February 10, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



239 



to fall seldom below 70°, while the tempera- 

 ture at 76 fathoms below the surface was as- 

 certained to be about three degrees higher. 

 Mr. Cunnington arrived at Karonga, at the 

 head of Lake Nyassa, at the end of June, 

 1904, and traveled on to Tanganyika by the 

 ordinary route of the Stevenson road. His 

 last letters from Tanganyika are dated at 

 Vua, on October 29, 1904. He had obtained 

 a dhow from Ujiji, which enabled him to make 

 his stay at different places on the lake longer 

 or shorter according as he found much or 

 little to collect. A good series of fishes had 

 been preserved, and many freshwater crusta- 

 ceans. As regards the vegetable life, Mr. 

 Cunnington had been miich struck by the near 

 resemblance of all the forms obtained in 

 Tanganyika to those which he had collected 

 in Nyassa, though he could not say that they 

 were specifically identical. From Vua, Mr. 

 Cunnington had arranged to cross to the east 

 coast of the lake, and to go some distance 

 further north before returning to the western 

 shore. Mr. Cunnington may be expected to 

 return to England before the end of the year. 



The annual general meeting of the Asso- 

 ciation of Teachei-s in Technical Institutes 

 was held at London on January 18. Accord- 

 ing to the London Times, the chairman, in 

 opening the proceedings, said that the associa- 

 tion had been constituted in October, when a 

 committee had been formed for the puri^ose 

 of drafting a constitution and rules. The 

 purpose of the present meeting was to consider 

 the constitution and rules which had now been 

 drafted, and to elect officers for the associa- 

 tion. They were all agreed upon the necessity 

 for some association which should form a 

 union of teachers in polytechnics and technical 

 institutes of all kinds. Two hundred mem- 

 bers had already joined; and he believed that 

 when they had made a start and the associa- 

 tion had become a national one they would 

 have a very large number of members, and 

 their body would play an important part in 

 organizing tertiary education in this country. 

 After the chairman's address, the members 

 ballotted for the election of officers with the 

 result that Mr. W. J. Lineham was elected 

 chairman, Mr. J. B. Coleman, Mr. C. Harrap 



and Mr. S. G. Sterling, vice-cliairmen, and Mr. 

 J. Wilson, secretary. The following are the 

 objects of the association, which were drawn 

 up by the provisional connnittee, and agreed 

 to after discussion : (a) The advancement of 

 technical education generally; (d) the inter- 

 change of ideas regarding the methods of 

 technical teaching; (c) the promotion and 

 safeguarding of professional interests in such 

 matters as tenure, salaries, pensions, registra- 

 tion, training and qualification of teachers, 

 schemes of examination and inspection; (d) 

 to lay the views of technical teachers before 

 the various, educational authorities and the 

 public; (e) to enable teachers in technical in- 

 stitutes to cooperate as a body with other edu- 

 cational or scientific associations where de- 

 sirable; (f) to render legal advice and assist- 

 ance to members wherever possible and desir- 

 able; (g) to institute an employment bureau; 

 and (h) to create a benevolent fund for needy 

 members as soon as the society shall be strong 

 enough to do so. It was further agreed that 

 all teachers in technical institutes should be 

 eligible for membership with the exception of 

 those who are engaged solely in secondary 

 school work, a technical institute being de- 

 fined as any institution existing mainly for 

 the teaching of science or art as applied to in- 

 dustries or crafts. 



The London Times prints daily an extract 

 from its issue of a hundred years ago. The 

 first extract of a scientific character that we 

 have noticed is from the issue of January 23, 

 1805, and reads as follows : " It is not long 

 since we heard, from Prussia, of a variety of 

 experiments for extracting sugar from the 

 beet-root (beta of the pentandria digynia of 

 Linnaeus). We were told, that a square plot 

 of twenty-four miles, in the dominions of 

 Frederic William, were to be devoted to this 

 produce; and that the kingdom, ever after, 

 would be rendered perfectly independent of 

 the West India Islands, for a supply of the 

 saccharine material. Whether the controversy 

 of P. Terentius, and Varro Atacinus, on the 

 antiquity of the use of this commodity, be 

 of any importance, we will not affect to de- 

 termine, but we may venture to assert, that 

 the discovery of M. Achard, for the prepara- 



