no more than 500 tons of water per acre or 5 in. of rain will have been consumed in the production of this

crop.

It is, of course, impossible to ensure that all the rain falling within a year shall be saved for the crop; much must evaporate before it reaches the subsoil where it can be stored, and only when the crop is in full possession of the land can we expect that all the water leaving the soil shall go through the crop. What proportion the waste bears to that which is utilised will depend not only on the degree of cultivation, but upon the season at which the fall occurs; summer showers, for example, that do not penetrate more than a few inches below the surface will be dissipated without any useful effect. When the climatic conditions result in precipitation during the winter, the water will be in the main available for crop-production; and it has been found by experience that cereals can be profitably grown with as small a rainfall as 12 in. The necessary cultural operations consist in producing such a rough surface as will ensure the water getting into the subsoil; hence autumn ploughing is desirable. Where the precipitation is largely in the form of snow, a broken surface also helps both to absorb the thawing snow and to prevent it being swept into the gullies and hollow places by the wind. On some of the Russian steppes it has become customary to leave a long stubble in order to entangle as much snow as possible, but probably a rough ploughing before the snowfall would be even more effective. When the rainfall drops to the region of 12 to 16 in., and occurs during the summer months, then dry-farming methods and the summer fallow become of the first importance. The deep cultivation ensures that the water gets quickly down to the subsoil away from danger of evaporation, and the immediate renewal of a loose surface tilth is essential in order to conserve what has thus been gained.

are

In connection with this dry-farming there are several matters that still require investigation before we can decide what is the minimum rainfall on which cultivation can be profitable. In the first place, we only imperfectly informed as to the relation between rainfall and evaporation. At Rothamsted there are three drain-gauges side by side, the soil layers being 20, 40, and 60 in. deep respectively. The surface is kept rough and free from growth, though scarcely in the condition of looseness that could be described as a soil mulch. Yet the evaporation, even under a moist English atmosphere, amounts to one-half of the annual rainfall, and the significant thing is that the evaporation is approximately the same from all the gauges and is independent of the depth of subsoil within which water is stored. Evaporation then would seem to be determined by surface alone, but we are without systematic experiments to show how variations in the surface induced by cultivation will alter the rate of evaporation. A knowledge of the evaporation factor would then inform us of what proportion of the rainfall reaches the subsoil; we then want to know to what extent it can be recovered, and how far it may sink beyond the reach of the crop. It is commonly supposed that the subsoil below the actual range of the roots of the crop may still return water by capillarity to the higher levels that are being depleted, the deeper subsoil thus acting as a kind of regulating reservoir absorbing rain in times of excess and returning it when the need arises. But some work of Leather's in India and Alway's on the great plains of North America throw doubt on this view, and would suggest that only the layer traversed by roots, say, down to a depth of 6 ft., can supply water to the crop; the water movements from the deeper layers due to capillarity being too slow to be of much effect in the maintenance of the plant.

The evidence on either side is far from being conclusive, and more experiment is very desirable.

It would also be valuable to know how far evaporation from the bare soil can be checked by suitable screens or hedges that will break the sweep of the wind across the land. In England hedges have always been looked at from the point of view of shelter from stock; we find them most developed in the grazing districts of the west, while bare, open fields prevail in the east and south. Yet the enormous value of a wind-screen to vegetation can be readily observed, and the market-gardeners both in England and the still dryer districts of the south of France make great use of them. Lastly, we must have more knowledge about the relation between transpiration-water and growth; we do not know if the high ratios we have spoken of hold for all plants. Xerophytic plants are supposed to be possessed of protective devices to reduce loss of water. Are they merely effective in preserving the plant from destruction during the fierce insolation and drying it receives? and do they enable a plant to make more growth on a given amount of water? Wheat, for example, puts on its glaucous, waxy bloom under dry conditions: Is this really accompanied by a lower rate of transpiration per unit surface of leaf? and is it more than defensive, connoting a better utilisation of the water the plant evaporates?

