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plan of procedure and to inquire how far this is likely to meet the prevailing needs. Enthusiasm, unless well directed, is not enough. British educational endeavour has too often proved unproductive because of its haphazard character, and instances are extant where in neighbouring countries better results have followed a smaller expenditure of money and trouble, because each new development has made an addition to a carefully conceived plan. The policy of muddle is, at all events, fatal in education.

There must, in the first place, be an intimate connection-a close association throughout, indeed between the systems of elementary and secondary education on one hand, and the colleges and universities on the other. The trinity of grades must form an organic whole dominated by the same ideals, imbued from base to apex with the same spirit of earnest thoroughness, where at every stage the learner must be taught to be content with nothing short of the best. A boy's opportunities for progress should be limited only by his natural aptitudes; and brains, wherever found, must be regarded by educational administrators in every district as a national asset to be trained, developed, and sharpened to their full extent. How far this is from being the case at present many recent articles in NATURE and other contributions to current literature have shown. Not only is the amount of preliminary training received by boys seeking admittance to college insufficient, but the kind of education they have received is unsuitable.

The principal of the Manchester Municipal School of Technology, who is particularly well qualified to speak on this subject, wrote in an article (School World, April) published this year :

"Those who are familiar with the standards of entrance to our advanced schools and colleges of science know only too well how low are the standards of admission. What

ever may be the face' requirements of matriculation, the actual marks required for a pass are extremely low, necessarily so in the present state of our secondary education. It is further well established that the average time actually spent in the secondary schools is not much, if any, more than a third of that required in German and Swiss schools of similar rank-in short, either the pupils go in too late or they finish too early. In any event, they leave without an adequate training, alike in respect of both time spent and subjects studied. Moreover, the age of admission to our universities and specialised schools of applied science is two years below that of similar institutions on the Continent. In these circumstances, how is it possible that the output, in respect of the quality of the students, can rival that of foreign institutions?"

Commenting upon the kind of secondary education given in this country, a writer in NATURE of March 23, 1905 (vol. lxxi., p. 487), states :—

The custodians of English education are still actuated by mediæval ideals. The entrance of the student of science to the older universities is still obstructed by an obsolete and ludicrous test in Greek. There is a tendency even yet among those in charge of our Department of Education to discourage and hamper the instruction in science in our elementary and secondary schools."

Lord Strathcona did well to emphasise in his address at the Aberdeen graduation ceremony the stimulating influence which Scottish universities have had upon the schools of that country, for it is especially to the improvement of the type and standard of English secondary education that attention must be at once seriously directed if full advantage is to be made of English universities and technical colleges. We have arrived at the stage when the pressing need is neither suitable buildings nor qualified teachers

these we have in a more abundant measure than is necessary to meet present needs-but students suitably prepared and thoroughly grounded in the fundamentals of a sound secondary education. The number of day students in our technical schools and colleges is still ridiculously small, and too many of those in attendance are reaping little benefit, because they lack habits of serious study and the acquaintance with fundamental principles they should have acquired at school. It is in this direction that immediate improvement is required. In Germany, to quote an exampl of what can be done, the secondary schools are turning out youths trained to think and to reason, trained in the methods of acquiring knowledge, and inspired with an earnest desire to study the subjects necessary to enable them to occupy positions of command in their country's industrial army. But the German boy is, as a matter of course, allowed to remain at the secondary school to the age of eighteen or nineteen and parents willingly make the necessary sacrifice having learnt how abundant in later years is the reward. In some way or other, if we are to compet on anything like equal terms with other nations, we must import a spirit of greater earnestness into our secondary schools, allow our boys to remain in them longer, and adjust our curriculum to modern needs The British boy, if rightly directed, has no superior in ability, earnestness, and intelligence generally, and it is little short of criminal to handicap him with an antiquated course of study and a curtailed school

career.

But it is not only the bonds which connect thi secondary school with the university which must be drawn closer and strengthened; the systems » elementary and secondary education must be rendered more interdependent. Our capacity-catching mach inery has improved in recent years, it is true, but i is far from perfect; and the endeavours made to open elementary school, through the secondary school, t a way for boys of exceptional brain-power in the the university, have been spasmodic and not in accordance with a carefully thought-out scheme. Indiscriminate scholarship giving has in many case resulted only in the manufacture of surplus clerks and ill-trained schoolmasters, and the absence of clear aims and a definite policy as to what education expected to accomplish for these exceptional boys has resulted in waste of money, loss of opportunity, ane a growing disbelief in the efficacy of higher educa tion. Instead of benefiting our industries and strengthening the hands of our manufacturers, our educational muddling has given rise to discontent whereas a policy of clear thinking and the application of the methods of science to educational problemwould have produced a well-balanced and judiciousis graded system of national education-capable of pr viding the country with trained workers for every sphere of activity.

