August 21, 1913] 



NATURE 



^53 



State College, 248,000/. ; University of Pennsylvania, 

 164,000/. ; University of Pittsburgh, So, 000/. ; and 

 Temple University, 20,000/., making the total State 

 grant for higher education 512,000/. From the same 

 source we learn that Franklin College, Indiana, has 

 secured pledges amounting to 50,000/. for additional 

 endowment. Three-sixteenths of this amount is from 

 the General Education Board in the United States. 



The Edinburgh Mathematical Colloquium was held 

 during the first week of August in the mathematical 

 department of the University. It was organised by 

 the office-bearers of the Edinburgh Mathematical 

 Society in response to a widely expressed desire on 

 the part of mathematical teachers in England for a 

 vacation course in the mathematical laboratory which 

 Prof. Whittaker was instituting. In addition to five 

 lectures by Prof. Whittaker on the periodogram and 

 harmonic analysis, two other courses were provided. 

 Prof. Conway, of University College, Dublin, lectured 

 on the theory of relativity and the new ideas of space 

 and time, and Dr. Sommerville, of St. Andrews, lec- 

 tured on non-Euclidean geometry and the foundations 

 of geometry. Nearly eighty members of the collo- 

 quium assembled from all parts of the United King- 

 dom, and two or three from Canada and the United 

 States. The colloquium was in every way a great 

 success, the novel features being the method by which 

 Prof. Whittaker proposed to carry on the practical 

 instruction in numerical evaluation of functions and 

 the treatment of definite data. Each "student " sat at 

 a specially designed desk for facilitating numerical 

 work. 



The calendar of the Edinburgh and East of Scot- 

 land College of Agriculture for the session 1913-14 has 

 now been issued. It contains full details of the vari- 

 ous courses of instruction which are now available 

 in the departments of agriculture, horticulture, and 

 forestry. The aim of the college is to supply such 

 training in agriculture and the sciences underlying it 

 as is indispensable to all who intend to gain their 

 living from the land as owners, or tenants, or agents. 

 The calendar gives full guidance as to the curricula 

 for the B.Sc. degree in agriculture and in forestry, 

 the college diploma in agriculture, and the college 

 certificate in horticulture. Special note may be made 

 of the new course in horticultural science, which will 

 appeal to yountj gardeners who have served their 

 apprenticeship in the ordinary way, but desire 

 to make themselves acquainted with the scientific as 

 well as the practical aspects of horticulture. Under 

 arrangement between Ec'-^burgh University and the 

 allege there is nov ' d at Edinburgh a course 



of training in forestr . * 1 preliminary course is 

 intended specially for those who desire to get a know- 

 ledge of forestry for general purposes, and mainly 

 from the practical point of v' w. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Geological Society, June 25. — Dr. Aubrey Strahan, 

 F.R.S., president, in the chair. — Dr. F. Oswald: The 

 Miocene beds of the Victoria Nyanza and the geology 

 of the country between the lake and the Kisii high- 

 lands ; with appendices on the vertebrate remains, by 

 Dr. C. W. Andrews; on the non-marine Mollusca, by 

 R. B. Newton ; and on the plant-remains, by Miss N. 

 Bancroft. The Miocene beds of the eastern coast of the 

 Victoria Nyanza, south-east of Karungu, form a 

 narrow zone (covered with black earth) at the foot of 

 cliffs of overlying nepheline-basalt, and are only ex- 

 posed in a few gullies. The whole series is conform- 



NO. 2286, VOL. 91] 



able, dipping 8° north by west. 1 (Beds 1-12). An 

 upper group (about 70 ft. thick) of grey and brown 

 clays and shales, with occasional current-bedded sand- 

 stones containing terrestrial shells (Tropidophora, 

 Cerastus), as also calcified tree-stems in the uppermost 

 bed. 2 (Beds 13-25). A middle group (about 30 ft. 

 thick) of red and grey clays, with white sandstones 

 in the lower half. No bone-bed, but fragmentary 

 Chelonian and crocodilian remains occur sparsely 

 throughout the series. Persistent horizons are a 

 travertinous marlstone (No. 14) containing Ampullaria 

 and Lanistes ; a thin sandstone (No. 16) yielding 

 Hyracoid jawbones ; and a gravel (No. 24) yielding 

 teeth of Dinotherium, Protopterus, crocodile, &c. 3 

 (Beds 26-37). A lower group (about 35 ft. thick) of 

 current-bedded sandstones and gravels passing down 

 into clays and marlstones. A conglomerate of cal- 

 careous nodules overlies gravelly sandstones (No. 31) 

 containing isolated bones of Dinotherium, Anthraco- 

 theroids, rhinoceros, giant tortoises, &c, indicating a 

 Lower Miocene (Burdigalian) age, with Ampullaria, 

 Cleopatra, and terrestrial shells (Cerastus). The verte- 

 brate remains described by Dr. C. W. Andrews in- 

 clude Proboscidea, Hyracoida, Artiodactyla, Rodentia, 

 and Reptilia, and fully support the suggested occur- 

 rence of Lower Miocene deposits on the shores of the 

 Victoria Nyanza. A deposit of probably Pliocene age 

 yielded a new ( ?) species of Elephas, also bones of 

 antelopes and baboons. The non-marine Mollusca 

 associated with the Miocene vertebrates are fresh- 

 water and terrestrial shells which all belong to existing 

 species. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, August 11. — M. J. Boussinesq 

 in the chair. — M. Baillaud gave an account of the 

 recent meeting of the fifth congress of the Inter- 

 national Union of Solar Research, held at Bonn. — L. E. 

 Bertin : Concerning the origin of the double oscillo- 

 graph for the simultaneous registration of pitching 

 and rolling of ships. — A. Lacroix : The cipolin marbles 

 of Madagascar and the associated silicate rocks.-— A. 

 Romieux : An attempt at gehypsographical exploration. 

 — A. Guillet and M. Aubert : The direct expression of 

 electrospherical functions ; formation of differential 

 equations verified by these functions. — E. Rothe and 

 M. Gueritot : A method permitting the use of apparatus 

 on a reduced scale in wireless telegraphy. — Jean 

 Bielecki and Victor Henri : The quantitative study of 

 the absorption of the ultra-violet rays by some acids 

 of the ethylene series. In the acids studied the double 

 bond produces an increase in the absorption of ultra- 

 violet rays, and this increase is the more marked as 

 the position of the double bond approaches the 

 carboxyl group. Geometrical stereoisomers present 

 different absorptions.— H. Giran : The molecular 

 weight of sulphur trioxide. By the application of 

 Trouton's formula, as modified by M. de Forcrand, 

 the molecular weight of sulphur trioxide has been 

 found to be 80, that is the simple formula SG\ of the 

 gaseous anhydride. — J. Bougault : Phenyl-7-oxycrotonic 

 ac id. — A. Wahl and P. Bagard : The microscopical ex- 

 amination of coals. The chief difficulty has been the 

 choice of a suitable etching material' for the coal 

 sections; pyridine was used with success for bringing 

 out details'of structure. — L. Lindet : The influence of 

 calcium chloride on the curdling of milk. 



Cape Town. 

 Royal Society of South Africa, July 16. — The president 

 in the chair. — R. Broom : Some fossil fishes from the 

 diamond-bearing pipes of Kimberley. This paper 

 describes three new tvpes of Palasoniscid fishes now 

 preserved in the McGregor Museum, Kimberley, for 