The cultivation of these soils with a minimum rainfall necessitates varieties of plants making a large ratio of dry matter to water transpired, and also with a high ratio between the useful and non-useful parts of the plant. Mr. Beaven has shown that the difference in the yields of various barleys under similar conditions in England are due to differences in their migration factors: the same amount of dry matter is produced by all, but some will convert 50 per cent. and others only 45 per cent. into grain. This migration ratio, as may be seen by the relation between corn and straw on the plots at Rothamsted, is greatly affected by season; nevertheless, Mr. Beaven's work indicates that under parallel conditions it is a congenital characteristic of the variety, and therefore one that can be raised by the efforts of the plant-breeder. The needs of dry-land farming call for special attention on the part of the breeder to these two ratios of transpiration and migration.

Closely linked up with the problems of dry-land farming are those which arise in arid climates from the use of irrigation water on land which is either impregnated with alkaline salts to begin with or develops such a condition after irrigation has been practised for some time. The history of irrigation farming is full of disappointments due to the rise of salts from the subsoil and the subsequent sterility of the land, but the conditions are fully understood, and there is no longer any excuse for the disasters which have overtaken the pioneers of irrigation in almost every country. Sterility may arise from two causesovermuch water, which brings the water-table so close to the surface that the plants' roots may be asphyxiated, or the accumulation by evaporation of the soluble salts in the surface layer until plants refuse to grow. The annual cutting off of the cotton crop in Egypt as the water-table rises with the advance of the Nile flood affords a good example of asphyxiation, but in the neighbourhood of irrigation canals we also find many examples of sterility due both to the high water-table and an accompanying rise of salts. The governing principle is that drainage must accompany irrigation. Even if free from salts at the outset, the land must accumulate them by the mere evaporation of natural waters, and they will rise to the surface where they exert their worst effect upon vegetation, unless from time to time there is actual washing

through the soil and removal of the water charged with salt. Without drainage the greater the quantity of water used the greater the eventual damage to the soil, for thereby the subsoil water-table carrying the salts is lifted nearer to the surface. With a properly designed irrigation system the danger of salting ought not to occur; there are, however, many tracts of land where the supply of water is too limited to justify an expensive scheme of irrigation channels with corresponding drainage ditches at a lower level.

Take the case of a farmer with some water from an artesian well at his disposal, with perhaps little rainfall, with land subject to alkali, and no considerable natural fall for drainage. If he merely grades the land and waters it, sterility rapidly sets in; the only possibility appears to be to take a comparatively limited area and to cut out drainage ditches or tile drains 4 or 5 ft. below the surface, even if they have to be led into a merely local hollow that can be abandoned to salt. The bed thus established must then be watered at any cost until there is a flow in the drains, after which the surface is immediately cultivated and the crop sown. There should be no further application of water until the crop covers the land, the use of water must be kept to a minimum, and by the ordinary methods of dry cultivation evaporation must be allowed only through the crop, not merely to save water, but to prevent any rise of salt. With a loose surface and wind-breaks to minimise evaporation it has thus proved possible to grow valuable crops even on dangerously alkaline land. Superphosphate and sulphate of ammonia have proved to be useful fertilisers under these conditions; both tend to prevent the reaction of the soil becoming alkaline, and the calcium salts of the superphosphate minimise the injurious effects of the sodium salts that naturally accumulate in the land. On the other hand, nitrate of soda is a dangerous fertiliser. Attempts have been made to reduce the salts in the land by the growth of certain crops which take up a large proportion of mineral matter, but I have not been able to ascertain that much good can be thus effected. Sugar-beet and mangolds do appreciably reduce the salt content, but are scarcely valuable enough to pay for such special cultivation and the limited irrigation water; the best thing appears to be to grow saltbush on the non-irrigated margin of such areas, if only to prevent the efflorescent salts from blowing on to the cultivated portion.

