July 9, 1896J 



NA rURE 



■n 



school, for each attendance of al least an hour's duration on the 

 part of a student who has given not less than ten such attend- 

 ances during the session. The minimum j^rant specified will be 

 allowed if the inspector of the dei)arlnient reports that the 

 leaching and equipment of the school are satisfactory, and that 

 the class or classes are not too large for instruction by the staff 

 of teachers. But these grants may be increased in any subject 

 for efficiency up to the maximum specified ; the efficiency being 

 determined by the inspector's report and the success of the 

 class in that subject at the May examination. The grants for 

 science will be : — id. to iid. for each attendance in a night 

 science class in the elementary stage, and \d. to l.f. 4(/. in the 

 advanced stage ; and for each attendance of \\ hours" 

 duration given to practical work in chemistry, physics, 

 metallurgy, or biology, in a properly eqinpped laboratory, T,d. 

 to grf. in the elementary stage, and 6rf. to is. 40'. in the 

 advanced stage. The payments fur attendance in a day science 

 class will be at half the above rates. No student may be 

 registered in the advanced stage of any subject until he has 

 passed the examination of the department in the elementary 

 stage, or has passed some corresponding examination which is 

 considered by the department to sufficiently meet the require- 

 ments of the case. No student may be registered for more than 

 two years for attendances in either the elementary or the 

 advanced stage of any one subject. The grants will only be 

 made if the student is of the industrial class as defined by the 

 Science and Art Directory, and if the attendances for which 

 the grant is claimed are such as can be legitimately registered 

 under the rules. Grants for honours in the science subjects of 

 the Department of Science and Art will continue on the same 

 scale as at present. 



Ax excellent survey of the systems of technical education in 

 Austria, (iermany, France, and Switzerland, compared with what 

 is done in lingland and Ireland, is contained in a pamphlet 

 entitled " Technical Education : a National Necessity, its L'ses 

 and Advantages," by Prof. Henry Corby, published by J, 

 Mahony, Cork. Prof. Corby shows what technical education 

 has accomplished on the continent, and points to the com- 

 parative neglect of it in England, the result being a loss of 

 commercial supremacy. As to Ireland, technical education is 

 almost unknown there. There is only one technical school of 

 note, and that has been established within the past few years in 

 Dublin. In Cork something has been done ; but it is disjointed 

 and fragmentary. However, it tends in the right direction, and 

 we hope with Prof. Corby that it may yet prove to be the mosaic 

 pavement on which will be raised a large and comprehensive 

 technical school, which will be worthy of the commercial 

 enterprise of the capital of the .South of Ireland. It is .suggested 

 that good would come if Cork were raised to the dignity of a 

 university city. Why not have a university for the South of 

 Ireland in the capital of the South? Al present, Prof. Corby 

 points out, there are only two universities in Ireland, both located 

 in Dublin, while Belgium, with a population almost exactly the 

 same, has four universities ; Scotland also has four, and in 

 scientific Germany there are as many as thirty-one universities. 

 To .show what a thorough general and technical education can 

 do for a country, it is only necessary to refer to Switzerland, 

 which, though only about half the size of Ireland— and, as fully 

 one-half of its .soil is entirely unproductive, it may be regarded 

 as only about one-fourth the size of Ireland — is able to maintain 

 three million inhabitants, whilst the population of all Ireland 

 is little more than four and a half millions. Prof. Corby 

 describes what some continental nations have done for agri- 

 culture, and then he asks how can the smaller farmers of 

 Ireland -many of them poor and half-educated— attempt to 

 compete with such rivals ? It has been urged that Ireland ought 

 tip have a Minister of Agriculture, but it is suggested that a 

 .Minister of General and Technical Education, who would give 

 special attention to agriculture, would be better. If national 

 teachers were trained at agricultural schools, and students were 

 given practical instruction in agriculture, if chairs of Agriculture 

 were established in all the higher colleges, and special lectures 

 delivered in the auxiliary .sciences, such as chemistry, zoology, 

 bi'tany, and miner.alogy, then, thinks Prof. Corby, the hope 

 might be entertained that the vast tracts of waste land in Ireland 

 WDuld be reclaimed, and a large scheme fur reafforesting under- 

 taken with every prospect of success. We trust that his 

 admirable pamphlet will be the means of giving an impetus 

 1" the cause of technical education in Ireland. 



