August 19, 1922] 



NA TURE 



267 



temperatures so that the eggs could be carried 

 through the tropics and would hatch at about the 

 end of the journey to New Zealand. 



Prof. J. Cossar Ewart and Dr. H. C. Williamson 

 made the preliminary experiments and Mr. Anderton 

 devised the water-cooling and circulating apparatus, 

 which was fitted up in a cold room on an ordinary 

 commercial vessel. As fishery zoologists well know, 

 it is not easy to collect large numbers of healthy, 

 fertilised herring eggs, but this was successfully done 

 at Lowestoft by Mr. Anderton, and the ova were 

 made to adhere to glass plates, which were then trans- 

 ferred to the apparatus on board ship. The water 

 was kept at a temperature a little above o° C. and 

 was circulated over the eggs. The experiment would 

 have been quite successful but for a breakdown in 

 the tank arrangements of the ship. It has not been 

 repeated, though it is now evident that the method 

 presents no insuperable difficulties. The young 

 turbots and the pregnant edible crabs and lobsters 

 were taken out to New Zealand without any difficulty 

 and were successfully " planted " there. 



So far there is no proof, however, that these species 

 have established themselves in their new environ- 

 ment. The ingenuity displayed in these experi- 

 ments and the eminently practical methods employed 

 are of much interest and well deserve permanent 

 record. 



University and Educational Intelligence. 



Educational legislation in America in 1919 and 

 1920 is reviewed by one of the specialists of the 

 Washington Bureau of Education in Bulletin No. 13 

 of 1922. Of the many problems connected with 

 education which have been dealt with by the State 

 Legislatures since the war, several are, or have lately 

 been, subjects of controversy in this country. The 

 proportions in which the cost of supporting schools is 

 shared between the general tax-payer and the rate- 

 paver have been changing at the expense of the 

 former throughout the States, " including the South, 

 where the State, as such, is already relatively a very 

 large contributor and where the need is rather for 

 the further development of local educational spirit." 

 In the State of New York the increase in appropria- 

 tions for schools amounted to over twenty million 

 dollars, which was added for the purpose of raising 

 teachers' salaries. Texas appropriated four million 

 dollars for the same purpose. Many of the States 

 passed salarv laws more or less on the lines of the 

 " Burnham scales." Under an Iowa act, for example, 

 a schedule of minima is prescribed, the lowest being 

 50 dollars a month, while a teacher who has received 

 a degree upon completion of a four-year college course 

 and holds a State certificate must be paid not less than 

 a hundred dollars a month, and after two years of 

 successful experience not less than a hundred and 

 twenty. Teachers' superannuation systems are of 

 recent origin in the United States, very few having 

 been established earlier than the beginning of the 

 present century. Nearly half of the States now have 

 systems established by law for the entire State, and 

 nearly a third have laws for certain cities only. 

 Tendencies in recent pension laws are in general 

 towards a larger participation of public funds in the 

 support of the system, a more thorough application 

 of scientific actuarial data, and more business-like 

 administration. Extensions of the age limits of 

 compulsory education have been effected recently in 

 many States, the upper limit being in many cases 

 raised to sixteen, while the lower limit is commonly 

 seven or eight years. 



Calendar of Industrial Pioneers. 



August 20, 1769. Gabriel Jars died. — A native of 

 Lyons and born in 1732, Jars acquired a practical 

 knowledge of mining under his father, and after 

 studying at the Ecole des ponts et chaussees, made 

 a long tour of inspection of the mines of England, 

 Scotland, Sweden, Holland, Austria, and other 

 countries, the results of his observations appearing 

 in his " Voyages metallurgiques " published after 

 his death. 



August 21, 1884. Henry Wimshurst died. — For 

 many years a shipbuilder at Millwall, Wimshurst was 

 an ardent supporter of Pettit Smith in his endeavours 

 to introduce screw propulsion, and, with the aid of 

 friends, in 1838 he built the Archimedes, the vessel 

 which first demonstrated the value of the screw for 

 propelling ships in the open sea, and in 1839 he built 

 the Novelty, the first screw steamer to make a com- 

 mercial voyage. 



August 23, 1836. Louis Marie Henri Navier died. — 

 A distinguished professor of engineering, known for 

 his mathematical investigations, Navier was an en- 

 gineer in the Corps des ponts et chaussees, and at 

 the time of his death was professor of analysis and 

 mechanics in the Ecole Polytechnique. 



August 24, i860. Jesse Hartley died. — The son of 

 the master bridge-builder to the county of York, 

 Hartley succeeded to his father's position, and in 

 1824 became engineer to the Liverpool docks, in which 

 capacity he planned and executed with complete 

 success the most extensive dock works in the world. 



August 25, 1819. James Watt died. — Acknow- 

 ledged to be the greatest engineer of modern times, 

 Watt made his great discovery of the separate con- 

 denser in 1765, while engaged on the repair of a 

 model of a Newcomen atmospheric steam engine for 

 Glasgow University. This improvement in the steam 

 engine was followed by his patents of 1769, 17S1, 

 1782, and 1784, which collectively transformed a 

 rude and imperfect contrivance into an efficient and 

 powerful machine, providing the miner with his pump, 

 the smelter with his blast, and the weaver with his 

 power-house. From his early boyhood Watt was 

 given to scientific pursuits, and all his work was the 

 result of the application of scientific principles to 

 practical problems. Bom in Greenock, he became 

 instrument maker to Glasgow University, and after 

 some years of civil engineering, in 1775 entered into 

 partnership with Matthew Boulton, the founder of 

 the Soho Manufactory. Watt died at Heathfield 

 House, close by Soho, and was buried in Handsworth 

 Church. 



August 25, 1862. James John Berkley died. — 

 Trained under Bidder and Robert Stephenson, Berkley 

 in 1849 was appointed Chief Resident Engineer of 

 the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, and as such 

 projected and carried through with the highest skill 

 the line of railway from Bombay to Calcutta. 



August 26, 1845. Philippe Henri de Girard died. — 

 Famous as a chemist, a mechanician, and technologist, 

 Girard was born on February 1, 1775, and after the 

 French Revolution had soda factories at Marseilles 

 and Paris. The offer by Napoleon in 1810 of a prize 

 of a million francs for flax machinery led Girard to 

 devise new machinery and establish flax mills, but he 

 received no prize. After the Restoration he lived 

 mainly 111 Austria and Poland, promoting steam navi- 

 gation on the Danube, and carrying out extensive 

 operations in manufactures, metallurgy, and practical 

 engineering at Warsaw. E. C. S. 



NO. 2755, 



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