Let us now turn to the problem of land reclamation as it occurs in north-western Europe. There are two main types of land that have hitherto been left waste, the peaty and the sandy areas. Of the peaty areas we can distinguish again between the low-lying moors bordering the lower courses of the great rivers; for example, in England near the mouth of the Trent, and the upland peat-bogs of which Ireland furnishes so many examples. They have these features in common-an excess of water, a deficiency of mineral salts, and, particularly in the upland bogs, a strongly acid reaction; but they possess great potential wealth in their richness in nitrogenous organic matter. It is in Germany and Holland that the methods of bringing into cultivation these moors have been most completely worked out; in Germany, for example, it is estimated that there are about five million acres of moorland of which about 10 per cent. are now under cultivation. The reclamation process must begin by drainage, which may be carried out by open ditches, but is most satisfactorily effected by pipes, despite the greater cost. The water-table must be kept some 3 ft. below the surface. In districts which afford a market for peat, as, for example, on the Teufelsmoor near Bremen, the reclamation often begins by cutting out the peat, the lower layer of firm peat being won,

dried, and sold for fuel. The upper spongy peat can be used for litter, but some part at least must be thrown back. Where the burning peat is thus extracted the excavation is in places pushed further until the underlying sand is reached, and enough of this is dug to spread over the reclaimed area to a depth of 4 or 5 in. and mixed by cultivation with the spongy peat. Even when the peat is not removed, pits are often made in order to sand the land, so great an improvement does it effect in the character of the crops. However, sanding is not possible everywhere, and there are great areas under cultivation where the reclamation begins with drainage, followed by the cultivation of the immediate surface without either sanding or the removal of the burning peat, which indeed are impossible over large areas, but are carried out by the owners of small farms little by little. Special tools are required: certain forms of discploughs and harrows give the best results; heavy tools for large scale cultivation by steam or electricity are furnished with broad roller-like wheels; even the horses must wear broad wooden shoes.

The next stage is the manuring, and it has only been the development of the artificial fertiliser industry during the last half-century that has rendered the cultivation of this type of land possible. On the alluvial moors where the ground water has always been alkaline, the peat is rich in calcium and no treatment with lime and marl is necessary (the English fens afford an example of this type of soil), but on the true peat-bogs (Hochmoor of Germany) the manuring must begin with a good dressing of burnt lime, or, better, of marl or ground chalk. For meadows and pastures two tons per acre of lime, or twice as much of carbonate of lime, should be applied; the amounts may be halved for arable land. This must be followed by about 5 to 8 cwt. per acre of basic slag and an equal amount of kainit, which applications should be renewed in the second year, but then diminished in accord with the cropping. However, some phosphoric acid and potash salts must be continuously supplied, with occasional dressings of lime or chalk on the acid peaty areas. These latter also require in their earlier years nitrogenous manures, for the peat is slow to yield up the nitrogen it contains. The fertilisers should be nitrate of soda or lime, never sulphate of ammonia. The whole success of the reclamation depends on the use of these manures, as the peat in a state of nature is almost devoid of both phosphoric acid and potash; on the acid peats, again, normal growth is only possible after a neutral reaction has been attained by the use of lime or marl. With this manuring it is found to be easy to establish a good meadow herbage in a very short space of time; it is not even necessary to get rid of the surface vegetation of Erica and other heath and bog plants. The manure is put on and the surface is worked continuously with disc-harrows and rollers, but never deeply; a seed-mixture containing chiefly red, white, and Alsike clovers, Lotus uliginosus, rye-grass, Timothy, and cocksfoot, is sown in the spring and soon succeeds the native vegetation.

It is impossible to say what is the cost of the reclamation of moorland in this fashion; the big expense is the drainage and the construction of roads, both of which are entirely determined by local conditions. But of the value of the process when accomplished there can be no doubt. I have seen a case quoted from the Ostfriesische Zeitung, where a piece of moor bought for 751. was reclaimed and sold for 900l.; and, best test of all, one may see in places like the Teufelsmoor, near Bremen, families living in comfort on thirty to forty acres of what was once merely wild moor with no productive value.