Equally striking would be the effect on the uns versities themselves if such a coordinated scheme education could be brought into being. Instead the glorified boarding-school type which at presen functions as a university, where young men continu to play games and practise "good form " to th exclusion of serious work, all our universities woul be institutions filled with well-trained youths earnes intent upon acquainting themselves with the trium. accomplished by modern research, and upon fitting themselves in their turn to extend the bounds knowledge.

Lord Strathcona in his address at the graduati ceremony also wisely insisted upon the nation character of the Scottish universities, and brought high relief a feature which should distinguish "

modern universities. It is too often forgotten in this country that the provision of universities is primarily a national obligation, and that the State which is content to leave to private initiative and to individual generosity the all-important work of raising and endowing seats of the higher learning is neglecting one of the most potent means for securing its own vitality. The recognition by statesmen of this national duty need not discourage local effort and enthusiasm; indeed, experience tends to show that both are quickened in districts where such State universities are established. The duty has been fully recognised by foreign Governments, and the lavish generosity of the State in Germany and the United States was ably pointed out by Sir Norman Lockyer in 1903. Sir James Crichton Browne has repeated the warning more recently. Speaking at the University of Leeds at the beginning of the month, he said :

"England has been remiss of late in perceiving and promoting those interests that hinge on scientific and medical research. In this direction Germany has stolen a march upon us, for the various Governments in that Empire have unstintedly provided their universities with fullyequipped research laboratories, organised and conducted by professorial directors."

The importance of securing this exercise of what should be regarded as a State prerogative consists, not only in ensuring an immediate and adequate supply of institutions of university standing, but-in an equal degree in realising the right atmosphere in the university when it gets itself established. The parochial spirit is fatal to university development. The boy proceeding from the school to the university should pass from an institution dominated by local aspirations to one imbued with Imperial instincts, where thought is unfettered and ambitions are free to Soar. Sir James Crichton Browne expressed the same thought very distinctly at Leeds when he marked:

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"It would be a misfortune to a boy to pass from a secondary school to a university in the next street, where he would meet as his fellow-students only his old schoolfellows, and where, however amply fed with knowledge, he would still be surrounded by the same traditions and associations and shop amongst which he had been brought up. A provincial university is a contradiction in terms. What is wanted is a group of territorial universities, each with distinctive features of its own, specially adapting it to its environment, but all affording the most liberal instruction, the finest culture, the best intellectual discipline of the day, and collectively meeting the higher educational needs of the whole country."

Another point made by Lord Strathcona may be considered profitably in conclusion. Speaking of American universities, the Chancellor said:

"They found out long ago that law and medicine and theology are not the only legitimate points of academic study; and in their faculties of applied science they are training their young men to do work that is most loudly called for. They have never accepted the view that universities must necessarily be institutions cloistered and apart from the main current of public life and service. On the contrary, they make a training for citizenship and for public usefulness the basis and foundation of much of their educational activity. The reward they have is that -fully as much as we do here they find their alumni in every walk of life, not in the 'learned professions' only; and some of the most notable benefactions which the American universities have lately received come from men whose desire it is to connect them still more closely with practical work."

In other words, a university training is valuable in every department of work. The culture which is

the gift of every living university to each of its sons is capable, in addition to equipping for remunerative labour, of affording intellectual guidance in all life's difficulties, of encouraging individuality, and of promoting a symmetrical intellectual intellectual development. Besides providing men able to compete worthily in the international struggle for industrial supremacy, the modernised university, which is actually the crown and summit of a sanely planned system of secondary and elementary education, will send out men of wide sympathies, above insular prejudices, and in all things dominated by a sweet reasonableness.

NOTES.

THE seventh annual Huxley memorial lecture of the Anthropological Institute will be given on Thursday, November 1, at 8.30 p.m., in the theatre of the Civil Service Commission, Burlington Gardens, W., when Prof. W. M. Flinders Petrie, F.R.S., will deliver an address on 'Migrations." Tickets can be obtained on application

to the secretary of the institute, 3 Hanover Square, W.

THE inaugural meeting of the session of Guy's Hospital Pupils' Physical Society will be held on Saturday next, October 13, when Prof. T. Clifford Allbutt, F.R.S., will deliver an address on "Words and Things." The chair will be taken at 8 o'clock by Sir Samuel Wilks, F.R.S.

DR. THOMAS HARRISON, formerly Chancellor of the Union September 18 in versity of New Brunswick, died Fredericton, at the age of sixty-eight. He was professor of mathematics in the University from 1885 to 1892, and Chancellor from 1892 until last August, when he retired on a Carnegie pension.

A REUTER message from Wellington, New Zealand, reports that a monument to Captain Cook was unveiled on October 8 in the presence of a large gathering of both races at Poverty Bay, on the east coast of the North Island, at the spot where the explorer first landed.

WE learn from the New York correspondent of the Times that Sir William Perkin was the guest of honour at Delmonico's on October 6 at a dinner given by four hundred American chemists and manufacturers of chemical products. Prof. Chandler presided, and many well-known Americans were among the guests. Dr. Nichols presented to Sir William Perkin the first cast of a gold medal to be known as the Perkin medal, and to be awarded each year to some American chemist who has distinguished himself in the field of research. Another gift to Sir W. Perkin was a silver service as a personal tribute from the chemists and manufacturers who were present.

