August 12, 1909] 



NA TURE 



209 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Ti[E appointments to chairs of chemistry in the Technical 

 High School at Breslau were announced by mistake in 

 last week's Nature (p. iSo) as referring to the Technical 

 High School at Munich. 



The governors of the South-Western Polytechnic Insti- 

 tute, Chelsea, have appointed Mr. W. Campbell Houston 

 to be head of the department of mechanical engineering 

 in succession to Mr. W. \V. F. Pullen, appointed to the 

 inspectorate of the Board of Education. For the past six 

 years Mr. Houston has been the assistant professor of 

 engineering in the Heriot Watt College, previous to which 

 h3 was chief assistant to Prof. Watkinson at the Glasgow 

 and West of Scotland Technical College. 



The Board of Education has issued a memorandum 

 directing attention to changes in certain syllabuses of 

 examination for 1910 affecting students engaged in 

 engineering and building trades. The changes affect the 

 syllabuses in practical plane and solid geometry, practical 

 mathematics, and applied mechanics, and aim at bring- 

 ing the distribution of the subject-matter of instruction 

 and of examination more fully into line with the prevail- 

 ing requirements in these subjects in relation to the build- 

 ing and engineering trades. 



.Attention has been directed recently in these columns 

 to the serious efforts being made in several directions to 

 secure the efficient education of children in elementary 

 schools during the years of ordinary school life, and to 

 provide for their further instruction in continuation schools 

 after they have begun to work for their living. In our 

 issue" for July S (vol. Ix.xxi., p. 50) the question of child 

 employment and evening continuation schools was con- 

 sidered, and in Nature of August 5 (vol. Ixxxi., p. 172) 

 the recently published report of the Consultative Com- 

 mittee of the Board of Education on attendance, com- 

 pulsory or otherwise, at continuation schools was reviewed. 

 The most recent evidence of this desire to improve our 

 system of elementary education is the Parliamentary paper 

 (Cd. 4791) containing the report of the Inter-Departmental 

 Committee on Partial E.xemption from School .'Attendance. 

 The committee was appointed (i.) To inquire into and 

 report upon the extent to which existing enactments re- 

 lating to partial exemption from compulsory school attend- 

 ance are taken advantage of in urban and rural areas in 

 England and Wales ; the occupations in which children 

 so exempted are employed, and the effect of such occupa- 

 tion upon the general education and industrial training of 

 the children, (ii.) To consider the practical effects of 

 legislation providing for the abolition or restriction of 

 half-time employment upon industries and wage-earning, 

 and upon educational organisation and expenditure, 

 (iii.) To report whether, and to what extent, in view of 

 these considerations, it is desirable to amend the law by 

 raising the age at which partial exemption from attend- 

 ance at public elementary schools is to be permitted, or 

 by raising the miiumiim age for total exemption con- 

 currently with affording facilities for partial exemption. 

 The committee examined fifty-two witnesses, including re- 

 presentatives of chambers of commerce and agriculture, 

 of associations of employers and of trades unions, officials 

 of the Home Office, of the Board of Education, and of 

 local authorities, members of the Consultative Committee 

 of the Board of Education, certifying factory surgeons, 

 teachers, farmers, and others whose opinions seemed likely 

 to be of value. After an exhaustive inquiry the com- 

 mittee recommends : — (a) that all partial exemption be 

 abolished from a date not earlier than January i, igii ; 

 (b) that, at the same time, total exemption under the 

 age of thirteen be abolished ; (c) that the attendance 

 certificate for total exemption be abolished ; (d) that total 

 exemption at the age of thirteen be granted only for the 

 purposes of beneficial or necessary employment ; (e) that 

 the ordinary condition for total exemption be due attend- 

 ance at a continuation class, but (/) that, subject to the 

 approval of the Board of Education, an authority may 

 adopt as an alternative condition the passing of a standard 

 not lower than Standard VI. ; (g) that nothing in any 

 legislation shall affect any children who, at the date on 



NO. 2076, VOT,. 81] 



which it comes into operation, are partially or totally 

 exempt from attendance at school under the by-laws 

 previously in force ; (/i) that in the application of the 

 Factory .'Vet to England and Wales the provisions of 

 sections 68-72 shall cease to be operative. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, July 26. — M. Emile Picard in 

