AUGUST I, 1912] 
. 2 ! 
1g10-11 and 1911-12, and of 10,000l. (making 30,0001. in 
all) in the session 1912-13. The Treasury has agreed 
further that the annual grant in aid of the college 
shall be fixed at 30,000l, for a period of five years from 
August 1, 1912, to July 31, 1917. The Board of Educa- 
tion has received an assurance on behalf of the govern- 
ing body of the Imperial College that the additional 
grant of 10,0001. commencing from August 1 next 
will, with their other resources, enable them to carry on 
the educational work on which they are now engaged, 
and also. the educational work which they are com- 
mitted to undertake in the new buildings now in 
course of erection, until the close of the session end- 
ing July 31, 1917, and the Board further understands 
that the governing body are prepared to abide by the 
condition that they shall strictly regulate their expen- 
diture by their assured income, and that they will not 
during the period named commit themselves to any 
fresh work which might involve a demand for further 
State assistance. 
Tue London County Council has issued a pamphlet 
setting out the arrangements made for the session 
1912-13 in connection with the various lectures and 
classes established by the Council for the further 
education of teachers. These lectures, which are free, 
upon payment of a registration fee of 1s., to all 
teachers actually engaged in teaching in the County 
of London irrespective of the institutions in which 
they are employed, offer a wide choice of subjects and 
are designed to appeal to the many and varied interests 
of the teaching profession. The lectures will be of 
great value to teachers who desire to specialise in 
some one branch of knowledge or to improve their 
general culture. Every conceivable subject likely to 
appeal to teachers seems to have been thought of by 
the organisers, and lecturers of high repute have been 
secured. Some of the arrangements made in the case 
of science may be mentioned. Three courses of three 
lectures each, under the direction of the Zoological 
Society, will be given in the Zoological Gardens at 
Regent’s Park. Prof. Hewlett will lecture on, bac- 
teriology and microbiology; Prof. F. E. Fritsch on 
modern methods of teaching nature-study; Prof. 
Dendy on nature-studies from animal life; and Prof. 
H. Kenwood on school hygiene for teachers. In 
mathematies, again, Prof. M. J. M. Hill will lecture 
on the theory of proportion, and Dr. T. P. Nunn on 
the teaching of the calculus and on the arithmetic of 
citizenship and finance. An interesting development 
in connection with the classes for next session is that 
whereby members of the staff of the L.C.C. training 
colleges are giving courses of lectures and demonstra- 
tions in various centres in London. This plan should 
assist to coordinate the theory of the lecture-room and 
the actual practice of the class-room. 
SOCIETIES. AND .ACADEMIES. 
LONDON. 
Geological Society, June 19.—Dr. Aubrey Strahan, 
F.R-.S., president, in the chair.—R. D. Vernon: The 
geology and palzontology of the Warwickshire coal- 
field. The main objects are to determine the true age 
of the so-called ‘Permian’ rocks of Warwickshire, 
and their stratigraphical relationship to the underlying 
Carboniferous rocks and to the overlying deposits of 
Triassic age. The Carboniferous rocks are subdivided 
into groups, and the age of the subdivisions is deter- 
mined from a study of the fossil flora. On. strati- 
graphical and paleontological evidence it is shown 
that a large area of rocks previously mapped as Per- 
mian is really Carboniferous. | The Carboniferous 
rocks are subdivided into groups which, on palo- 
NATURE 
} 
| discovered belong apparently 
573 
ing three horizons of the Westphalian Series: the 
Upper Coal Measures, the Transition Measures, and 
the Middle Coal Measures; the Lower Coal Measures 
are found to be absent. ‘The fossil flora is described 
in detail, and a brief account is given of the fresh- 
water and marine faunas of the Middle Coal Measures. 
The Carboniferous rocks of Warwickshire are cor- 
related with those of the other coalfields of the Mid- 
land province, and it can thus be demonstrated that 
there is a marked southerly attenuation and overlap 
of each of the subdivisions of the Carboniferous 
system.—W. H. Hardaker: The discovery of a fossil- 
bearing horizon in the Permian rocks of Hamstead, 
near Birmingham. Some quarries in the Permian 
rocks in the neighbourhood of Hamstead, near Birm- 
ingham, have afforded an interesting series of fossils. 
These consist chiefly of the impressions of plants, and 
of the footprints of amphibia assignable to several 
species. The quarries occur in the broad band of 
strata which is coloured upon the Geological Survey 
map as Permian, and fringes the eastern side of the 
South Staffordshire coalfield. The group (and sub- 
groups) in which the fossils occur are described and 
illustrated in detail, and show that the group as a 
whole belongs in its lower part to the Midland Middle 
Permian (or Calcareous Conglomerate and Sandstone) 
division of Mr. Wickham King, and in its upper part 
to his Upper Permian (or Breccia and Sandstone) 
division. Most of the plants and animal footprints 
to recognisable forms 
which have been long known to occur in the Rothlie- 
gende (or typical Lower Permian) of Germany, and 
they have little or no resemblance to those of the un- 
disputed Upper Carboniferous of any known area; and 
the conclusion is drawn that these fossil-bearing Ham- 
stead strata must in future be regarded as of Rothlie- 
gende or true Lower Permian age. 
Paris. 
Academy of Sciences, July 16. M. A. Gautier in the 
chair.—Ch. Moureu and A. Lepape: Some _ natural 
gases rich in helium. Three springs at Santenay 
evolve gases richer in helium than those previously 
investigated. Of these, the © Lithium” spring pro- 
| duces a gas containing 10°16 per cent., by volume, 
corresponding to a total annual yield of 5182 litres of 
helium, and the ‘‘Carnot”’ spring a gas containing 
9°97 per cent., with an annual yield of 17,845 litres. 
A spring at Néris (Allier), though its gases are 
poorer in helium, yields annually nearly 34,000 litres 
of this element. If the helium from the ** Carnot” 
spring has been evolved entirely from radio-active 
bodies, and if it has been evolved at the rate at 
which it was formed, this would necessitate the pre- 
sence of g1 tons of radium, or of 500,000,000 tons of 
pitchblende, &c. If, however, it is, so to speak, fossil 
helium, its presence would mean the disintegration 
of about 2 tons of thorianite, or of 167 tons of pitch- 
blende —Emile Borel: The indeterminate nature of 
| analytical functions in the region of a singular essen- 
tial point.—Jules Andrade: The measurement of fric- 
tion. —A. Guillet and M. Aubert: A spark electrometer. 
A. Leduc: The densities of some gases and vapours.— 
Daniel Berthelot and Henry Gaudechon: Radiations 
producing the photosynthesis of complex compounds, 
the polymerisation of certain gases, and the decom- 
position of acetone. Radiations from a quartz- 
mercury vapour lamp produce formamide from a mix- 
ture of carbon monoxide and ammonia, but sunlight 
does not act similarly; decomposition of the form- 
amide can also be brought about by the radiations 
from the mercury lamp, and more slowly by sunlight. 
Cyanogen is polymerised by sunlight, and more 
rapidly by the lamp radiations; acetylene is poly- 
botanical evidence, are proved to belong to the follow- | merised by the lamp, not by sunlight. Acetone is not 
NO. 2231, VOL. 89] 