Of even greater interest in England is the reclama

tion of heath-land, which has of late years been proceeding apace in Germany. In this category we may include all land which owes its infertility to the coarse grade and low water-retaining power of the particles of which the soil is composed, the soil being at the same time as a rule devoid of carbonate of lime, and covered in consequence with heather and similar calcifuge plants. In England there exist extensive tracts of uncultivated land of this character in close proximity to the considerable populations, but the process of reclaiming such land for agriculture seems to have come to an abrupt conclusion somewhere about 1850, when the developing industries of the country began to offer so much greater returns for capital than agriculture. That land of the kind can be cultivated with success is evident from the mere fact that everywhere prosperous farms may be seen bordering the wastes, possessing soils that are essentially identical with those of the wastes. These were brought under cultivation when labour was cheaper, often without calculation of the cost because the work was done piecemeal at times when the men would otherwise have been idle. Were any strict account to be framed, the reclamation probably did not pay its way for many years, and it has only become possible again because of modern advances in science and machinery. As examples of the type of land, I may instance the Bagshot Sands on which, in north Surrey, in Berkshire and Hampshire, and again in its southern development in the New Forest, lie so many thousands of acres of uncultivated heath. No systematic reclamation has taken place, but everywhere farms have been carved out on this formation, often by the industry of squatters, and within reach of London the vast supplies of town manure which used to be available have converted some of it into fertile land. The crystallisation of common rights into charters for public playgrounds, its growing appreciation for residential purposes, will now always stand in the way of the utilisation of most of the Bagshot Sands for agriculture, but further afield there are many areas of similar character.

The Lower Greensand is perhaps equally discounted by its residential value, but on the Tertiaries of Dorset, the Crag and Glacial Sands of Suffolk and Norfolk the brak, the Bunter Beds of the midlands, lie many expanses of waste that are convertible into farming land, just as Lincoln Heath and much of the beautifully farmed land of Cheshire have been gained for agriculture within the past century. Equally possible is an attack upon the sandy areas, warrens or links, behind the sand-dunes on many parts of the English and especially the Welsh coasts; not all of them are wanted for golf, and many can be fitted for marketgardening. Of old the only way of dealing with such land was merely to clear it, burn the rubbish, and start upon the ordinary routine of cultivation, but for a long time on such a system the crops will scarcely pay their way from year to year, and the permanent deficiencies of the soil in lime and mineral salts remain unrepaired. In Cheshire the enormous value of marl and bones in such a connection was early recognised; it has been the later discovery of the potash salts that renders reclamation a commercial proposition to-day. The method that is now followed is to begin by clearing the land of shrubs, burning off the roughest of the vegetation, and turning over a shallow layer in the summer, leaving the heathery sod to the killing and disintegrating action of sun and frost until the following spring. The manure is then put on-lime or ground chalk or marl as before, basic slag and kainit, and the sod is worked down to a rough seed-bed on which lupins are sown, to be ploughed in when they reach their flowering stage. The growth of the lupins makes the land, they supply humus to bind the sand together and retain moisture,

they draw nitrogen from the atmosphere, and with the phosphoric acid and potash form a complete manure for succeeding crops. Sometimes a second crop of lupins is ploughed in, but usually the land is put immediately to an ordinary rotation of rye, oats, potatoes, and clover. When the heath-land is divided among small tenants in an unreclaimed state cropping often begins without the lupins, the necessary nitrogen being imported by nitrate of soda, but for years the land shows inferior results. Only the tenant can rarely afford to lose the year the lupin crop involves, and so great is the demand for land in Germany that the State finds its preferable to let the tenant reclaim than to reclaim for him, and charge him as rent the cost of the more thorough process.

