304 
The traveller in either group of presidencies or 
provinces would find the same time in use 
everywhere, and when he crossed the boundary 
he would know that the time was an even hour 
earlier or later according as he was travelling 
westward oreastward. In practice, in Calcutta 
all watches would have to be put back six min- 
utes, but, on the other hand, the railway clocks 
and those in the rest of the town would not 
show different times. ‘‘I have myself,’”’ says 
Mr. Oldham, ‘‘ recently had to deal with a mass 
of time records referring to the earthquake of 
1897, and found that a large number had to be 
rejected because it was impossible to ascertain 
what standard of time had been used, while in 
many others it was only after a large mass of 
calculations had been gone through that the re- 
lation of observations from different places to 
each other could be determined.’’ The steps 
necessary to initiate the changes are stated 
to be very simple. The first would be to 
discontinue the 44 pages of variations in 
the Telegraph Guide, and when local time was 
no longer obtainable at the telegraph offices 
standard time would soon come into general 
use. In the local observatories in the presi- 
dency towns the time signals should be con- 
verted into Greenwich time; and in all public 
offices standard time should be used. ‘‘If this 
were done, the experience of other countries 
has shown that the general public would soon 
come to adopt the standard time, and having 
once appreciated its advantages would soon 
wonder how they had so long endured the old 
system.”’ ; 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 
Ir is reported that plans are being made for 
the establishment of a university at Ottawa. 
McGiLL UNIVERSITY proposes to erect at the 
cost of $70,000 a building for its departments 
of hygiene, pharmacology and medical juris- 
prudence. In the medical department of this 
university Dr. T. J. W. Burgess has been ap- 
pointed professor of mental diseases. 
THE will of the late Dr. C. J. Stillé, formerly 
Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, leaves 
the income of his property to his wife, but on her 
death the property will be divided equally 
among Yale University, the Historical Society 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Vou. X. No. 244. 
of Pennsylvania and a Philadelphia Church. 
The estate is valued at $150,000. The money 
given to Yale is to be used for undergraduate 
instruction in history and political science. 
GLASGOW UNIVERSITY has received £10,000 
by the will of the late James Brown Thomson, 
who has bequeathed £80,000 to the educational 
and benevolent institutions of Glasgow. 
In the July intermediate examination of the 
University of London, for the first time in its 
history, the number of candidates in science 
was greater than inarts. It is said that this 
change in the relative numbers of candidates in 
the two faculties is attributed to the fact that 
the demand for science teachers in colleges and 
schools is now greater than the demand for 
teachers of classics and mathematics, and that 
the remuneration of the former is better than 
that of the latter. 
AN International Congress of Higher Educa- 
tion will be held at Paris from the 30th of July 
to the 4th of August, 1900. The committee of 
organization has decided that the following top- 
ics shall be discussed in the general sessions : 
(1) University extension ; (2) measures for the 
benefit of students ; (3) the education of teach- 
ers ; (4) the place of the university in agricul- 
tural, industrial and commercial education ; (6) 
the international relations of universities and 
their professors ; (6) relations between the fac- 
ulties of laws and of arts. Special sections will 
be formed for the discussion of: (1) Law, (2). 
political and social sciences; (8) geography ; 
(4) history and philology ; (5) philosophy and 
related sciences. Tickets of membership cost 
only 10 francs and may be obtained from M. 
Larnande at the Sorbonne, Paris. 
THE Russian authorities seem bent on spread- 
ing disaffection among the people. For quite 
trivial offences the students at the univer- 
sities and technical schools were imprisoned, 
and after they had become thoroughly disaf- 
fected were dispersed to their homes throughout 
the country. Now it is announced that stu- 
dents will be punished by compulsory service 
in the army for from one to three years, which 
will naturally spread in the most dangerous 
quarters any revolutionary views they may 
have formed. 