 the chair. — Methods for collecting and preserving the gases 

 from fumaroles, springs, or volcanic soil : Armand 

 Gautier. The methods suggested are described in detail, 

 and diagrams are given. The gases are transferred, after 

 drying, to a vacuous tube, the latter being sealed by 

 fusion on the spot. The amount of steam accompanying 

 the gas is also determined. — The law of fixed dissociation 

 pressures : Henry Le Chatelicr. A discussion of the 

 effect of porosity on the application of the phase rule to 

 dissociation phenomena. — The transcendental singularities 

 of inverse functions of integral functions : Pierre 

 BoutroMX. — Uniform analytical functions with discon- 

 tinuous singularities : Arnaud Denjoy. — Study of the 

 thrust of the air on a surface : A. Rateau. The apparatus 

 used allows of the simultaneous measurement of the 

 vertical and horizontal components of the thrust separately. 

 Curves are given showing the experimental results for 

 certain plane and curved surfaces. — The ultra-violet band 

 spectrum of phosphorus : ;\. de Gramont and C. de 

 Watteville. The results are given in tabular form, show- 

 ing a comparison of the flame and spark spectra. — The 

 ratio between uranium and radium in radio-active 

 minerals : Mile. Gleditsch. The results published by the 

 author in an earlier paper not being in accord with those 

 of other workers on the same subject, the analytical method 

 employed has been subjected to a critical examination, but 

 without causing any appreciable change in the figures 

 obtained. There does not seem to be any constant ratio 

 between uranium and radium .n different radio-active 

 minerals. This conclusion necessitates a modification in 

 the views held as to the mechanism of the transformation 

 of uranium into radium. — The action of gravity on the 

 induced activity of radium : Louis Wertcnstein. — A 

 method of registering the length of the path of the a rays, 

 and on a peculiarity of this path : B. Szilard. .\ layer 

 of the radio-active material was placed horizontally, and 

 a glass plate carrying a layer of zinc sulphide, and backed 

 with a sensitised plate, is fixed at an angle with this 

 layer.. The range of the a rays found in this way was 

 always about 2 mm. less than that given by the ionisa- 

 tion method. — The decomposition of water by the ultra- 

 violet rays : Miroslaw Kernbaum. The ultra-violet rays 

 decompose water in a similar manner to the 3 rays of 

 radium, hydrogen and hydrogen peroxide being produced. 

 — The disengagement of the radium emanation : H. 

 Herchflnkel. The hydrates of iron and uranium carry 

 down nearly the whole of a radium salt in solution, and 

 the precipitates, when dry, give off a largo proportion of 

 the emanation. — lonisation by chemical methods : L^on 

 Bloch. A criticism of notes recently published by Reboul 

 and by Broglie and Brizard.— The lonisation of paraffin 

 at different temperatures : Tcheslas Bidlobjeski. — The 

 conditions of stability of the Poulsen arc: C. Tissot.— 

 A new method of analysis by curves of miscibility ;_ its 

 application to oils used for food : E. Louise. Various 

 proportions of the oil under examination are mixed with 

 pure acetone, and the temperature of complete miscibility 

 noted. The percentage of oil plotted against the tempera- 

 ture of miscibilitv gives a curve characteristic for the oil. 

 — The allotropic' states of phosphorus: Pierre _Jolibois. 

 Ordinary red phosphorus is an unstable condition. By 

 heating 'alone to 360° C, or in presence of a catalyst above 

 250° C, a new stable modification of phosphorus is 

 obtained, termed by the author pyromorphic phosphorus, 

 characterised bv its density, 2-37. Red phosphorus melts 

 at 724° C— -The hydrates of thorium chloride and 

 bromide : Ed. Chauvenet. — Some double sulphates : M. 

 Barre. — Some derivatives of 1:2: 4-butanetriol : M. 

 Pariselle. The derivatives described include oxyhydro- 

 furfurane, bromobutylene oxide, and i : 4-dibromo-2- 

 butanol. — The formation of gold deposits : L. de Launay. 