And now as to the finance of the operation : the reclaiming down to the ploughing in of the lupin crop costs from 51. to 61. an acre, the bare heath costs from 51. to 71. an acre, the reclaimed land after a few years' cultivation would sell at 20l. to 30l. an acre. Meantime the State has probably made a free grant for drainage, looking to get some interest back in increased taxation; the local authority has also made roads for which the increased rating due to a new agricultural community must be the only return. It is a long-sighted policy which will only find its full justification after many years when the loans have all been paid off and the State has gained a well-established addition to its agricultural land and its productive population. In comparing English with German conditions there are certain differences to be taken into account-in the first place the work of reclamation will be dearer in England because of the higher price of labour, then the land will not be so valuable when won because the higher scale of prices for agricultural products enhances the price of land in Germany. Next, I doubt, in view of the great industrial demand for men in England, if we have the men available who will bring to the land the skill and power of drudgery that I saw being put into these German holdings of thirty to forty acres in their earlier years of low productivity. Moreover, in Germany these heaths are generally bordered by forests, in which the smallholder gets occupation for part of the year while his wife and children keep the farm going. For this, if for no other reason, afforestation and land reclamation and settlement should go on together. But, despite these drawbacks, I am still of opinion that the reclamation of such heath-lands is a sound commercial venture in England, either for a landowner who is thinking of a future rather than of a present return on his capital, or for the State or other public body, wherever the waste land can be acquired for less than 51. an acre. The capitalised value of its present rental rarely approaches that figure, but the barrenest heath is apt to develop the potentialities of a gold-mine when purchase by the State comes in question. The map of England is so written over in detail with boundaries and rights and prescriptions that the path of the would-be reclaimer, who must work on a large scale if he is to work cheaply, can only be slow and devious.

There are other possibilities of winning agricultural land even in England, from the slob land and estuaries, from the clays nowadays too heavy for cultivation; but the problems they present are rather those of engineering than of agricultural science. What I should like in conclusion once more to emphasise is, that the reclamation of heath and peat-land of which I have been speaking-reclamation that in the past could only be imperfectly effected at a great and possibly unremunerative expense of human labour-has now become feasible through the applications of sciencethe knowledge of the functions of fertilisers, the in

dustrial developments which have given us basic slag and potash salts, the knowledge of the fertility that can be gained by the growth of leguminous plants. From beginning to end the process of reclamation of moor and heath, as we see it in progress in northwestern Europe, is stamped as the product of science and investigation.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL

INTELLIGENCE.

CAMBRIDGE.-Mr. J. T. Saunders, of Christ's College, has been appointed demonstrator in animal morphology, and Mr. J. Gray, of King's College, has been appointed demonstrator in comparative anatomy. Mr. Saunders has received a commission in the Army, but his post will be kept open for him until the end of the war. Mr. J. R. Menon, intercollegiate student, has been nominated to use the University table at the Zoological Station at Naples.

The following forms part of the address of the ViceChancellor of the University, Dr. M. R. James, provost of King's College, on his re-election at the beginning of this month:

"The remembrance of what has been brilliant or sorrowful in the three terms has paled, for the time at least, before the events of the Long Vacation. The University meets in such circumstances as it has never known. We shall be few in number, and perpetually under the strain of a great anxiety. We may be exposed to actual peril: in any case, we must look forward to straitened resources and, what is more, personal sorrows. Yet there is no doubt that we are bound to carry on our work; for by it we can render definite service to the nation. Our part, while we encourage all of our students who are capable of doing so to serve their country, and while we surrender to that service many valued teachers, is to prepare more men-especially in our medical schools-for rendering active help, and to keep alive that fire of ' education, religion, learning, and research' which will in God's good time outburn the flame of war. Let us devote ourselves to making useful men of the new generation. Let us confine our own controversies within the narrowest limits, and be ready if necessary to postpone them altogether. Let our advanced workhowever irrelevant it may seem to the needs of the moment-be unremittingly and faithfully pursued.

"I have spoken of the trials which we are bound to anticipate as a consequence of the war. Let me add that we shall be the better able to bear them, not only because we know that our cause is just, but because we know that the University has contributed a worthy share of its sons to champion that cause. Nearly 2000 applications for commissions from our younger graduates and our undergraduates have passed through the hands of the indefatigable committee of the Board of Military Studies; and this number does not include the very large contingent who have applied through other bodies, those who already held commissions at the outbreak of war, those who have enlisted in the ranks of various branches of the service, or those who are giving their help in tending the sick and wounded without enlisting. It is not at this moment possible to compile accurate lists of all who have responded to the great call. I hope, however, that each college will set itself to secure information as to its own members, with a view to the ultimate publication of the roll of honour of the University.

