July 23, 1896J 



NA TURE 



:8s 



(3) The Senale or Convocation of ihe University of London, 

 or any other person or body directly atTected by any such statute 

 or regulation, may, within thirty days after the notification 

 thereof in the Louden Gazelk, petition Her Majesty in Council 

 to withhold her ajiproval of the whole or any jiart thereof. 



(4) Her Majesty in Council may refer any such petition to a 

 committee of the Privy Council, with a direction that the com- 

 mittee hear the petitioner personally or by counsel, and report 

 specially to Her Majesty in Council on the matter of the 

 petition. 



(5) Thereupon it shall be lawful for Her Majesty by Order in 

 Council either to declare her approval of the statute or regulation 

 in whole or in part, or to .signify her disapproval thereof in whole 

 or in part, but any such disapproval shall be without prejudice 

 to the making of a new statute or regulation. 



(6) The costs of any petition under this section may he 

 regulated liy the committee to which the petition is referred. 



V. Power to amend slattiles and regulations. — After the 

 expiration of the powers of the Commi.ssioners the Senate of the 

 University shall have power to make statutes and regulations for 

 altering or supplementing any of the statutes or regulations made 

 by the Commissioners. Provided as follows : — 



( 1 ) A statute made under this section shall be subject to the 

 provisions of the last foregoing section, with the substitution 

 only of the Senate for the Commissioners ; 



(2) A regulation made under this section shall be invalid so 

 far as it is inconsistent with any statute made under this Act 

 and for the time being in force. 



\'L Short title. — This Act may be cited as the University of 

 London Act, 1S96. 



UNJl^EliSlTY AND EUUCAIIO.VAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



A r)F.SI'.\Ti.'H (says the Board 0/ Trade Journal) has been 

 received at the Foreign Office from Mr. Martin Gosselin, Her 

 .Majesty's Charge d'.Vft'aires at Berlin, stating that a Government 

 chemical dyeing school has recently been opened at Crefeld, 

 which has co.>.t about ;^20,ooo, exclusive of the machinery and 

 fabrics, which have for the most part been presented by private 

 manufacturers. The school contains laboratories for research 

 and educational purposes, as well as a complete collection of 

 dyeing machinery, and an exhibition showing the result of 

 different processes. 



The following are among recent announcements : — Dr. Franz 

 Boas to be lecturer on physical anthropology in Columbia 

 Univer.sity ; Dr. .\rthur Allen to be profes.sor of psychology and 

 pedagogy in the Ohio University ; Dr. Bauer, professor of 

 mineralogy at Marburg, to be Privy Councillor ; Dr. H. Biltz 

 to be extraordinary professor of chemistry at (jreifswald ; Dr. 

 Linde, professor of physics in the Munich Technical High 

 School, to be Ph.D. honoris causa of Gottingen University. 



Plans have been filed for the buildings of Barnard College in 

 New York City. Three halls have been provided for. The 

 central one is named Milbank Hall, in honour of the donor, Mrs. 

 Anderson, nt'e Milbank, and will cost i6o,cxx> dots. Opposite 

 the grounds of Columbia University will be Brinkerhoff Hall, cost- 

 ing 132,000 dols., the gift of Mrs. Brinkerhoff. The third hall 

 for which the plan provides will correspond to Brinkerhoff Hall. 

 Funds are not yet provided for it, nor a name assigned. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 

 .■Inieritan fonrnal of Science, Jidy. — Lecture experiment 

 with liquid carbon dioxide, by C. Karus. The passage 

 from the liquid into the gaseous state should be shown in full 

 daylight, the lube containing the liquid being placed vertically 

 in a wooden trough closed by plate-glass at both ends. This 

 insures safety, and gives more light than a water-bath. The 

 image of the tube is thrown upon a .screen. Two different 

 focal lines are obtained, one for the gas, the other for the 

 liquid. Contrary to what might be expected, the one does not 

 pass continuously into the other, that for the gas being always 

 virtual, and that for the liquid real. — Percussion figures on 

 cleavage plates of mica, by T. L. Walker. These figures, pro- 

 <luced by a blow on the centre of a hexagonal plate with a 

 blunt needle, have been described as being six-rayed stars with 



NO. 1395, VOL. 54] 