NO. 1393, VOL. 54] 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



'flic Kc/ii/iiary and lilitslnikd Arc/ueolo,t^ist maintains its 

 reputation for the beauty of its illustrations. In a late number 

 (vol. ii. No. 2) an elegantly carved wooden Egyptian toilet- 

 spoon of the eighteenth dynasty is reproduced in collotype. — 

 The editor, j. Romilly Allen, has carefully studied the cup-and- 

 ring sculptures of Ilkley in Yorkshire, and gives numerous 

 illustrations of these still mysterious markings. All that we 

 l<now about them is that they are religious symbols, and that 

 they mostly belong to the Bronze Age, although cups only may 

 possibly have been used at the end of the Neolithic period. — The 

 much-discussed " Dwarfie Stone" of Hoy, Orkney, has been 

 investigated by Mr. A. W. Johnston in a very thorough manner ; 

 he comes to the conclusion that it was originally a sepulchre 

 with a stone door. 



Intentationalis Archiv fiir Ethnographie (Heft 2, Bd. ix.)— 

 The question of alleged native w'riting in Borneo is discussed by 

 Mr. H. Ling Roth and Prof. H. Kern ; inscriptions in one or 

 two scripts are known, but there is no evidence that any form of 

 w-riting was known to the Dyaks. Heer M. C. .Schadee, in 

 collaboration with Herr Schmeltz, has a communication on 

 the ethnography of Western Borneo, which is illustrated in 

 the characteristically excellent style of this journal. In the 

 current number (Heft 3) Schmeltz continues his erudite notes 

 on ethnographical objects from New Guinea. In a note 

 entitled " Prudery in Scientific Matters," the same author 

 states, on the authority of Prof. Brigham of Honolulu, that 

 " the Government of New Zealand has not only prohibited 

 the importation of the well-known phallic chalk idols from 

 New Ireland, but in the Government Museum of Auckland all 

 ithyphallic idols and figures have been castrated and mutilated.'' 

 We hope that the Curator of the Museum will state how far 

 this is or is not the case. 



In the second number of the useful Ccntralblattfiir Anthnpo- 

 logie Etiinologie, &c. , is an article on the Necropolis of Novilara 

 near Pesaro. According to Dr. P. Orsi the civilisation of Novilara 

 was partly similar to and synchronous with that of Villanova. 

 Three different culture streams have overlaid themselves, as it 

 were, on the local substratum, and have contributed to give the 

 Picinian culture its final form. One stream came from the 

 north and west over the Apennines. The second came from 

 the south, bringing with it the geometric vessels, which are 

 wanting at Villanova, but appear in Istria ; later this culture 

 stream, which may be called the Greek one, brought Tarentinian 

 silver coins and vases painted with black figures. The third 

 stream is the Phoenician (partially also archaistic Greek) asso- 

 ciated with figures of Astarte, glass beads and sepulchral steles 

 with representations of naval war. The Necropolis belongs to 

 the ninth to the seventh century B.C. 



Biilklin de la Societc des Naliiralistes de Moscou, 1895, No. 

 4.— On adhesion of different metals to glass and other sub- 

 stances, by J. Weinberg, set;ond article, in German. — On the 

 winter flora of Nice, note by H. Trautschold. — Report on 

 herborisation in the government of Smolensk, by A. 

 Jaczewski. — The primary skeleton of the ventral fins of the 

 Teleostei, by N. K. Kolzoft', in German, with illustrations ; 

 based on the study of thirty-six species. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, June 4. — "The Hysteresis of Iron in a 

 Rotating Magnetic Field." By Francis G. Baily. 



By deduction from the Weber-Maxwell-Ewing theory it has 

 been surmised that the hysteresis in magnetic metals under the 

 influence of a con.stant rotary magnetic field will be less than that 

 in an alternating field in which the magnetising force passes 

 through a zero value. It is supposed that residual magnetism 

 is due to the combination of molecular m.agnets in stable 

 magnetic arrangements, and that the energy dissipated in any 

 magnetic change corresponds to the work done in breaking up 

 these arrangements. Hence any movement of the molecular 

 magnets during which the formation of new combinations is 

 checked or prevented will take place with considerable reduction 

 in the energy loss due to this cause. Such a condition is realised 

 when the magnetic substance is subjected to a rotary magnetic 



