May 2, 1912] 
NATURE 
239 
mot take place; also that some means should be 
found, either by the establishment of an independent 
department or faculty of technology or otherwise, by 
which students of the Imperial College who satis- 
factorily complete the associateship courses of the 
college, and students duly qualified by research, 
advanced study, or in other approved ways, may 
obtain degrees without further examination. To 
maintain the departments of applied science in the 
college, so that they may be of the greatest possible 
usefulness to their related industries, small com- 
mittees of experts are being formed with the express 
object of keeping the college specially informed as 
to the needs of that industry. Throughout the re- 
port there are many instances of the strenuous 
endeavours of the governing body to equip and main- 
tain the college in a manner worthy of its name. 
In a paper read before the Royal Colonial Institute 
on April 23, Mr. A. E. Shipley, Master of Christ’s 
College, Cambridge, dealt with the problem of fitting 
men for their practical post-academic life. The 
Americans, he pointed out, set great store by the 
practical nature of education. Not infrequently boys 
who in the ordinary course of events would leave 
school at fourteen or so, go up to the high school, 
where they maintain themselves, altogether or partly. 
The path from the school to the university is a 
straight one. But the system in America is beset by 
many grave disadvantages. The teaching staffs of 
some of the great universities are far from adequate, 
and the priceless feature of individual instruction and 
attention is neglected. College degrees may, he 
said, be “crammed” for, and the system stifles 
originality. Several Americans have told Mr. Shipley 
that comparatively few things are actually invented 
in America—that most inventions come from abroad, 
but are eagerly taken up and exploited in the States. 
Where the American really shines is not as an 
inventor, but as a manufacturer. Originality is rare 
in America, and this must be accounted for by the 
educational system. The remedy is either a gigantic 
increase in the teaching staffs of the universities or 
else a rigorous elimination of the first-year students. 
At present, he continued, the older English universi- 
ties are producing the best men, but the field from 
which they draw is small. By making slight re- 
forms, America could be on the same footing as the 
English universities, with the added advantage of a 
universal field from which to select the raw material. 
THE completion of another important addition to 
the many departments housed under the roof of the 
Battersea Polytechnic was inaugurated on Monday, 
April 22, when his Honour Judge Benson (Master of 
] 
| 
‘the Worshipful Company of Drapers) attended for | 
the purpose of opening the new hygiene and physio- 
logy laboratories, presented by that body as a further 
step towards the thorough equipment of the poly- 
technic. The new laboratories with their class- 
rooms are equipped and arranged on the latest prin- 
ciples for the study of hygiene, physiology, bacterio- 
logy, and geology. Dr. Rawson, principal of the 
polytechnic, presented an interesting report on the 
work of the past year, in the course of which he 
pointed out that the number of both day and evening | 
students showed a gratifying increase. In the matter 
of examination results, thirty-eight scholarships and 
exhibitions (to the value of 21151.) had been gained 
daring the year, together with nine medals and six- 
teen prizes, and other awards. The number of uni- 
versity students and their successes at the university 
examinations also showed a great increase over 
previous years. In conclusion, Dr. Rawson referred 
to the great help the new laboratories given to the 
NO. 2218, vo. 89] 
polytechnic by the Drapers’ Company would prove. 
In the past, so far as the study of hygiene and 
physiology was concerned, the work had been 
seriously hampered for want of accommodation, but 
that has now been remedied. Judge Benson then dis- 
tributed the prizes and formally opened the new 
laboratories. Later he delivered an address, in which 
he contrasted the present educational system with 
the opportunities which existed in his youth, and 
urged the students in their efforts to perfect them- 
selves in technical arts and crafts, not to neglect that 
general culture which is necessary to the proper 
development of the human intellect. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
LonpDon. 
Royal Society, April 25.—Sir Archibald Geikie, 
K.C.B., president, in the chair.—J. S. Townsend: The 
diffusion and mobility of ions in a magnetic field. 
The mobility and diffusion of ions in a magnetic field 
is investigated on the same principles as_ those 
employed in the ordinary kinetic theory by consider- 
ing the motion of an ion along its free paths between 
collisions with molecules. If U and K_ be the 
mobility and coefficient of diffusion when the mag- 
netic force is zero, U, and K, the corresponding 
quantities in directions at right angles to a magnetic 
force H, then 
= K 
, and K;, Theol? 
where o=He/m and T the mean interval between 
collisions. The magnetic deflection 9 of a stream of 
ions moving with a constant velocity in an electric 
field is also investigated, and a method is indicated 
of determining the velocity U due to an electric force 
X. When @ is small, tan@=HU/X, and when @ is 
large, tandX/=HU,.—J. J. Manley: The observed 
variations in the temperature coefficients of a pre- 
cision balance. In this paper is given an account of 
experiments which supplement and extend an earlier 
research (Phil. Trans., A, ccx., p. 387) dealing with 
changes which may be observed in the resting points 
of precision balances. Attention is directed to the 
following :—(a) the possibility of the change from a 
positive to a negative value for the temperature co- 
efficient of a balance; (b) the critical temperature 
range of a balance; (c) the various causes tending to 
give rise to a temperature coefficient ; (d) the necessity 
for the ‘‘ageing” of a beam either naturally or 
artificially. In addition to the above, certain minute 
and temporary lateral displacements of the whole 
beam are investigated. A method for measuring 
these movements is given, and their origin disclosed. 
—Dr. Guy Barlow: The torque produced by a beam of 
light in oblique refraction through a glass plate. In 
accordance with the principle that light carries with 
it a stream of momentum, the passage of a beam of 
light through a refracting plate should give rise to a 
torque on the plate, it being supposed that the re- 
action is on the matter through which the beam is 
passing. In 1905 Prof. Poynting and the author 
made experiments which confirmed this result, but as 
disturbances, due to gas action, were not eliminated, 
more exact measurements appeared desirable. In the 
present experiment the original double-prism arrange- 
ment was abandoned in favour of a single cube. A 
glass cube, of 1 cm. edge, was suspended axially by 
a fine quartz fibre. A strong beam of light was sent 
obliquely through the cube, the angle of incidence 
having been so adjusted that the beam entered 
through one half of one face, and emerged through 
the half-face diagonally opposite. The torque was 
U 
u=— 
h Teme 