the rays at 60" to each other. Accurate measurements show 

 that the angles may vary from 53° to over 63", according to the 

 kind of mica employed. — The seven-day weather period, by 

 H. Helm Clayton. To extend the investigation of the seven- 

 day weather period beyond the area of the United States, three 

 stations were selected in the Arctic region, five in Furope, two 

 in Asia, two in Oceania near the equator, three in middle 

 South America, one in Mauritius, and one in Australia. The 

 periods investigated were those of 7 days 6 "43 hours, 6 days 

 3 95 hours, and 5 days io'8 hours. Particular attention was 

 given to a compilation of barometric minima at these stations 

 during the last fifteen years. The results show that, on the 

 average, twice in a period of 7 days 6'43 hours in America, 

 and three times in Europe, waves of barometric minima, or 

 storms, tend to begin near the poles, and sweep across the 

 continents. There is a tendency at every station for the days of 

 maximum frequency to remain on the same days of the period 

 throughout the year. — The hydrology of the Mississippi, by 

 J. L. Greenleaf. This is a valuable and interesting paper deal- 

 ing with the drainage areas, rates of flow, and rainfall over the 

 tributaries of the great American river. It is illustrated by 

 diagrams representing the various factors in a concise and lucid 

 manner. The largest drainage area is that of the Missouri. 

 Then follows the Ohio, the Arkansas, and the Red River. Of 

 the.se, the Missouri has the most striking peculiarities. Its 

 drainage area has an average rainfall of 19 6 inches per annum. 

 Although in flood it is a mighty torrent, its average volume is 

 very poor considering its enormous drainage area of 527,700 

 square miles. Only 12 per cent, of the rainfall finds its way 

 into the river. The rest is absorbed and evaporated by the 

 extensive prairies. In the Ohio area the proportion is 30 per 

 cent., and since the annual rainfall is 43 inches, it is not surpris- 

 ing that its discharge exceeds that of the Missouri. Near ihe 

 Mexican Gulf we have the Yazoo and .St. Francis Rivers, which 

 carry off 70 per cent, of their rainfall, owing to its being quickly 

 absorbed by the sandy soil, or stored in the swamps. There 

 are other admirable diagrams .showing the growing volume of 

 water as each tributary enters, and giving the whole life-history 

 of the river system in a very attractive shape. 



Wiedemann'' s Annalen der Physik and Clieiiiie, No. 6. — 

 Electrolysis of water, by A. P. Sokolow. Helmholtz applied 

 his theorem of free energy in thermodynamics to electrolysis, 

 and concluded that the E. M.F. necessary to electrolyse water 

 depends upon the density of the hydrogen and oxygen at the 

 electrodes, and that when the liquid is free from gas the 

 necessary E.M.F. may closely approximate to zero. The author 

 endeavoured to find a more rigorous experimental proof of this 

 conclusion than has hitherto been obtained. This was done by 

 constructing a voltameter with platinum electrodes in which 

 separate platinum wires were fused in close to the electrodes. 

 Any polarisation of the latter due to a current, if leading to the 

 formation of gas, would be gradually transferred to the wires 

 through the separating liquid. This was found to be the case, 

 and dissociation was obtained with E. M. F.s of a few hundredths 

 of a volt. — Loss of energy in magnetisation by oscillatory con- 

 denser discharges, by Ignatz Klemencic. Hysteresis and 'other 

 losses have so far only been investigated with about a hundred 

 oscillations per second. The author experimented with con- 

 denser discharges up to 2000 per second in order to obtain an 

 approximate idea of the action of Foucault currents and hysteresis 

 in iron and nickel at higher frequencies. The method used was 

 that of discharging a condenser and interrupting its discharge at 

 a certain stage by a dropping weight. This made it possible to 

 determine the damping of the oscillations in a simple coil and in 

 a coil with an iron or nickel core respectively. The results 

 showed that even in thin iron wires the loss of energy was 

 chiefly determined by the Foucault currents. The losses due to 

 hysteresis in soft iron were considerably greater than those 

 calculated from the hysteresis curves at lower frequencies. For 

 steel and nickel, however, the losses were about the same. — On 

 magnetic irregularity and the annealing of iron and steel, by A. 

 Ebeling and E. Schmidt. Annealing, if done uniformly, may 

 be .sometimes useful ; but if not uniform, it may be detrimental 

 to magnetic homogeneity. The most uniform material is obtained 

 by careful fusion. Wrought iron is not made magnetically 

 uniform by annealing. — Transparency of bodies for Rontgen 

 rays, by O. Zoth. This was determined by comparing them 

 with a tinfoil scale containing grades of various thicknes.ses. The 

 transparency of alcohol compared with tin was 600, that of 

 w.rter 300, cork 2450, ebonite 150, plate-glass 29, magnesium 36, 