"It is our plain duty to secure that those who have interrupted their University career for the sake of their country shall suffer the least possible amount of disadvantage thereby. Some measures have already

been taken with this object, and others will be neces

sary.

I shall have, further, to ask for your co-operation in an effort which is being made to enable some of those Belgian students who in the course of their gallant resistance have been deprived of their whole academic equipment, to continue, in our midst, and with the help of our libraries and teaching apparatus, the life of their universities. This is an object which, I am confident, the Senate will feel honoured in supporting."

The next combined examination for fifty-three entrance scholarships and a large number of exhibitions, at Pembroke, Gonville and Caius, Jesus, Christ's, will be St. John's, and Emmanuel Colleges, held on Tuesday, December I, and followMathematics, classics, natural sciences, ing days. and history will be the subjects of examination at all the above-mentioned colleges. A candidate for a scholarship or exhibition at any of the six colleges must not be more than nineteen years of age on October 1, 1914. Forms of application for admission to the examination at the respective colleges may be obtained from the masters of the several colleges.

MR. H. PATTERSON, University of Leeds, has been appointed part-time lecturer in physical chemistry at Battersea Polytechnic.

IT is stated in Science that the medical school of Western Reserve University receives by the will of Mr. Liberty E. Holden a bequest said to be nearly 200,000l. The fund is to be known as the Albert Fairchild Holden Foundation, in memory of Mr. Holden's

son.

THE Earl of Rosebery has made a donation of 1200l. to the London School of Economics and Political Science for the endowment of a prize to be awarded annually in the department of railway transport at that school of the University of London.

THE Rural Education Conference, which was constituted by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Board of Education in June, 1910, was appointed for a term of three years. This period having expired, the conference has been reconstituted by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries under the name of the Agricultural Education Conference. The duty of the conference will be to discuss, and to advise, the Board upon, all questions connected with agricultural education which fall within the province of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, and specific questions will, from time to time, be referred by the Board to the conference for consideration. In addition, any member may suggest for discussion questions other than those formally referred to the conference. The Lord Barnard has been appointed chairman of the conference, and Mr. H. L. French (Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, Whitehall Place, S.W.) will act as its secretary.

DETAILED information as to the work of the numerous departments among which the varied activities of the University of Leeds are shared is contained in the calendar for 1914-15. In common with other modern universities, Leeds University includes a faculty of technology, and among its staff are to be found professors of engineering, mining, textile industries, tinctorial chemistry, and dyeing, leather industries, coal gas and fuel industries, and agriculture. Students may graduate in applied science as well as in pure science. The University, which is situated in the heart of a mining district possessing some of the deepest and best equipped of modern English collieries, enjoys the cordial support of the owners and managers of mines, who give the department every facility for

instructing its students. The courses in gas engineering and the technology of fuel meet the requirements of students who are preparing for responsible positions either as gas engineers or in fuel and metallurgical industries. In agriculture the instruction has been arranged to meet the requirements of young men who intend to become farmers, land agents, valuers, or teachers of agricultural science. Other examples could be given of the efforts of the University authorities to provide instruction and guidance for all parts of the community in its area and the support which is being given to the University by all sections of society augurs well for its future usefulness.

a

FROM Prof. H. S. Carslaw we have received report, presented to the International Commission, dealing with the teaching of mathematics in Australia, and now published by Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1914. Up to the present the education in the schools has been mainly influenced by examinations of the "local" type, controlled by the Australian universities. Prof. Carslaw condemns this system, which, of course, tends to lower the educational ideal of the schools to mere examination cramming. A comparison of the syllabuses of these examinations with those now being introduced into the State high schools, and the system of leaving certificates, fully supports what Prof. Carslaw states. The older examinations contain much work that is difficult, useless, and unstimulating, while the new syllabuses are much more practical, interesting, and educationally valuable. Coming next to the universities, we find that the system of combining mathematics and physics in one department still prevails in the newer institutions, and the numbers of students taking mathematics is on the whole distinctly small, having regard of the fact that the subject is compulsory for engineering students. The Course in insurance mathematics is a valuable feature of the Melbourne University, and one which we should like to see copied elsewhere and made attractive to candidates for general degrees in arts and science.

