They obtained a vigorous effect from Balmain's luminous paint, but when this was mixed in gelatin there was no external effect. Schmidt's results as to the continuance of photo-electric activity when bodies in general are dissolved in each other lead us to believe that an actual conservative property of the medium and not an effect of this on the luminous paint is here involved. This conservative effect of the gelatin may be concerned with its efficacy as a sensitiser. In the views I have laid before you I have endeavoured to show that the recent addition to our knowledge of the electron as an entity taking part in many physical and chemical effects may be availed of, and should be kept in sight, in seeking an explanation of the mode of origin of the latent image. GLACIAL STUDIES IN CANADA. DR. WILLIAM H. SHERZER has published in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections (pp. 453496) a handsomely illustrated preliminary report entitled Glacial Studies in the Canadian Rockies and Selkirks." The five glaciers selected are conveniently located in Alberta and British Columbia, and the line of the Canadian Pacific Railway passes near them. Observations have been made on the rate of motion of the Victoria Glacier, which is as low as about 52 feet a year, and on the lowering of its surface by ablation. The front of this glacier shows a shearing movement of one layer over another, as was tested by the pushing forward of iron spikes driven into an upper and a lower stratum. The right lateral moraine receives a certain amount of ground-moraine or subglacial material from a hanging glacier on Mount Lefroy, which breaks away in avalanches on to the main Victoria flow. This incident, which is well illustrated, serves to warn us from assuming that all subglacial material at a glacier's edge results from plucking action on the wall or floor in contact with the local ice. offered by blue solid ice, as compared with the intervening layers of vesicular ice. The latter, therefore, form depressions on the melting of the mass, in which detritus gathers, as in the case of the far coarser dirt-bands of the second type. Dr. Sherzer proposes to call a band of the first type a "dirt-zone, and of the third type a dirt-stripe.' The well known blue bands are shown later to have no relation to stratification, and we are left in ignorance as to their origin. On the lower Lefroy Glacier " ice-dykes" are noted, true mineral veins, as it were, with ice-crystals deposited on their walls and meeting from opposite sides along the central plane. These represent crevasses, which have been healed by the freezing of the water that at one time filled them. The author's examination of the surfaces of junction of glacier-grains shows that melting opens up a network of delicate tube-like capillaries, which are here photographed -we presume on a natural scale-both before and after injection with potassium permanganate. As melting proceeds, this network disappears, apparently by a general FIG. 1.-Formation of Forbes's "dirt-bands," Deville Glacier, Selkirks. From Summit Mt. Fox, looking Eastward. Photographed by Arthur O. Wheeler, 1902. Canadian Topographic Survey. A brief but useful discussion of "dirt-bands follows, in which three types are distinguished. Layers of the glacier may vary in the percentage of foreign matter contained in them, and these stratified dirtbands may be too thick to represent mere temporary variations in snowfall, and probably then correspond with short cycles of variation in the "activity of the glacier-making agencies." A second type of dirtband is that described by Forbes, conspicuous at a distance, and transverse to the length of the ice-stream; the author traces this appearance to the alternation of depressions and ridges, stones and mud becoming washed into the former, and producing the dark bands, which may be bent forward in the central region as the glacier flows. The explanation given is adopted from Tyndall. The greater rapidity of motion in summer produces a crevasse, or a close-set series of crevasses, where there is a marked increase in the drop of the valley-floor. The sun melts out a depression along the line of the crevasse or crevasses, which remains although the fracture heals. In winter, owing to the slower motion, the ice adapts itself better to its inclines, and the few crevasses that are formed are not emphasised at the top by melting. Hence each dirt-band represents a summer season, and the interval a winter one. The third type of dirt-band depends on the greater resistance to melting coarsening of the hollows developed between adjacent grains. We shall hope to hear more of the author's views on "block-moraines,' since we cannot help thinking that such phenomena are far too common for the invocation of earthquake-action as a cause. The double moraine below Lough Coumshingaun, in the county of Waterford, would seem to come into this category; and in that case the jointed nature of the rocks higher up the mountain accounts for the preponderance of huge and angular blocks. The discovery of ice-cores within the steep lateral