42 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 1437 



under this head. As the scheme is to be financed 

 out of the fund provided under the Corn Pro- 

 duction Acts, it is understood that the main- 

 tenance grant (estimated at £6,000 per annum) 

 is limited to a term of five years, at the end of 

 which time it will be subject to reconsideration 

 by the treasury. The starting of this work de- 

 pends now on the promptitude with which the 

 contribution from the industry is raised. 



A COMMITTEE of representatives of British 

 governmental departments and British scien- 

 tific men has recently recommended a compre- 

 hensive scheme of dealing with inventions by 

 government workers or by individuals aided or 

 maintained from public funds. The committee 

 recommends the organization of an interdepart- 

 mental patents board. Pending a decision in 

 each case by this board, all rights in inventions 

 made by government employees shall belong to 

 the government. If the inventor can satisfy the 

 board that he derived no assistance from the 

 nature of his employment in making the inven- 

 tion, he shall be entitled to all rights therein. 

 The question of whether the inventor is entitled 

 to any reward in addition to the enjoyment of 

 commercial rights shall be decided by the board. 

 Where the rights in an invention capable of 

 commercial exploitation belong to the govern- 

 ment, the invention shall be exploited commer- 

 cially for the benefit of the government. A sys- 

 tem of awards and merits for the inventor is 

 proposed, which should be passed upon by an 

 awards committee, to be organized within the 

 proposed patents board. These are not intend- 

 ed as substitutes for commercial profits, but as 

 a recognition of merit and as an incentive to 

 government workers. 



A PSYCHOLOGICAL test in addition to the reg- 

 ular examination will be required of all men en- 

 tering Princeton University. A trial jDeriod of 

 two years has been set for the test. During 

 this time any man entering who fails to pass 

 the test, but whose written examinations are 

 satisfactory, will not be disqualified. If the 

 faculty committee which has charge of the test 

 reports favorably at the end of the trial period, 

 the psychological test will be as essential there- 

 after as a written examination. 



English literature leads in popularity as a 



subject for "concentration" among Harvard 

 freshmen. Of the 634 freshmen who have filed 

 with the committee on electives their choice of 

 subjects for concentration during the rest of 

 their college course, 175 have selected English. 

 Economics comes second, with 119; history is 

 third, with 66 ; Romance languages fourth, with 

 59, and chemistry fifth, with 46. The other sub- 

 jects chosen and the number of freshmen who 

 are to concentrate in each are as follows : Math- 

 ematics, 32 ; government, 26 ; history and litera- 

 ture, 25; biology, 24; physics, 14; classics, 13; 

 fine arts, 11; geology, 6; psychology, 6; phil- 

 osophy, 4; social ethics, 4; all others, 4. 



As reported in Nature, an important con- 

 tribution to the controversy over the Piltdown 

 Skull has been made by Professors Elliot Smith 

 and Hunter at a meeting of the Anatomical 

 Society, when they exhibited a reconstruction 

 of the skull and its endocranial cast. The re- 

 construction has been made by a careful and 

 minute examination and correlation of the ana- 

 tomical points of the fragments of the skull. 

 The result confirms generally the reconstruc- 

 tions made by Dr. Smith Woodward and Mr. 

 Pyeraft when first the skull was discovered, 

 and agrees in showing the remarkable breadth 

 of the skull and its low capacity, which is, in 

 each case, placed below 1,300 ce. This later 

 reconstruction, however, differs in one import- 

 ant particular. The occipital fragment assumes 

 a more vertical position, with the effect that the 

 skull is brought into closer relation with the 

 skull of the anthropoids. As a result, the cra- 

 nium falls into complete harmony with the 

 chimpanzee-like jaw, and the paradox which 

 has hitherto been a stumbling-block to the ac- 

 ceptance of the jaw as indubitably belonging 

 to the fragments of the cranium now disap- 

 pears. 



The Association of Engineers whose members 

 are fonner students of the Liege University, on 

 the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of 

 its foundation, held in Liege, from June 11 to 

 16, an international scientific congress. There 

 were seven sections, dealing, respectively, witli 

 mining, metallurgy, mechanics, electricity, 

 chemical industries, civil engineering and ge- 

 ology, in each of which a number of papers 

 were read and discussed. 



