Juty 11, 1912] 
After the Congregation, the Guild of Graduates, 
presided over by Dr. Ethel M. R. Shakespear, enter- 
tained a number of distinguished visitors at luncheon. 
The Lord Mayor, in replying to the toast of ‘‘ The 
City," expressed his regret that, at the time when 
the University applied to the City Council for assist- 
ance, an unusual spirit of economy seemed to be 
abroad. In his opinion the city was expecting a 
very great deal from the University in return for a 
comparatively small pecuniary grant. He also ex- 
pressed the opinion that a great need of the city was 
for more university graduates on the City Council 
and on public bodies generally, and he heartily in- 
vited the graduates to take a more active share in 
municipal life, where their help would be eagerly 
welcomed. 
Mr. Herbert Heaton has been elected to a new 
assistant-lectureship in economics. Mr. Heaton has 
studied at the University of Leeds and the London 
School of Economics. His services will be devoted 
partly to the Faculty of Commerce and partly to the 
extension work in connection with the Workers’ 
Educational Association. 
OxrorD.—A party of the foreign and colonial 
delegates to the 250th anniversary of the foundation 
of the Royal Society has been invited to visit Oxford 
on Friday, July 12. The proceedings at Oxford will 
include a Convocation in the Sheldonian Theatre, at 
which honorary degrees will be conferred; a lunch 
given by the Warden and Fellows of All Souls’ 
College, and a garden-party in the grounds of 
Wadham College, the scene, during the Common- 
wealth, of some of the meetings from which the 
Royal Society afterwards took origin. 
In view of the resignation by Prof. Odling of the 
Waynflete professorship of chemistry, which he has 
held for forty years, a committee has been appointed 
to collect subscriptions for the foundation of an 
““Odling Scholarship” for the encouragement of 
chemical research. Subscriptions towards this 
memorial of Prof. Odling’s services will be received 
by Dr. H. B. Baker, F.R.S., Christ Church; Rev. 
G. B. Cronshaw, Queen’s College; and Mr. H. B. 
Hartley, Balliol College. 
EpINBURGH.—At the Graduation ceremony on 
July 5, the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred 
upon Lieut.-Col. Bailey, formerly lecturer on forestry 
in the University; Prof. J. Theodore Cash, F.R.S., 
Regius professor of materia medica in the University 
of Aberdeen; Dr. J. S. Flett, director of the Geo- 
logical Survey of Scotland; Dr. W. Warde Fowler; 
Prof. W. C. M’Intosh, F.R.S., professor of natural 
history in the University of St. Andrews; Dr. R. 
Munro; Sir James Porter, K.C.B., Director-General, 
Medical Department, Royal Navy; Sir Thomas Ray- 
leigh, formerly Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta Uni- 
versity; and Mr. J. L. Robertson, Chief Inspector of 
Schools for Scotland. 
Dr. S. J. M. Autp, lecturer on agricultural chem- 
istry and head of the chemical department at the 
South-Eastern Agricultural College, Wye, has been 
appointed to the professorship of agricultural chem- 
istry at University College, Reading. 
PRESIDENT T. N. Vait, of the American Telegraph 
and Telephone Co., has presented to the Massachu- 
setts Institute of Technology the Dering library, con- 
taining a large collection of comparatively recent 
works on electricity, the value being estimated at 
about one hundred thousand dollars, and with it Mr. 
Vail has given some tens of thousands of dollars 
for its maintenance. Mr. G. E. Dering, who died 
in January, 1911, was more than forty years collect- 
ing his library, which was the chief hobby of his life. 
NO. 2228, vo. 89] 
NATURE 
493 
' He gave an unlimited order to Mr. Nutt for all the 
books, in whatever language, that were offered that 
appertained to electricity or electrical engineering, 
and he collected in all about thirty thousand volumes. 
About three-fifths of the whole library treat of elec- 
tricity, and the collection of volumes on iron and 
steel is also practically complete. 
Tue London County Council decided in 1910 that 
from August, 1911, the council’s grants in aid of 
polytechnics and certain technical institutions should 
take the form of block maintenance grants fixed for a 
period of three years. The governing bodies of the 
ten polytechnics have each submitted applications for 
a block grant for the triennial period 1911-14, to- 
gether with a statement of the general policy of the 
educational work which they propose to undertake. 
The governing bodies propose no new departure 
during this first period, but the grants applied for 
are nevertheless always in excess of those received in 
1gto-11. Each application has been the subject of 
careful consideration by a section of the Higher 
Education Subcommittee, and the grants finally 
decided upon are given in the following table :— 
Percentage 
Block grant increase over Grant 
applied for the xgto-1r decided upon 
grant 
4 & 
Battersea Polytechnic ... 12,500 47°72 10,500 
Birkbeck College ... 6,993 27°77 6,600 
Borough Polytechnic 11,731 3706 10,634 
City of London College... 5,800 46°39 — 
Northampton Polytechnic 
Institute (eae 8,892 36°88 75330 
Northern Polytechnic .... 9,293 31°72 8, 100 
Regent-street Polytechnic 13,172 0°77 12,500 
Sir John Cass Technical 
Uasiitukess ss vss. 55790 82°42 4,450 
South Western  Poly- 
TECHUIGMEE -TEscau es. T4160 51°84 11,500 
Woolwich Polytechnic... 13,338 36°70 10,865 
Totals £101,695 £82,479 
The grant shown in column 4 is subject to slight 
reductions in some cases for the sessions 1912-13 and 
1913-14. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
LonDon. 
Royal Society, “June 27.—Sir Archibald Geikie, 
K.C.B., president, in the chair.—Lord Rayleigh : Elec- 
trical vibrations on a thin anchor ring.—Hon. R. J. 
Strutt: The molecular statistics of some chemical 
actions. (1) Where ozone acts on a silver oxide sur- 
face, every collision results in the destruction of the 
ozone molecule concerned. (2) An active nitrogen 
molecule must, on the average, collide 500 times with 
an oxidised copper surface before it is destroyed. (3) 
Two molecules of ozone at 100° C. must, on the 
average, collide 6x10" times, before the right sort 
of collision occurs for chemical union.—C. V. Boys: 
Experiments with rotating films. An apparatus is 
described whereby a film may be rotated in its own 
plane, and in which air at atmospheric pressure above 
and below the film is rotated also at the same speed. 
Twenty experiments are described which refer mainly 
to the ring and spiral patterns of colour that may be 
produced to the development of black films and pat- 
terns and to the instability of the margin of the black. 
—Prof. H. E. Armstrong and E. H. Rodd: Morpho- 
logical studies of benzene derivatives. III.  Para- 
dibromo-benzene-sulphonates (isomorphous) of the 
“rare earth”? elements—a means of determining the 
directions of valency in tervalent elements. Para- 
dibromo-benzene-sulphonates of lanthanum, _neody- 
mium, praseodymium, cerium, gadolinium, and sama- 