embankments of the Asulkan Glacier raises the question of such embankments in general; and here again we hope for further details. The illustrations, one of which is here reproduced, are richly varied, and are of equal value to the geographer and the geologist. GRENVILLE A. J. COLE. UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL INTELLIGENCE. OXFORD. It has been announced that the chemical fellowship at Magdalen College, to which an election will be made next term, is open to all persons who have qualified for the degree of B.A. at Oxford, and are not in the receipt of an income of more than 300l. per annum. The examination will begin on October 3, and will be mainly in the subjects recognised in the honour school of chemistry. Any candidate may submit any dissertations or papers written by him or any evidence of research work done by him. THE Council of the University of Liverpool has, on the recommendation of the university senate, determined to institute a university lectureship in experimental psychology. PROF. W. H. WATKINSON, at present professor of engineering in the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College, has been appointed to the Harrison chair of engineering in the University of Liverpool formerly filled by Prof. Hele-Shaw, F.R.S. THE governors of the Merchant Venturers' Technical College, Bristol, have decided to award annually to the most suitable candidate who, being a member of the college, has graduated in science at the University of London or gained a similar distinction, a research scholarship of the value of gol., tenable at the college for one year. The research scholar will be required to undertake some research work either in the department of applied chemistry or in that of engineering. The governors will defray the cost of the apparatus and materials needed for the prosecution of such work. the grant in aid is accepted, and an endeavour will be made in the autumn to constitute such a body, which will perform the duties hitherto undertaken by the quinquennial committee of inspection. Some of the colleges have pointed out that the intervention of such a committee may interfere unduly with their internal administration, but the Minute lays it down that the main functions of the committee will be to advise the Board of Treasury as to the kind of education which should be assisted out of the grant, and to satisfy themselves by inspection that the money is being properly applied. These objects can be obtained without any undue interference with the responsibility of the college authorities. Ninety per cent. of the grant is in the future to be allocated on the same general principles as have been adopted hitherto, and such sums as may be given will be secured to the colleges for at least five years. The balance of the grant will be reserved partly for special grants towards the provision of books and apparatus and partly for the encouragement of post-graduate work. The colleges will be expected to make proposals to the advisory committee as regards postgraduate work, showing the nature of the work it is desired to undertake and the assistance the college itself intends to contribute to the work. Parliament is being asked to vote 100,000l. for university colleges, and if this is agreed to 89,000l. will be distributed and 11,000l. reserved for allocation in March next. The amount allotted to each college for the year 1905-6 will be as follows:-Manchester, 12,000l.; University College, London, 10,000l.; Liverpool, 10,000l.; Birmingham, 9000l.; Leeds, 8000l. King's College, London, 7800l. ; Newcastle-on-Tyne, 6000l.; Nottingham, 580ol.; Sheffield, 4600l.; Bedford College, London, 4000l.; Bristol, 4000l.; Reading, 3400l.; Southampton, 3400l.; Dundee, 1000l. SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. Royal Society, March 9.-"Explosions of Mixtures of Coal-Gas and Air in a Closed Vessel." By L. Bairstow and A. D. Alexander. Summary. Mixtures of coal-gas and air are not inflammable until the volume of coal-gas is greater than one-seventeenth of the combined volumes. Only a very small fraction of the gas then burns, the amount burnt rapidly increasing with increased richness of the mixture until the coal-gas is one-twelfth of the total volume. The least inflammable of the constituents then burns, and combustion becomes and remains complete so long as air is in excess. In these latter cases it is still probable that the constituents burn successively and not simultaneously. THE detailed regulations and syllabus for the preliminary examination for the certificate, which will in 1907 take the place of the King's scholarship examination, which pupil teachers have been in the habit of taking at the end of their apprenticeship, have been issued as an appendix to the regulations for the instruction and training of pupil teachers, 1905. The distribution of subjects in the re-cast examination has received the careful consideration of the Board of Education. In order to be successful a candidate must pass a test in the important subjects, including composition and arithmetic, which form part i. of the