 7 

 the annual meeting of the Association of Education 

 Committees was held, and resolutions were passed 

 (a) declaring that it is imperative that a revision of 

 the incidence of the cost of education as between the 

 national and the local contributions shall precede any 

 further legislation or administrative action which will 

 increase the cost of education ; (b) expressing the 

 opinion that a new form of State contribution should 

 be substituted for the very unsatisfactory system of 

 grants to local education authorities, and that the 

 Exchequer grants should increase automatically as 

 new and increased responsibilities were put upon local 

 education authorities ; (c) expressing the opinion that 

 the time has arrived when the strongest possible pro- 

 test should be offered to local authorities undertaking 

 any further financial obligations until the Govern- 

 ment has redeemed its promise of further financial aid. 

 Mr. Pease, who attended the meeting, said it is 

 realised that more money ought to be given by the 

 State in sunport of education, and that education 

 committees should cooperate one with another with the 

 view of coordinating the whole system of education 

 in the country and making it more perfect. 



Commemoration Day at Livingstone College, Ley- 

 ton, was held on June 7, and formed the centenary 

 celebration of David Livingstone's birth. After a pre- 

 liminary statement by the principal (Dr. C. T. Har- 

 ford), the chairman (Bishop Montgomery) addressed 

 the meeting. He emphasised the importance of medi- 

 NO. 2276, VOL. 91] 



cal training for missionaries, especially for those who 

 had to go to tropical countries. Sir A. Pearce Gould 

 said that the life of Livingstone was an out- 

 standing contradiction to and repudiation of material- 

 ism. He spoke of the value of the college training 

 for all missionary students, and urged the advantage 

 of the course for missionaries on furlough, who would 

 thus be brought into touch with recent medical re- 

 searches. He referred to Livingstone's skill as a 

 physician, and to his anticipations of modern research. 

 Livingstone clearly saw the close connection between 

 mosquitoes and malaria, and that there was an 

 absence of malaria in the highlands where there were 

 no mosquitoes, but in the lowlands where they 

 swarmed malaria was prevalent. Livingstone recog- 

 nised that the bite poisoned the blood, and noted that 

 " the germ which enters when the proboscis is in- 

 serted to draw blood, the poison germ, is capable of 

 reproducing itself." Livingstone also saw clearly the 

 high importance of quinine in cases of fever. The 

 Rev. W. D. Armstrong, who had been fifteen years 

 on the Congo, spoke of the extreme value of his 

 medical training in the maintenance of his own health 

 whilst he was sampling Congo diseases, and in the 

 valuable work he was able to do for his wife and 

 fellow-missionaries at critical times. He spoke of the 

 frequent call for help from traders, who were often 

 entirely dependent on the missionary for medical help. 

 This relationship had been an efficient means of 

 establishing good relations between traders and mis- 

 sionaries in the troublous times of the rubber con- 

 troversy. At the conclusion of the meeting the visitors 

 had opportunities of examining the college laboratory 

 for research in tropical diseases and the Livingstone 

 relics which were on exhibition. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, June 5. — Sir Archibald Geikie, 

 K.C.B., president, in the chair.— Dr. R. Broom : The 

 origin of mammals (Croonian Lecture). An endeavour 

 is made to trace the evolution of mammals from 

 Cotylosaurian ancestors through the carnivorous 

 Therapsida. — Dr. E. A. Newell Arber : The fossil floras 

 of the Wvre Forest, with special reference to the 

 geology of the coalfield and its relationships to the 

 neighbouring Coal Measure areas. 



Zoological Society, May 20. — Prof. E. A. Minchin, 

 F.R.S., vice-president, in the chair. — Dr. R. Broom : 

 The South African pseudosuchian reptile Euparkeria 

 and allied genera. Besides giving an account of the 

 very completely known South African form, the author 

 also discussed the structure of the Elgin allied forms, 

 Ornithosuchus and others. The group of pseudo- 

 suchians he regarded as an extremely important 

 primitive reptilian order, as there is good reason to 

 believe that not only does it contain the ancestor of 

 the dinosaurs, but also the ancestors of the ptero- 

 dactyles and birds. Euparkeria and Ornithosuchus 

 are, in structure, almost dinosaurs, and it is held 

 that when the bipedal habit was more fully acquired 

 the few characters not quite dinosaurian would be- 

 come dinosaurian. Birds are held to have originated 

 from a pseudosuchian which, by a bipedal habit, had 

 acquired a dinosaur-like hind limb, and had then 

 become arboreal in habit and acquired the 

 peculiar power of flight. — E. G. Boulenger : Experi- 

 ments on the metamorphosis of the Mexican 

 axolotl (Amblystoma tigrinum). A detailed descrip- 

 tion was given of the changes that take place in the 

 course of transformation. The author also exhibited 

 a number of specimens in the perfect or amblystome 

 condition. The conclusions arrived at, fis a result of 



