July 2, 1896] 



NA TURE 



Colleges incorporated in a teaching university have this 

 opportunity. Originality of thought has fuller encouragement, 

 anil new educational methods have freer play than can possibly 

 be ihe case in a college of which the students have no other 

 avenue to a university degree than examination by a wholly 

 external examining body like the University of London, however 

 excellent tje the conduct of its examinations. An atmosphere of 

 intellectual independence is of the essence of true academic life. 

 The true scholar must breathe it as his native air. And this is 

 not the language of mere theory. It h.is its immediate practical 

 application on the scientific side. The trained student of science, 

 for in.stance, entering on manufacturing pursuits .should do so 

 with free inquiring eye. ready to believe that it may have been 

 reserved for him to make a discovery of immense value to the 

 industry to which he is devoting himself I believe that tliis 

 freedom of spirit is far more likely to be developed and fostered 

 in a teaching university than in a college bound to teach on 

 certain rigid lines laid down by an authority in which it has no 

 part." The first object of the founders of the University of 

 Wales is to ensure that all students of the University shall receive 

 good teaching and thorough training before proceeding to 

 graduation. By this means the University will be made a real 

 force for the advancement of learning in the Principality. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



BulUlin of the Americait Afalhcnialital Society, vol. ii. No. 8, 

 .May 1896. — "The Ariihmelisingof Mathematics" is an excel- 

 lent translation, by Miss Maddison. of Bryn Mawr College, of 

 an address delivered by Prof. Felix Klein, before the public 

 meeting of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Gottingen, on 

 November 2 of last year. In it Prof. Klein explains his position 

 in regard to an important mathematical tendency which he 

 remarks has for its chief exponent Weierstrass, whose eightieth 

 birthday has been lately celebrated. This tendency he calls 

 I he ari/hmelisiiig of mathematics. Like all the author's ad- 

 dresses, this one, now rendered easily acce.ssible to English 

 mathematicians, will repay study. — Next follow three carefully 

 drawn-up reviews, viz. by R. A. Roberts, on a .second edition of 

 Darboux's classic treatise, " Sur une classe remarquable de 

 Courbes et de surfaces Algebriques et sur la theorie des 

 Imaginaires." It is matter of regret, Mr. Roberts says, that 

 the author has not devoted some more time to a subject which 

 offered him once such a fruitful field for original investigation. — 

 Then Prof. Bocher examines in detail the "Treatise on Be.ssel 

 Functions, and their Applications to Physics," by Messrs. Gray 

 and Mathew.s. He well shows that the writers have by their 

 work filled a real gap in mathematical literature. — In his notice 

 of Miss Scott's " Introductory Account of certain Modern Ideas 

 and Methods in Plane Analytical (Jeometry," Prof. F. N. Cole 

 states it to be a minor excellence of the book that it is written 

 in the English of English speaking and writing people, i.e. there 

 are no abbreviations, and such like, which necessitate constant 

 reference to a " list of signs," iSc. He looks upon Miss Scott's 

 performance as a compact, scholarly work on the more accessible 

 principles and methods of modern analytical geometry. " It 

 exhibits to a marked degree that genial breadth of treatment 

 and conciseness which are associated only with mature scholar- 

 .ship and extensive and accurate information." His summing- 

 up of warm approval is that he knows of no introductory work 

 which is better adapted, in the particulars he indicates, for the 

 use of those who desire not merely to learn, but also to master 

 geometry. — Prof. H. B. Newson, in a note on " A Remarkable 

 Covariant of a System of Quantics," calls attention to a covariant 

 of a system of ;; quantics in « homogeneous variables. He 

 states two important geometric properties of this covariant which, 

 f^o tern., he calls the Cremonian. (i) The Cremonian of U, V, 

 and W is the locus of the point (.1', y', z) whose first polars 

 with respect to U, V, and \V have a common point ; the locus 

 of these common points is, of course, the Jacoliian. (2) The 

 Cremonian of U, V, and W is also the locus of i.x,y, s) the point 

 of intersection of the polar lines of (.r', y', j*), with respect to 

 U, V, ami W, i.e. it is the locus of the point of intersection of 

 the |X>lar lines of the points on the Jacobian. The author gives 

 other results of interest, and hints at an extension of the con- 

 ception of the Cremonian to spaces of higher dimensions. — Much 

 interesting matter is given in the Notes, and a list of recent 

 l>ublications fills up a big number of 44 pages, in place of the 

 usual 32 pages. 



