September 19, 1912] 



NATO RE 



97 



be obtained at any of the Council's schools and of the 

 Education Officer, Education Offices, Victoria Embank- 

 ment. It is hoped that the efforts of the Council 

 to improv'e the education of the young people of 

 London by means of these valuable classes will result 

 in a large influx of new and earnest students in the 

 session now at hand. 



The goth session of the Birkbeck College will com- 

 mence on Wednesday, September 25. The opening 

 address will be given in the theatre at 7.30 p.m., by 

 Sir Sidney Lee. The class-rooms, &c., will after- 

 wards be open for inspection, and there will be an 

 exhibition in the Art School. The college is con- 

 ducted in relation with the University of London ; 

 classes are held both in the day and evening; twenty- 

 nine members of the staff are recognised teachers of 

 the University. There is a very complete curriculum 

 for chemistry, physics, mathematics, botany, zoology, 

 and geology. The laboratories are well equipped with 

 modern apparatus and appliances, and research work 

 is encouraged in all the science departments. Accord- 

 ing to the calendar more than 1 18 students passed 

 some examination of the University during the last 

 session : forty-nine took degrees in arts or science, 

 twenty-two with honours, and several students gained 

 distinction at other universities. 



The new session of the Battersea Polytechnic opened 

 on Tuesday, September 17, and the calendar gives 

 full details of all the numerous courses and classes 

 held at the Polytechnic. In the Day Technical College 

 full-time courses are arranged in mechanical, civil, 

 electrical and motor engineering, architecture and 

 building, chemical engineering, and art, the courses 

 covering a period of three years, at the end of which 

 time students passing the necessary examinations are 

 awarded the Polytechnic diploma. There are also 

 full university and diploma courses in mathematics, 

 physics, chemistry, botany, &c. Concurrently with 

 the diploma courses, students can prepare for and take 

 the degree courses in science and engineering of the 

 University of London. In the electrical engineer- 

 ing department, a new course in electric lighting 

 and illumination will be held during the second 

 term of the session. The greatest development to 

 be recorded this year is in the department of natural 

 science, i.e. including the subjects of hygiene, physio- 

 logy, geology, and bacteriology. The recent donation 

 of Goool. made by the Worshipful Company of Drapers 

 has enabled the governing body to erect a four-storev 

 building for the housing of the above sections of work, 

 and thus airy and well-lighted laboratories and 

 lecture-rooms of the latest design, and fitted with the 

 most modern equipment, are now available for this 

 most important work. 



.\n influenlially signed appeal has reached us for 

 support to a scheme for providing a systematic course 

 of combined military and industrial training for lads 

 from the age of fourteen years upwards. The object 

 of the British Boys' Training Corps, on behalf of 

 which the appeal is made, is the moral, physical, 

 and industrial advancement of the cadets enrolled in 

 it, to train them in the duties of citizenship, and to 

 fit them for a life of industry. Military organisation 

 and exercise will be used as a means for developing 

 their moral and physique, .aid promoting among them 

 habits of discipline, application, adaptability, and re- 

 sourcefulness, which are indispensable to proficiency 

 in the workshop or the factory. The corps will, in 

 effect, be a military and industrial boarding-school, 

 and is designed to train and instruct a boy for a 

 period of three or four years continuously from the 

 time he leaves the elementary school. .Alike upon 



NO. 2238, VOL. 90] 



social, economic, and industrial grounds the scheme 

 is commended to the public. The annual loss to the 

 nation of promising material presents a grave 

 problem. Far too many boys on leaving school are 

 engaged in " blind-alley " occupations ; when they 

 have outgrown these, they find themselves adrift with- 

 out either the skill or the knowledge to qualify them 

 for permanent employment; they swell the ranks of 

 casual labour, and the prison or the workhouse is the 

 ultimate destiny of an increasing number of them. 

 To mitigate these evils in some measure at least is 

 the aim of the corps. It is estimated that the copt 

 of establishing and maintaining the corps at first will 

 be 15,000/. No appeal for funds has hitherto been 

 made, but two members of the council have gener- 

 ously promised to guarantee loool. and 500/. respec- 

 tively towards the expenses on condition that the 

 total amount guaranteed or subscribed is not less 

 than 15,000/., and various unsolicited donations, in- 

 cluding an anonymous one of 50L, have already been 

 placed to^ the credit of the corps at the Bank of Eng- 

 land. Guarantees, donations, or subscriptions may 

 be sent to the account of the corps at the Bank of 

 England (Western Branch), Burlington Gardens, W. ; 

 to Colonel Pollock, Wingfield, Godalming ; or to the 

 hon. secretarv, Mr. J. C. Medd, 37 Russell Square,. 

 W.C, from whom particulars of the scheme can be 

 obtained. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 Paris; 

 Academy of Sciences, September 2.— M. P. Appell in 



the chair. A. Lacroix : The origin of the transparent 



quartz of Madagascar. The hyaline quartz of Mada- 

 gascar is of complex origin, but there are only two 

 classes of deposits furnishing the mineral in large 

 quantities and of sufficient transparency for indus- 

 trial purposes. One of these is in lodes of the 

 Ampangab^ type, in which the quartz is without 

 crystalline form; the other is of hydrothermal origm, 

 and here the quartz forms well-defined crystals.— A. 

 Ricco : Filaments, ali gne ment s , and solar pronnin- 

 ences. The author confirms the view that there is a 

 relation between the prominences and the filaments 

 and aligiiements.—iean Danysz and William Duane : 

 The electrical charges carried by the a and 3 rays. 

 From the experiments described the electrical charge 

 carried by the a ravs of one Curie of emanation in 

 equilibrium with radium A, B, C is deduced as QO'S 

 electrostatic units per second, or nearly three tmies 

 the charge found bv Rutherford for radium C alone 

 in equilibrium with one Curie of emanation. From 

 this constant are deduced the volume of one Curie 

 of emanation (o-5q5 mm.^ at 15° C), and the volume 

 of helium given off by one gram of radium in 

 equilibrium with its emanation and radium A, b, and 

 C (i,7 mm.^l, both in good agreement with the experi- 

 mental values.-Victor Henri and Rene Wurmser : 

 Study of the law of photochemical absorption tor 

 reactions produced bv the ultra-violet rays. There is 

 a striking parallelism between the absorption curve ot 

 acetone in the ultra-violet and the chemical activity ot 

 the different ravs. This reaction affords an example 

 where the extreme ultra-violet rays are less active 

 chemically than ultra-violet rays of greater wave- 

 length —Claude Verne : Solatium maglia ancl 

 tuhero^um. and the results of experiments on cultural 

 bud mutations undertaken on these w^ild species of 

 potato.— H. Busquet : The comparative cardiac action 

 of the physiological extract of digitalis and other digi- 

 talis preparations.— Romuald Minliiewicz : Cihata 

 chromatophora. a new order of Infusoria with un- 



