324 



NATURE 



[November 14, 1912 



have obtained the associateship of the institute, and 

 spent at least five years in actual practice, and by 

 original and valuable research work or otherwise have 

 contributed to the advancement of the industry in 

 which I hey are engaged. 



Recently the faculty of medicine of the University 

 of Giessin conferred the honorary degree of doctor of 

 medicine upon Ernst Leitz, Junior, the junior partner 

 of the celebrated optical firm, E. Leitz, of Wetzlar, 

 and 18 Bloomsbury Square, London. It is only a 

 little more than a year since the L'niversity of Mar- 

 burg honoured the senior partner of the same firm by 

 conferring upon him the degree of doctor of philo- 

 sophy. It must be gratifying to the firm that its 

 services towards science are so highlv appreciated and 

 recognised. 



.\ JOINT conference on the Montessori system of 

 education, arranged by the Child Study Society (Lon- 

 don) and the Montessori Society of the United King- 

 dom, will be held at the Royal Sanitary Institute, 

 Buckingham Palace Road, S.W., on Saturday, Novem- 

 ber 16. The chair will be taken at 3 p.m. bv the Hon. 

 Sir John A. Cockburn, K.C.M.G. The conference will 

 be preceded on Friday, November 15, at 7.30 p.m., bv 

 a lecture by Madame Pujol-Segalas (of Paris) oh 

 " Maria Montessori's Method and Self-education." 

 Mr. R. Blair, education officer of the London County 

 Council, will preside. 



The following lectures for advanced students of the 

 University and others interested in the subjects are 

 announced in T/;e London University Gazette. A 

 course of six lectures on " Methods of I'llumination as 

 applied to Microscopy," at Charing Cross Hospital 

 Medical School, Chandos Street, W.C, by Mr. J. E. 

 Barnard, at 5 p.m. on Thursdays, beginning on 

 November 14; and a course of three lectures, on 

 " Recent Work in Experimental Embryology," in the 

 Zoological Lecture Room of Universitv College, by 

 Dr. J. \V. Jenkinson, on Fridays, November 29, 

 December 6 and 13, 1912, at 5 p.m. Admission to the 

 lectures is free, without ticket. 



Mr. A. G. Warren has been appointed a lecturer 

 in the engineering faculty of the University of Hong 

 Kong. He was a lecturer in the East London College, 

 and has been head of the engineering department of 

 the Aston Manor Technical School, Birmingham, for 

 thelast eighteen months. In July last Prof." C. A. M. 

 Smith (of the East London College) was appointed to 

 the Tai Koo chair of engineering in that University, 

 and immediately proceeded to the Far East to take up 

 his new duties. The Hong Kong University opened 

 its doors to students in October, 1912, and, although 

 the equipment of the engineering department had not 

 then been commenced, there were thirty-five engineer- 

 ing students who passed the entrance examination, 

 and who now form the first-year engineers of the 

 latest British university. It is interesting to record 

 the fact that these Chinese engineering students have 

 come from many different parts, and include some 

 from Straits Settlements, Canton, and Foochow. 



Various changes are proposed in the regulations 

 for the examinations for certain junior appointments 

 in the Civil Service. The age limits for the appoint- 

 ments being eighteen to nineteen and a half years, 

 I hey are as a rule competed for by candidates from 

 secondary schools. Certain subject's in the examina- 

 tion are compulsorv ; while the optional subjects are 

 divided into two classes, the papers in one being of 

 n lower standard than those in the other, and conse- 

 quently receiving only half the marks of the higher 

 papers. At present, papers of lower standard are set 



NO. 2246, VOL. go] 



in mathematics, French, German, Latin, Greek, Eng- 

 lish history, chemistry, and physics ; and higher papers 

 are set in mathematics, French, German, Latin, 

 Greek, English and European history, chemistry, and 

 physics. It is proposed in 1914 to set a lower paper 

 in European history in addition to the subjects named 

 above, and no longer to set higher papers in history, 

 chemistry, and physics. It is clear that the proposed 

 change will operate unfavourably against schools 

 where two classical languages are not taught, and 

 against candidates whose abilities are scientific rather 

 than linguistic. We are glad to notice that the 

 Education Committee of the London County Council 

 has passed a resolution to this effect, which is being 

 sent to the Civil Service Commissioners for their 

 consideration. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Royal Anthropological Institute, November 12. — Dr. 

 A. P. Maudslay, president, in the chair. — R. W. 

 Williamson : Thi- Mekeo people of New Guinea. Mr. 

 Williamson gave an account of the Mekeo modes of 

 courtship and ceremony of marriage. For the former, 

 love charms and philtres are extensively used, and the 

 rising sun is appealed to for help. The negotiations 

 for the marriage involve substantial gifts by the boy's 

 family to that of the girl, including ornaments, &c., 

 which are presented at the time of the negotiations, 

 and pigs, which the girl's relatives afterwards secure 

 by means of a mock hostile raid upon the boy's clan. 

 The author also described some of their ceremonial 

 dances, which he believed to have an origin in an 

 imitation of the dancing movements during the court- 

 ing season of the goura pigeon, and elaborate cere- 

 monial performances, at which much coveted decora- 

 tions are bestowed upon warriors who have slain an 

 enemy in battle ; also their funeral and mourning 

 ceremonies, the former of which includes a comic feast 

 and a game of " bob-apple " — the apple being the leg 

 of a pig or kangaroo. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, November 4. M. Lippmann in 

 the chair. — G. Bigourdan : The International Time Con- 

 ference. The first meeting was held at Paris on 

 October 15, and was attended by the representatives 

 of fifteen Governments. The work was subdivided 

 amongst four subcommittees, and a detailed account is 

 given of their conclusions and suggestions. — Paul 

 Appell : The theorem of the last Jacobi multiplier con- 

 nected with the formula of Ostrogradsky or Green. — 

 L. Maquenne and E. Demoussy : The determination of 

 respiratory coefficients. A discussion of the relations 

 between the apparent and true respiratory coefficients 

 when determined in a fixed volume of air. — W. Kilian 

 and Ch. Pussenot : The age of the shining schists of 

 the Franco-Italian Alps. There is a break in these 

 strata, a portion being Mesozoic and another part 

 Tertiary. These two portions are probably strati- 

 graphically discordant. — Kr. Birkeland : The origin of 

 planets and their satellites. From experimental con- 

 siderations the author has been led to the view that 

 in solar systems in course of evolution there exist 

 forces of electromagnetic origin of the same order of 

 magnitude as that of gravitation. The retrograde 

 revolution of the recently discovered moons of Jupiter 

 and Saturn is in accordance with this view. — AlM. 

 Fayet and Schaumasse : The elliptic elements of the 

 1012ft comet (.Schaumasse comet) : its identity with the 

 Tuttle comet. — P. Idrac : Spectroscopic observations of 

 the Gale comet (1012) made at the Meudon Observa- 