examination, and also show a reasonable degree of proficiency in English, history, and geography. To quote the circular which has been distributed to local education authorities, training colleges, and pupil teacher centres :"To these the Board would gladly have added elementary science. They have, however, refrained at present from doing so because, except in fully equipped secondary schools and pupil teacher centres, it is not always possible for candidates to obtain the necessary instruction in practical scientific work, while they are convinced that instruction in science which does not include practical work is of very little value." It is satisfactory to record this frank admission by the Board of Education of the great importance of including elementary science in every scheme of education, whether elementary or secondary. It is to be hoped that every effort will be made by the Board to bring about increased facilities for instruction in elementary science in all schools under their jurisdiction, and not only in those from which pupil teachers proceed to the training college. It is not too much to say that no system of training designed to provide efficient elementary school teachers Academy of Sciences, July 17.-M. Troost in the chair. will prove thoroughly satisfactory which does not subject-On a new method of direct determination of refraction the teacher in training to a course of practical work in science. Even if it is considered necessary at present to make science an optional subject in this preliminary examination for the certificate, every effort should be made so to improve the equipment of the schools that elementary science may be made obligatory for all candidates at an early date. A TREASURY Minute upon the recommendations of the university colleges committee has been issued as a Parliamentary paper. The consideration of the final report of Mr. Haldane's committee on the allocation of the grant in aid to university colleges is resumed. The recommendation of the establishment of a permanent committee to advise the Board of Treasury as to the distribution of The hypothesis of a specific heat increasing with temperature is not supported by direct experiment, and cannot be proved by any work on the pressures produced by explosion, the authors believing that a proof would require the measurement of temperature. Direct experiments by Deville at temperatures below 1400° C. have shown that both steam and carbon dioxide are partially decomposed, and this dissociation is therefore taken by us as the sole explanation of the difference between the pressures calculated for explosions in a closed vessel and those actually obtained. PARIS. at all heights: M. Loewy. The author describes and explains the theory of his new method by which atmospheric refraction can be measured by the use of a prism the refracting faces of which are at an angle of 45°.-On an apparatus for producing artificial eclipses of the sun: Ch. André. By the use of such apparatus many theoretical points can be determined in a way not otherwise possible. On the infinitesimal properties of non-Eucildean space: C. Guichard.-On the distribution of sugary substances in blood between the plasma and the corpuscles: R. Lépine and M. Boulud. By eliminating certain errors due to glycolysis, the authors find for the corpuscles 22 per cent., and for the serum barely 4 per cent. of sugar.On the evaluation of errors in the approximate integration of differential equations: Émile Cotton.-A contribution to the study of liquid dielectrics: P. Gourée de Villemontée. The author's experiments were made with reference to the influence of the duration of charge, and the electric state of the mass after discharge. The results show that the propagation of electric charges across petrol and paraffin is comparable with that observed in crystalline dielectrics. -Experimental researches on the effect of membranes in liquid chains: M. Chanoz. The electromotive force developed by the chain of the general nature MR H2O|MR depends for sign and intensity upon the nature of the membrane, the nature and concentration of the salt solution MR, and the relative position of the membranes to the liquids. On fluorescence: C. Camichel. Further experiments on the coefficient of absorption in uranium glass when fluorescence is excited.-On the velocity of crystallisation from supersaturated solutions : Charles Leenhardt.-On the preparation of binary compounds of metals by means of heating with aluminium : C. Matignon and R. Trannoy. The great reducing power of aluminium has been utilised to prepare a considerable number of metallic phosphides, arsenides, silicides, and borides. On the reduction of thorium oxide by amorphous boron, and the preparation of two borides of thorium : Binet du Jassonneux. On the action of chloroacetic esters on the halogen magnesium derivatives of orthotoluidine F. Bodroux.-On the action of ethylamine and isobutylamine on cæsium: E. Rengade. When ethylamine is condensed on perfectly pure cæsium a blue colour appears in the liquid which does not occur with sodium or calcium. In time the metal becomes a mercury-like substance which evolves gas readily, and is considered by the author to be cæsium-ethyl-ammonium.