NO. 1392, VOL. 54] 



Sywoiiss Moiillily Me/eoro/i\i,'ica/ Ji/a,i;aziiic, June. — The worst 

 gale of the nineteenth century in the English Midlands (con- 

 tinued). A map is given .showing the path of the storm from 

 South Wales to Lincolnshire between II a.m. and 4 p.m. on 

 Sunday, March 24, 1895. The average velocity of translation 

 was about sixty miles an hour, and the disturbance appears to 

 have been caused by a subsidiary depression formed over the 

 south of Ireland, during a well-marked cyclone which lay over 

 the northern parts of our islands on the same day. Great 

 disaster was caused alcmg its track, and fourteen deaths were 

 reported. There were also more than a dozen cases of windows 

 and gables being blown c»/, owing to the expansion of air 

 inside the buildings during the pass.age of diminished atmospheric 

 pressure. — Fi.>g, mist and haze, l>y a Fellow of the Royal 

 Meteorological Society. This is a continuation of the discussion 

 raised in the preceding number of the .l/i!^«2/«e (N.\TURE, June 4, 

 p. 118). The writer agrees generally with the definitions pro- 

 posed, as a practical scheme, based on a correct view of the 

 phenomena, but he thinks that the difference between fog and 

 mist should not rest upon wliat can be seen with the naked 

 eye — a test in which two persons would be very apt to disagree. 



The enlarged issue of the Jotinial of Botany still continues 

 to be occupied almost entirely with papers on descriptive botany, 

 and chiefly relating to the flora of the British Isles. In the 

 numbers for May and June, Prof. R. Chodat describes some 

 new species of Polygata from South Africa ; and Mr. W. II. 

 Pearson a new liverwort, Plagiochila Stahleri, from Rydal. 



The papers in the Ntiovo Giorna'.c Botanico Italiauo for 

 April, and in the BulUtino del la Socicta Botaitica Italiaiia, 

 Nos. 2-4, relate almost entirely to the flora of Italy. In the 

 former. Signer S. Sommier describes and figures an interesting 

 hybrid between Ophrys boiiihylifloraz.ni 0. tciithrediiiifolia. In 

 the latter is an abstract of an article by Signor B. Longo, on the 

 mucilage of the Cactacea?. 



Bulletin de la Soeiett! des Naturalistes de Moscou, 1895, ^''^'• 

 3. — On considerable perturbations of atmospheric pressure in 

 the year 1S87, by B. Sresnewskij. A research into the relations 

 between the said perturbations, the movements of cyclones, 

 and the local weather predictions based on the study of the 

 same ; as also their relations, Ijoth to the groups of areas of 

 minimal pressure and to the distribution of temperature (ini 

 German). — Materials for the Amphibia and Reptile fauna of the 

 Orenburg region, by N. Zarudnyi. List of eleven si^ecies of the 

 foriuer, and fifteen species of the latter (Russian). — Aqnila 

 Glitchii, Severtsoft', a biological sketch, by P. Suschkin, in 

 German, with two plates. — Note im Posidonoinya biichi of tlie 

 Balaclava schists in Crimea, by M. D. Stremoouchow, with a 

 plate. — On Russian Zoocecidiaj and their makers, by. Ew. H. 

 Riibsaamen, based on a collection made by Madame Oiga 

 P'edchenko and her son Boris Fedchenko. No less than 120 . 

 galls and their occupants from various parts of Russia and 

 Caucasia are described. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Royal Society, June tr.— "On the Relations between the 

 Viscosity (Internal Friction) of Liquids and their Chemical 

 Nature. Part II." By Dr. T. E. Thorpe, F.R.S., and J. \V. 

 Rodger. 



In the Bakerian Lecture for 1894 the authors gave an account 

 of their work on the viscosity of some seventy liquids, and they 

 discussed the interdependence of viscosity and chemical com- 

 position. In order to render their investigation more complete, 

 they have now made measurements of the viscosity of (i) a 

 number of esters or ethereal salts, and (2) of ethers, simple and 

 compound — groups of liquids, which with the exception of a- 

 single member, ethyl ether, have not hitherto been studied by 

 them. The physicochemical relationships previously established 

 made such determinations of special interest, for it was shown 

 that one of the most striking of the various connections traced 

 between chemical constitution and viscosity was the influence 

 exerted by oxygen according to the different modes in which it 

 was assumed to be associated with other atoms in the molecule. 

 The influence which could be ascribc<l to hydroxyl-oxygen 

 diflers to a most marked extent from that of carbonyl-o.xygen, 

 and it appeared that elher-o.xygen, or o.xygen linked to two 

 carbon atoms, had also a value which differed considerably from 

 oxygen in other conditions. 