THE calendar for the present session of the Armstrong College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, has been received. The college ranks, together with the Durham colleges," and the College of Medicine, as one of the three constituent units of the University of Durham. The faculties of science and commerce in the University are seated entirely at Armstrong College, in which alone are held the classes and examinations requisite for bachelor degrees in these faculties. In addition to pure science, the college gives instruction in the various branches of engineering, mining, metallurgy, naval architecture, and agricultural science. The agricultural department directs the Northumberland County Agricultural Experimental Station and the Durham County Station for Dairy Research. For the purpose of forestry instruction the college possesses 900 acres of wood, and its zoological equipment includes a laboratory of marine biology. College diplomas in engineering, naval architecture, mining, mine surveying, agriculture, and commerce, are open to students who are unable to take a complete degree course. A list of the various fellowships for research, scholarships, and exhibitions, of which there is a large number, is given in the calendar. We notice that a fellowship of the value of 125., and two research studentships of the value of 621. 10s. each, are offered for competition in June of each year. The holders must engage in advanced study or research to the satisfaction of the council and be graduates of the University of Durham. A COPY of the calendar for 1914-15 of the Manchester Municipal School of Technology has been

received. It is arranged in two parts, one dealing with university courses and the other with part-time courses. The school offers systematic training in the principles of science and art as applied to mechanical, electrical, municipal, and sanitary engineering; architecture and the building trades; the chemical industries; the textile industries; and photography and the printing crafts. Its work includes advanced study and research; university courses in the faculty of technology in the Victoria University of Manchester, of which the school is an important constituent; parttime day courses for engineers' and other apprentices whose employers allow them to devote one whole day a week to study; part-time evening courses, involving attendance on three evenings a week for five years; and other part-time classes for advanced study and research, or in preparation for the external degrees of the University of London, or for other purposes. Students who, having passed the matriculation examination or its equivalent, satisfactorily complete a three years' university course in accordance with the regulations, become entitled to the degree of Bachelor of Technical Science. A fourth year's course of advanced study and research prepares such graduates for the higher degree of Master of Technical Science. These degrees give the holders exemption from further examination when desirous of entering certain professions and learned societies, which are enumerated in the calendar. Very full particulars of the equipment, the various courses, and the general arrangements of the school are given in a manner which makes very simple reference by the intending student.

SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES.

PARIS.

Academy of Sciences, September 14.-M. P. Appell in the chair.-A. Lacroix: The recent eruption of Ambrym (December, 1913) and the constitution of the lava from this volcano. The lava is of the angitic labradorite type, too poor in olivine to be considered a true basalt. A complete chemical analysis is given.-Kr. Birkeland and M. Skolem: Calculations of the lines of equal intensity in the zodiacal light.-B. Jekhowsky: The eclipse of the sun of August 20-21, 1914. Particulars of observations taken at the Observatory of Montsouris. Ch. Vaillant: The replacement of photographic plates by gelatino-bromide paper in radiography. By the use of a reinforcing screen with exposures of from 4 to 30 seconds good negatives were obtained. The cost is about one-thirtieth of the ordinary plates.-Julien Loisel: The monographic representation of the mean direction of the wind.

September 21.-The President announced the death of M. Pérez, correspondant for the section of anatomy. --Maurice Hamy: Remarks relating to the construction of an equatorial coudé.-Marin Molliard : Chemical modifications of plant organs undergoing a true fermentation.

CALCUTTA.

Asiatic Society of Bengal, September 2.-W. Ivanow : The language of the gypsies of Qäināt (in eastern Persia). The gypsies of eastern Persia are a wandering tribe who live exclusively in tents and present signs of their Aryan origin, with Shemitic, Turkish, and even Dravidian admixtures. They seem to be allied to the Jats, the well-known Kshattriya tribe of India, to the Da-Yueti tribe to which Kaniska belongs, and to other kindred tribes. They dress like Persian peasants, and their religion is Islam of the Shia Sect. Their language has lost its original purity and is now about the same as Persian spoken in Qaināt. There are still some genuine gypsy words which are used to