January 30, 1913] 



NATURE 



611 



lontr enjoy the comparative leisure and still useful 

 work that they anticipate await him in the future." 



Cambridge. — The Gordon Wigan income for 1912 

 at the disposal of the special board for biology and 

 geology has been applied as follows : — (a) 20L to 

 Prof. Hughes for research among the Pleistocene de- 

 posits of the Cambridge district; (b) 50L to Prof. 

 Punnett in order that the Botanic Garden Syndicate 

 may continue to offer special facilities for plant- 

 breeding experiments; (c) 50L to H. Scott, curator in 

 entomology, for the care and development of the col- 

 lections of insects ; (A) 30L to Prof. Langley, towards 

 the cost of an X-ray installation in the new physio- 

 logical laboratory. 



It is proposed to confer the degree of master of 

 arts, honoris causd, upon Mr. G. Udny Yule, Uni- 

 versity lecturer in statistics. 



The Right Hon. Lord Walsingham, of Trinity 

 College, Dr. Shipley, master of Christ's College, and 

 Prof. Purnett have been nominated to represent the 

 University at the ninth fnternational Congress of 

 Zoologv, to be held at Monaco in March. 



Liverpool. — The council of the L'niversity on 

 Januarv 28 appointed Dr. J. W. W. Stephens to the 

 Sir Alfred Jones chair of tropica! medicine, vacant 

 ihrougli the resignation of Sir Ronald Ross. Dr. 

 Stephens has held the Walter Myers lectureship in 

 tropical medicine at the University, and has been 

 associated in the teaching work of the Liverpool 

 School of Tropical Medicine for ten years. 



London. — At the meeting of the Senate on January 

 22, Dr. Frederick G. Donnan, F.R.S., was again 

 appointed to the chair of general cheniistry, tenable 

 at University College, recently vacated by Sir William 

 Ramsay, F.R.S. Prof. Donnan was appointed to this 

 chair some months ago, but for private reasons w-as 

 unable to accept the appointment. 



The anonymous benefactor who presented 30,000/. 

 for additional buildings in front of University Col- 

 lege has increased his original benefaction. He will 

 now bear almost the whole cost of the buildings in 

 question. 



Oxford. — The Herbert Spencer lecture will be de- 

 livered by Prof. D'Arcy Thompson on Friday, February 

 14, and not on February 13 as previously announced. 



Prof. Poulton, F.R.S. , Prof. Bourne,' F.R.S. , and 

 Mr. E. S. Goodrich, F.R.S., have been appointed to 

 represent the L^niversity at the International Congress 

 of Zoology, to be held this year at Monaco. 



The fifteenth annual dinner of the Old Centralians 

 — the City and Guilds College Old Students' Associa- 

 tion — will be held on Saturday, February 15, at the 

 Trocadero Restaurant, Piccadilly Circus, W. The 

 chair will be taken at 7.30 p.m. by Sir John Wolfe 

 Barry, K.C.B., F.R.S., the president of the associa- 

 tion. Further information and tickets (price 6s. 6d.) 

 can be obtained from Mr. G. W. Tripp, 4 Fairfield 

 Road, Charlton, Kent. 



A Reuter message from Capetown states that the 

 South African University Bill, which has now been 

 published, provides that the Cape University shall 

 become the national residential University for South 

 Africa, and that its central seat shall be located on 

 the late Mr. Rhodes's estate at Groote Schuur. It 

 permits local as well as central faculties, prohibits 

 religious tests, and provides for instruction and 

 examination with either English or Dutch as medium. 

 It also permits the sale of the Frankenwald estate at 

 Pretoria, presented by the late Mr. Alfred Beit for 

 educational purposes, the proceeds being applied to 

 the University. The Bill further renounces Mr. Beit's 

 gift of 200,000?. towards a Johannesburg University. 



NO. 2257, VOL. 90] 



.•\ course of weekly lectures on mining hygiene 

 and mines rescue w-ork began on January 27 at the 

 University of Leeds. Most of the lectures will be 

 given by Mr. R. Veitch Clark, assistant medical 

 officer for Leeds, but those on rescue appliances and 

 the organisation of rescue work will be entrusted to 

 Mr. David Bowen, acting head of the department of 

 mining in the University. The course has been 

 arranged to meet the needs which have arisen out 

 of recently enacted mining regulations. The Coal 

 Mines Act of 191 1 has made it incumbent upon coal- 

 owners to provide sanitary conveniences in mines, 

 I both above and below ground. It requires, more- 

 I over, that when any rock-drill work by mechanical 

 I power is used in a mine, a spray of water must be 

 I worked in conjunction with the drill, to prevent the 

 ! escape of dust into the air, with the view of assisting 

 the prevention of miners' phthisis. The .-Xct, too, 

 empowers the Home Secretary to require the main- 

 tenance of rescue and ambulance appliances and the 

 formation of rescue and ambulance brigades. Serious 

 efforts are demanded if ankylostomiasis is to be 

 stamped out, and nystagmus prevented among the 

 miners. It is hoped that the course of lectures, by 

 educating masters and men engaged in the mining 

 industry, will assist very materially in improving the 

 conditions under which miners work. Arrangements 

 have also been made in the University for a special 

 course of lectures on the economic aspects of mining. 



The fifth annual dinner of old students of the Royal 

 College of Science, London, held on January 25 at the 

 Monico Restaurant, was rendered memorable by a 

 speech from Sir William Crookes, O.M., F.R.S., who 

 presided, in response to the toast of the evening, 

 proposed by Sir David Prain, F.R.S. Sir William 

 Crookes recalled the position of scientific investiga- 

 tion when he was a student of the Royal College 

 of Chemistry sixty-five years ago. Of special interest 

 was his personal recollection of Faraday's experiment 

 at the Roval Society in 1850, when he demonstrated 

 the magnetic character of oxygen. He predicted that 

 the practical side of chemistry in the future would 

 be synthetic, and on the philosophic side the investi- 

 gation of the constitution of matter would make the 

 greatest progress. Miss E. X. Thomas proposed 

 "The Guests," to which Dr. R. T. Glazebrook, 

 F.R.S., and Sir Robert Morant, K.C.B., replied. The 

 latter appealed in eloquent terms for the cordial co- 

 operation of old students in the great educational 

 developments which were imminent in London. 

 He said that the College of Science was 

 obviously destined to be one of_ the_ great 

 strong elements of a vivifying kind in the 

 higher education of London. The guests included 

 also Sir Amherst Selby-Bigge and Sir Alfred Keogh, 

 and, among some seventy old students present, Sir 

 Thomas Holland, F.R.S.. Sir Alexander Pedler, 

 F.R.S., Prof. A. Fowler, F.R.S., Dr. A. E. Tutton. 

 F.R.S. (the newly elected president of the Old 

 Students Association), and Prof. W. Watson, F.R.S. 



The Chadwick Trust, founded in 1S95, under the 

 will of the late Sir Edwin Chadwick, K.C.B., has 

 arranged for a series of public lectures to be delivered 

 during this year, in London and certain provincial 

 towns. The object of the trust is the promotion of 

 sanitary science in all or any of its branches in various 

 ways indicated by the founder, or otherwise at the 

 discretion of the trustees. The first of the courses of 

 lectures will be given on Friday evenings, February 

 7, 14, and 21, at the Royal Sanitary Institute, Buck- 

 ingham Palace Road, by Mr. H. Percy Boulnois, on 

 hygiene of the home. In April Dr. J. T. C. Xash will 

 give three lectures at the London County Hall, 



