October 31, 1907] 



NA TUKE 



679 



Mr. J. S. C. Douglas, Christ Church. Radclifle travelling 

 fellow, has been clecled to the Philip \\'alkfr studentship 

 in pathology. 



The London Day Training College, Southampton Row, 

 W'.C, will be opened by the Earl of Rosebcry on Satur- 

 day, November 2, at 3 p.m. The ceremony will be con- 

 ducted by Mr. H. Percy Harris, chairman of the London 

 County Council. 



Dr. W. Goodwin has been appointed head of the 

 chemical department of the South-Eastern Agricultural 

 College (Lniversity of London), and Mr. B. N. Wall head 

 of the agricultural department. A new department of soil 

 bacteriology is being established under the charge of Mr. 

 C. T. Gimingham. \ conference of hop-growers will be 

 held on November 27 under the chairmanship of Mr. 

 E. C. Lister-Kay, when papers on fertilisation of hops, 

 ?cI-worms, and hop-drying will be coinmunicated. 



.At the annual general meeting of the Old Students' 

 .Association at L'niversity College (University of London), 

 Dr. Tempest Anderson was elected president of the associ- 

 ation for the year 1907-8. The annual dinner of the 

 association will be held on Thursday, December 5. The 

 new wing that has recently been added to the college will 

 be completed by that time, and will be open to inspec- 

 tion. Former students of the college who desire to be 

 present should communicate with Mr. George .A. -Aitken at 

 42 Edwardcs Square, Kensington, W. 



Prof. L. F. Vernon H.\rcourt, who died on 

 .September 14, bequeathed looo/. to the Institution of Civil 

 Engineers in memory of the many advantages he had 

 derived from its library and lectures, to found a yearly 

 or biennial (in the discretion of the institution) lecture, 

 medal, premium, or prize, in connection with river, canal, 

 or maritime engineering. The residue of his property he 

 left to his wife for life, and after her death to the Uni- 

 versity of Oxford, if there shall have been founded there 

 in the lifetime of himself and his wife a school of engineer- 

 ing or mechanical science, 1000/. for the promotion of the 

 teaching of engineering science there. He also bequeathed 

 20o7. to University College, London, for a yearly prize in 

 civil engineering. 



Thk new laboratories of the scientific departments of 

 the College of Liberal -Arts of Boston University have now 

 been opened in the building formerly occupied by the 

 Harvard Medical School. We learn from Science that the 

 top floor is occupied by the departments of astronomy, 

 physics, and mathematics, and comprises large and small 

 lecture-rooms, laboratories, and offices ; a large part of 

 the basement is also given over to physics. The ehemical 

 and biological departments occupy the second floor, and 

 consist of large, well-lighted class laboratories, private 

 laboratories and store-rooms, professors' rooms, and an 

 amphitheatre for the larger classes. The two domes for 

 the telescopes of the astronomical department are situated 

 on the roof, and are not quite completed. The equipment 

 of all the laboratories is new, and was purchased in part 

 by special funds given to the L'niversity for that purpose. 

 The scientific departments are under the same directors as 

 last year. 



Ttie report for the year 1907 on secondary education in 

 Scotland, prepared by Dr. J. -Struthers, the permanent 

 secretary of the .Scotch Education Department, has just 

 been published. It appears that instruction in experi- 

 mental science continues to make headway steadily. The 

 schemes of study submitted to the department for approval 

 often show a tendency to attempt a larger volume of work 

 than can be accomplished satisfactorily in the time allotted 

 to the subject, and teachers find difficulty in treating in- 

 ductively the more advanced subjects included in the school 

 course of physics and chemistry. The chief examiner re- 

 ports a large increase in the number of candidates pre- 

 sented at the examination for leaving certificates. It is 

 exceedingly satisfactory, the report continues, to know 

 that in more than 50 per cent, of the schools the examiners 

 were able to accept the teacher's list without change or 

 modification of any kind. This is a sure sign of the 

 growth of that mutual confidence between teachers and 

 examiners which is essential to any really healthy system 

 of examination. 



