July 27, 1905] 



NATURE 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 

 Oxford. — It has been announced that the chemical 

 fellowship at Magdalen College, to which an election will 

 be made next term, is open to all persons who have 

 qualified for the degree of B.A. at Oxford, and are not 

 in the receipt of an income of more than 300/. per annum. 

 The examination will begin on October 3, and will be 

 mainly in the subjects recognised in the honour school of 

 chemistry. Any candidate may submit any dissertations 

 or papers written by him or any evidence of research work 

 done by him. 



The council of the University of Liverpool has, on the 

 recommendation of the university senate, deterniined to 

 institute a university lectureship in e.xperimental psychology. 



Prof. W. H. W.^tkinson, at present professor of 

 engineering in the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical 

 College, has been appointed to the Harrison chair of 

 engineering in the University of Liverpool formerly filled 

 by Prof. Hele-Shaw, F.R.S. 



The governors of the Merchant Venturers' Technical 

 College, Bristol, have decided to award annually to the 

 most suitable candidate who, being a member of the 

 college, has graduated in science at the University of 

 London or gained a similar distinction, a research scholar- 

 ship of the value of ^ol., tenable at the college for one 

 year. The research scholar will be required to undertake 

 some research work either in the department of applied 

 chemistry or in that of engineering. The governors will 

 defray the cost of the apparatus and materials needed for 

 the prosecution of such work. 



The detailed regulations and syllabus for the preliminary 

 exajnination for the certificate, which will in 1907 take 

 the place of the King's scholarship examination, which 

 pupil teachers have been in the habit of taking at the end 

 of their apprenticeship, have been issued as an appendix 

 to the regulations for the instruction and training of 

 pupil teachers, 1905. The distribution of subjects in the 

 re-cast examination has received the careful consideration 

 of the Board of Education. In order to be successful a 

 candidate must pass a test in the important subjects, in- 

 cluding composition and arithmetic, which form part i. 

 of the examination, and also show a reasonable degree of 

 proficiency in English, history, and geography. To quote 

 the circular which has been distributed to local education 

 authorities, training colleges, and pupil teacher centres ; — 

 " To these the Board would gladly have added elementary 

 science. They have, however, refrained at present from 

 doing so because, except in fully equipped secondary 

 schools and pupil teacher centres, it is not always possible 

 for candidates to obtain the necessary instruction in prac- 

 tical scientific work, while they are convinced that instruc- 

 tion in science which does not include practical work is of 

 very little value." It is satisfactory to record this frank 

 admission by the Board of Education of the great import- 

 ance of including elementary science in every scheme of 

 education, whether elementary or secondary. It is to be 

 hoped that every effort will be made by the Board to bring 

 about increased facilities for instruction in elementary 

 science in all schools under their jurisdiction, and not only 

 in those from which pupil teachers proceed to the training 

 college. It is not too much to say that no system of train- 

 ing designed to provide efficient elementary school teachers 

 will prove thoroughly satisfactory which does not subject 

 the teacher in training to a course of practical work in 

 science. Even if it is considered necessary at present to 

 make science an optional subject in this preliminary ex- 

 amination for the certificate, every effort should be made 

 so to improve the equipment of the schools that elementary 

 science may be made obligatory for all candidates at an 

 early date. 



A Tre.asurv .Minute upon the recommendations of the 

 university colleges committee has been issued as a Parlia- 

 mentary paper. The consideration of the final report of 

 Mr. Haldane's committee on the allocation of the grant 

 in aid to university colleges is resumed. The recommend- 

 ation of the establishment of a permanent committee to 

 advise the Board of Treasury as to the distribution of 



NO, 1865, VOL. 72] 



the grant in aid is accepted, and an endeavour will be 

 made in the autumn to constitute such a body, which will 

 perform the duties hitherto undertaken by the quinquennial 

 committee of inspection. Some of the colleges have pointed 

 out that the intervention of such a committee may inter- 

 fere unduly with their internal administration, iDUt the 

 Minute lays it down that the main functions of the com- 

 mittee will be to advise the Board of Treasury as to the 

 kind of education which should be assisted out of the 

 grant, and to satisfy themselves by inspection that the 

 money is being properly applied. These objects can be 

 obtained without any undue interference with the re- 

 sponsibility of the college authorities. Ninety per cent, of 

 the grant is in the future to be allocated on the same 

 general principles as have been adopted hitherto, and such 

 sums as may be given will be secured to the colleges for 

 at least five years. The balance of the grant will be 

 reserved partly for special grants towards the provision of 

 books and apparatus and partly for the encouragement of 

 post-graduate work. The colleges will be expected to 

 make proposals to the advisory committee as regards post- 

 graduate work, showing the nature of the work it is desired 

 to undertake and the assistance the college itself intends 

 to contribute to the work. Parliament is being asked to 

 vote ioo,oooL for university colleges, and if this is agreed 

 to 89,000;. will be distributed and ii,oooL reserved for 

 allocation in March next. The amount allotted to each 

 college for the year 1905-6 will be as follows : — Man- 

 chester, 12,000^ ; University College, London, 10,000!. ; 

 Liverpool, io,oooZ. ; Birmingham, 9000^ ; Leeds, 8000/. ; 

 King's College, London, 7800Z. ; Newcastle-on-Tyne, 

 6000/. ; Nottingham, 5800!. ; Sheffield, 4600?. ; Bedford 

 College, London, 4000?. ; Bristol, 4000/. ; Reading, 3400!. ; 

 Southampton, 3400L ; Dundee, loooi. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, March 9. — " Explosions of Mixtures of 

 Coal-Gas and Air in a Closed Vessel." By L. Bairstow 

 and A. D. Alexander. 



Summary. 



Mixtures of coal-gas and air are not inflammable until 

 the volume of coal-gas is greater than one-seventeenth of 

 the combined volumes. Only a very small fraction of the 

 gas then burns, the amount burnt rapidly increasing with 

 increased richness of the mixture until the coal-gas is 

 one-twelfth of the total volume. The least inflammable of 

 the constituents then burns, and combustion becomes and 

 remains complete so long as air is in excess. In these 

 latter cases it is still probable that the constituents burn 

 successively and not simultaneously. 



The hypothesis of a specific heat increasing with 

 temperature is not supported by direct experiment, and 

 cannot be proved by any work on the pressures produced 

 by explosion, the authors believing that a proof would 

 require the measurement of temperature. 



Direct experiments by Deville at temperatures below 

 1400° C. have shown that both steam and carbon dio.xide 

 are partially decomposed, and this dissociation is therefore 

 taken by us as the sole explanation of the difference 

 between the pressures calculated for explosions in a closed 

 vessel and those actually obtained. 

 Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, July 17. — M. Trorst in the chair. 

 — On a new method of direct determination of refraction 

 at all heights : -M. Loevuy. The author describes and ex- 

 plains the theory of his new method by which atmospheric 

 refraction can be measured by the use of a prism the 

 refracting faces of which are at an angle of 45°. — On an 

 apparatus for producing artificial eclipses of the sun : Ch. 

 Andre. By the use of such apparatus many theoretical 

 points can be determined in a way not otherwise possible. 

 — On the infinitesimal properties of non-Eucildean space : 

 C. Guichard. — On the distribution of sugary substances 

 in blood between the plasma and the corpuscles : R. 

 Lepine and M. Boulud. By eliminating certain errors 

 due to glycolysis, the authors find for the corpuscles 22 per 

 cent., and for the serum barely 4 per cent, of sugar. — 

 On the evaluation of errors in the approximate integration 