-Attempts at reduction in the dinitro-diphenyl-methane series of compounds H. Duval.-On the condensation of chloral with aromatic hydrocarbons under the influence of aluminium chloride Adolphe Dinesmann. By the action of chloral on benzene the author obtains in the given conditions excellent yields of trichloro-methyl-phenyl-carbinol, CH-CHOH-CCI ̧. A similar condensation takes place with toluene, paraxylene, and anisol.-On 3: 3-dimethyl-butyro-lactone: G. Blanc.-On the action of acetylene tetrabromide and aluminium chloride on toluene James Lavaux.-On gentio-picrine: Georges Tanret.-On coffees without caffeine Gabriel Bertrand. Coffea Humblotiana is noteworthy as containing barely a trace of the alkaloid.-On the development of green plants in light, in the complete absence of carbon dioxide, and in an artificial soil containing amides: Jules Lefèvre. The presence of the amides enabled plants to find the carbon necessary for the synthesis of both protoplasm and tissues.-On two cases of grafting (Ipomea purpurea with Quamoclit coccinea and Helianthus multiflorus with Helianthus annuus): Lucien Daniel.-On the disinfectant properties of smokes; attempts at disinfection with the vapour evolved from burning sugar: A. Trillat.-On the identification of the skin of the American admiral Paul Jones, 113 years after his death : MM. Capitan and Papillault. On the multiple affinities of the Hoplophorida: H. Coutière.— On a new exploration of the abyss of the Trou-de-Souci : E. A. Martel.-On the mineral constituents of the water supplying Paris: L. Cayeux. The hailstorm of July 16: A. Berget. Hailstones were found to weigh as much as 70 grams. NEW SOUTH WALES. Linnean Society, May 31.-Mr. T. Steel, president, in the chair.-Notes on the Eucalypts of the Blue Mountains, N.S.W. J. H. Maiden and R. II. Cambage. The authors enumerate twenty-seven species and one variety collected by them. One of these, for which they propose the name of E. Moorei, is new; it has hitherto been looked upon as a narrow-leaved variety of E. stellulata, Sieb., but the juvenile foliage, for example, is very different. The past year was a specially favourable season for natural seedlings of the above genus, and a number of them are described for the first time. Particular notice is devoted to the Blue Mountain form of E. capitellata, Sm. Attention is directed to three plants which cannot, in strictness, be referred to any existing species, and which are looked upon as possible hybrids. The Blue Mountains, with their ready accessibility to both plateaux and valleys, considerable range in elevation, and rich Eucalyptus flora, afford special facilities for a study of the genus.-Notes on the native flora of New South Wales, part iii. R. H. Cambage. This paper refers to the flora of the country between Orange, Dubbo, and Gilgandra, and directs attention to the great change that takes place from climatic causes which are regulated by the change in altitude, the fall in the country from Orange to Gilgandra amounting to about 2000 feet. Although much of the true interior flora is to be found at the latter place, it is noted that a number of plants which are typical of the coastal vegetation are also growing there, and the reason may be traced to the fact that a large sandstone area, chiefly Triassic, extends from Sydney across the Blue Mountains, continuing in broken remnants past Gulgong towards Dubbo and Gilgandra; and many of those plants which are able to withstand the cold of the higher levels cross the mountains and continue on the similar geological formation out towards the western plains. Reference is also made to an interesting species of Acacia, known locally as Motherumbung, and having affinities with A. Gnidium, Benth., but which in the absence of full material has not yet been identified. Descriptions of new species of Australian Coleoptera: H. J. Carter. Fourteen species are described as new. These are referable to three families and eight genera, namely:-fam. Tenebrionidæ, Pterohelæus, Encara, Menephilus, Otrintus, Adelium (five species), and Coripera (two species); fam. Edemerida, Pseudolychus (two species); fam. Pedilidæ, Egestria. 289 The Agents of Earth Sculpture. By H. B. W. Hanke: "The Treatment of Diseases of the Eye" "The Oxford Atlas of the British Colonies. Part i." On the Spontaneous Action of Radium on Gelatin Media.-John Butler Burke The Problem of the Random Walk.-Prof. Karl Pearson, F.R.S. British Archæology and Philistinism.-Worthing. ton G. Smith. Graphical Solution of Cubic and Quartic Equations.H. Ivah Thomsen 290 291 292 292 293 293 293 A Comparison between Two Theories of Radiation.J. H. Jeans. 293 294 294 294 295 By The Present Position of the Cancer Problem. Our Astronomical Column: Astronomical Occurrences in August The Institution of Naval Architects Eclipse Shadow Bands. By A.Lawrence Rotch Chemical, Physical, Biological, and all Science SEND SPECIFICATION FOR OUR PRICES. 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