The scientific training of the pharmacist was the subject 

 chosen by Prof. Meldola, F.R.S., for the inaugural address 

 upon the occasion of the opening of the present winter 

 session of the School of Pharmacy. From the lecture we 

 gather that for the two examinations of the school the 

 passing of which qualify the student as a pharmacist, a 

 period of fifteen months' training is all that is required. 

 The standard of the examinations themselves is unquestion- 

 ably high, and too high, in the opinion of Prof. Meldola, 

 for so short a period of training, creating the danger of 

 the instruction of the school degenerating into a " cram." 

 It appears, however, that at present no knowledge of the 

 action of drugs is demanded of the pharmacy student, 

 although a most intimate acquaintance with the methods 

 of physical and chemical analysis is demanded of him. 

 There can be no doubt that legally great responsibility 

 rests upon the pharmacist, in that if he cannot make his 

 own preparations he is expected to know how they are 

 made and how to assure himself that the products he 

 dispenses are of the nature and substance demanded. In 

 Germany a more thorough and a more prolonged scientific 

 training is necessary before a legal qualification in 

 pharmacy can be obtained, and in this country certain 

 universities have, after a prolonged and thorough curri- 

 culum, granted degrees in pharmacy. In conclusion. Prof. 

 Meldola suggested that the Pharmaceutical Society should 

 demand of those students entering the school a higher 

 standard of general education and some specific scientific 

 training either in addition to or in the place of the present 

 three years' apprenticeship, or, in other words, that morf^ 

 attention should be given to the scientific status of 

 pharmacy, even if this has to be done at the expense of 

 its commercial aspects. 



KO, 1983, VOL. 76] 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, October 21. — M. H. Becqvierel in 

 the chair. — The transits of Mercury across the sun, and 

 in particular on that of November 14 : G. Bigrourdan. 

 .A discussion of the various phenomena which have been 

 observed in connection with the transits of Mercury, 

 together with suggestions regarding instruments, &c., for 

 use in the coming transit. — Some formulae relating to the 

 minima of classes of quadratic forms, binary and positive : 

 G. Humbert. — The spawning of the cod in the south of 

 the North Sea : Alfred Giard and C. Cepede. The 

 authors criticise the views put forward by T. Wemyss 

 Fulton in a recent paper on the same subject. The spawn- 

 ing of the cod in the Pas-de-Calais, the south of the 

 North Sea, and the Baltic takes place in winter, the 

 maximum being produced towards the middle of February, 

 or a month earlier than indicated by Fulton. There is no 

 indication of there being two spawning seasons in certain 

 localities. — The installation of a large astronomical instru- 

 ment at the summit of the Pic du Midi : B. Baillaud. 

 This was carried out in iqo6 and 1907 with the assistance 

 of oflicers and men of the French artillery. Observations 

 will be commenced in August, 1908. — Observation of the 

 Mellish comet (19070) made with the bent equatorial of 

 the Observatory of Lyons : J. Guillaume. The comet 

 appeared on October 17 as a diffuse nebulosity of about 

 35" diameter, with a faint central nucleus. Its lustre is 

 about that of a star of the tenth magnitude. The apparent 

 positions of the comet and comparison stars are given. — 

 Observations of the new comet (iqo7c) made at the Observ- 

 atory of Marseilles with the Eichens 26 cm. equatorial : 

 M. Borrelly. Similar observations made on October 17 

 and 18. — Integral equations : E. Goursat. — The integrals 

 of the differential equation y' + A2y"-t-.A,y^ = o : Pierre 

 Boutroux. — The variation of the mass of the electrons in 

 the interior of the atom : H. Pellat. — The formation and 

 preparation of aluminium carbide : Camille Matignon. 

 Four methods of preparing this carbide without the use 

 of the electric furnace are described : heating a mixture of 

 aluminium powder and lampblack in a Perrot gas furnace 

 for twenty minutes, inducing the reaction to start at a 

 point in the same mixture liy the addition of iodine or 

 sulphur, the use of the oxy-acetylene blow-pipe, and by 

 the interaction of aluminium and hexachlorobenzene. In 

 the first two cases the purity of the product was tested 



