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NATURE [October 21, 1922 



Nervous System." The subsequent lectures will be 

 given on November 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, and December 6 

 and 13. No tickets are required. 



Dr. George Senter and Mr. C. W. Crook have 

 been elected by the science graduates to fill the two 

 vacant seats on the Senate. 



Sheffield.— The Council has appointed Prof. 

 A. H. Leahy to be emeritus-professor of mathematics, 

 and Mr. R. Piatt to be demonstrator in pathology 

 and bacteriology. 



Dr. A. J. Sutton Pippard has been appointed 

 professor of engineering at the University College of 

 South Wales and Monmouthshire, Cardiff. 



The Loughborough Technical College has since 

 1918 developed a well-equipped faculty of engineer- 

 ing with departments of mechanical and civil, of 

 electrical, and of automobile engineering. In its 

 calendar for 1922-23 (price 3s. 6d.) it claims that its 

 own workshops enable it to provide the student with 

 all necessary practical training concurrently with 

 his theoretical work, thus obviating the risk, in- 

 cidental to sandwich systems, of forgetting in the 

 works what was learned in the college and vice versa. 

 The college is said to have at present more than 

 1500 full-time day students in residence. The 

 governors include representatives of the universities 

 of Birmingham and Cambridge, as well as of Leicester- 

 shire County Council and Loughborough Town 

 Council. 



The Merchant Venturers' Technical College of 

 Bristol, in which is provided and maintained the 

 Faculty of Engineering of the University of Bristol, 

 has issued for the session 1922-23 a calendar (price 

 6d.) with 18 full-page illustrations. Like the Royal 

 Technical College, Glasgow, it is in touch with a 

 number of engineering firms which co-operate with 

 it in regard to the training of apprentices, but, 

 whereas the former arranges its engineering courses 

 in such a way as to leave student-apprentices free to 

 spend in their' firms' works the summers intervening 

 between the winter sessions of the college, a special 

 feature of the Bristol " sandwich scheme " is that 

 the student spends in the works 14 months between 

 the first and second college (10-months) sessions. 

 Among the free-tuition entrance scholarships of the 

 Merchant Venturers' College is one " for the son of 

 a citizen of Bethune who has passed either the B.-ds-L. 

 or B.-es-Sc. examination." 



The administration of schools in the smaller cities 

 of the United States of America is dealt with in an 

 interesting and stimulating way in Bulletin No. 2 

 of 1922 of the Bureau of Education (Govt. Printing 

 Office, Washington, D.C., price 10 cents). The 

 statistical basis consists of answers by 520 super- 

 intendents of education to a questionnaire. From 

 the section relating to teachers' qualifications it 

 appears that the standard requirements as regards 

 training for teaching in. elementary and in high 

 schools respectively are two years of normal-school 

 work for the former and four years of college work 

 with professional courses for the latter. The United 

 States Chamber of Commerce has lately, in a pamphlet 

 entitled " Know and Help your Schools," given 

 currency to the view that the work of the elementary 

 school in forming habits and ideals being as important 

 as the work of any other school division, the ele- 

 mentary school teachers should be as well trained 

 and well paid as those of the high school, but it does 

 not appear that many school boards have as yet 

 adopted this view. 



NO. 2/64, VOL. I io] 



Calendar of Industrial Pioneers. 



October 22, 1915. Sir Andrew Noble died. — Widely 

 known for his important researches on guns, projectiles 

 and explosives, Noble was born in Greenock on 

 September 13, 1831, and for some years served in the 

 Royal Artillery. Joining Armstrong in i860, he was 

 for many years director of the ordnance works at 

 Elswick and after Armstrong's death became the 

 head of the great armament firm. His original 

 investigations cover a period of fifty years, many 

 of his memoirs being contributed to the Royal 

 Society. 



October 24, 1903. Samson Fox died. — The founder 

 in 1874 of the Leeds Forge Company, Fox patented 

 in 1877 his well-known corrugated furnace for steam 

 boilers, the adoption of which led to the use of higher 

 steam pressures. He first made pressed steel frames 

 for railway wagons and was a pioneer of the acetylene 

 industry. 



October 25, 1684. Dud Dudley was buried. — Born 

 in 1599, Dudley was a natural son of Edward Sutton, 

 fifth Baron Dudley. Educated at Balliol College, 

 Oxford, he was summoned home to superintend his 

 father's iron works in Worcestershire, and in 1619 

 took out a patent for the use of pit coal instead of 

 charcoal for smelting iron ore, an improvement in 

 iron manufacture successfully used by Abraham 

 Darby at Coalbrookdale in 1735. Dudley served as 

 a colonel under Charles I. His work, " Metallium 

 Martis," was published in 1665. 



October 25, 1903. Robert Henry Thurston died. — 

 A pioneer in engineering education in America, 

 Thurston was trained as an engineer under his father 

 and served in the navy during the Civil War. In 

 1870 he became professor of mechanical engineering 

 in Steven's Institute, where he organised the first 

 engineering laboratory in the United States ; in 

 1880 he became the first president of the American 

 Society of Mechanical Engineers. Removing in 1887 

 to Sibley College, Cornell University, he greatly 

 extended the courses of instruction and by the time 

 of his death the number of students had increased 

 from 60 to 960. He was well known as a scientific 

 investigator, and for his contributions to thermo- 

 dynamics, steam engineering, and the strength of 

 materials. 



October 28, 1899. Ottmar Mergenthaler died. — 

 The inventor of the linotype machine, Mergenthaler, 

 who was born in Wurtemberg on May 10, 1854, 

 emigrated to America at the age of eighteen and 

 worked as a watchmaker with his cousin in 

 Washington. At Baltimore Mergenthaler came into 

 contact with the reporter Clephane, and began work 

 on a type printing machine which, after ten years 

 and the expenditure of a million dollars, he at last 

 brought to a successful issue. His linotype machine 

 was first installed in 1886 in the composing room of 

 the New York Tribune. 



October 28, 1792. John Smeaton died. — The first 

 " Civil Engineer " and the recognised father of his 

 profession, Smeaton, like Watt, began life under an 

 instrument maker in London. When in business 

 for himself he gained a reputation by his scientific 

 papers on wind power and other subjects. Though 

 he constructed bridges and harbours he is known 

 principally as the builder of the Eddystone light- 

 house, an original work of great importance and 

 utility which stood on the Eddystone rock from 

 1759 to 1882 and now forms a monument to Smeaton 

 on the Hoe at Plymouth. Smeaton was a fellow of 

 the Royal Society and in 1771 founded the Smeatonian 

 Club for engineers. E. C. S. 