It was mentioned last week (p. 545) that the Governor of Hong Kong had appointed a committee to inquire into the alleged failure of the observatory to give warning of the violent storm that burst over the colony on September 18. According to a Laffan message from Hong Kong on October 8, the report of Zi-ka-wei Observatory at Shanghai shows that a published warning was issued against the passage of a typhoon two days before it struck Hong Kong. The latter place was not warned because for years the Hong Kong Observatory has refused to exchange warnings with the Jesuit observatories at Shanghai and Manila.

IT is announced in the Lancet that the first International Congress on Alimentary Hygiene and a Rational Diet for Man, to be held at the Paris Faculty of Medicine on

October 22-27, will include the following sections :(1) biological physics; (2) biological and physiological chemistry; (3) rational food systems and dietetics; (4) analytical chemistry, adulteration, and legislation; (5) bacteriology, toxicology, and parasitology; (6) statistics, instruction, and ways and means; (7) application of hygienic principles in the manufacture and preparation of food, and conveyance of food from place to place; (8) the hygiene of food and rational food systems in the home and elsewhere; (9) cooperation and competition; (10) distribution of food gratis or at reduced prices; (11) food in relation to the prevention of alcoholism and tuberculosis; and (12) the diffusion of knowledge in schools and elsewhere with respect to rational food systems and the hygiene of food. The first seven of these twelve sections constitute Division of the congress, dealing with scientific methods, and Prof. Bouchard and Prof. Armand Gautier will preside. The five last sections constitute Division 2 of the congress, dealing with social questions relating to food; the president will be M. Jules Siegfried.

THE annual Huxley lecture was delivered at Charing Cross Hospital on October 1 by Prof. Ivan Pawlow, of St. Petersburg, the subject being the scientific investigation of the psychical faculties or processes in the higher animals. All the experiments were made on dogs, and the excretion of saliva was made the test of the response of the animals to external impressions. As is well known, the salivary glands secrete, not only when the stimulus of appropriate substances is impressed on the mouth, but also when other receptive surfaces, including the eye and the ear, are stimulated; the latter actions have received the name of psychical stimuli, but have unquestionably much in common with ordinary reflex action, and are termed by Prof. Pawlow "conditioned reflexes," to distinguish them from the ordinary or unconditioned reflexes. The greater part of the lecture was devoted to the development of this conception of the nature of the conditioned reflexes, which would thus be removed from psychical phenomena and be relegated to the domain of physiology.

THE winter session of the London School of Tropical Medicine was opened on Monday last with an address by Colonel Kenneth Macleod. In the unavoidable absence of the Duke of Marlborough the chair was taken by Sir Francis Lovell, the dean of the school, who, in introducing the lecturer, briefly described the aims and objects of the school. Colonel Macleod, after paying a tribute to the work of Sir Patrick Manson, briefly detailed the inception of the school, and pointed out that, while the debt has been paid off, a sum of at least 60,000l. is needed for endowment. Prominent among the needs of the school at present is the appointment of an entomologist. The trend of modern investigation and thought has forced into the forefront the fascinating subject of comparative pathology. In the tropics all life, and particularly parasitic life, is exuberant; the lower life is rampant, and the higher heavily handicapped. The salutary effect of drainage, cultivation, and cleansing is well illustrated by the banishment of malaria from England. To develop and strengthen the resistive and curative elements of the animal organism is one of the chief objects of medical science, and the principle which underlies the great discovery of Jenner is, after the lapse of a century, obtaining new and remarkable applications. Examples were also given by the lecturer of problems still awaiting solution. In the evening the staffs and past and present students of the London Schools of Tropical and of Clinical Medicine

held their annual dinner at the Hotel Cecil, Sir W. Hood Treacher in the chair. Among the guests were Prot. Blanchard, of Paris, the medical director-general of the Navy, Sir John McFadyean, and others.

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WITH regard to the series of demonstrations in practical microscopy mentioned in NATURE of September 13 (p. 496), the committee of the Quekett Microscopical Club has made the following arrangements:-November 16, Mr. H. F. Angus, on Axial Substage Illumination with Artificial Illuminant "; December 21, Mr. Angus, on Dark-ground Illumination"; January 18, 1907, Mr. C. L. Curties, on "Polarised and Multicolour Illumination" and "Various Methods of Recording Observations "; March 15, Mr. Conrad Beck, on "The Illumination of Opaque and UnThe Commounted Objects"; April 19, Mr. Beck, on parison of Objectives"; May 17, Mr. F. W. Watson Baker. The next ordinary meeting of the club will be held at 20 Hanover Square, W., on Friday, October 19, at 8 p.m., when the following papers will be read :-01 Tetramastix opoliensis, a rare rotifer, C. F. Rousselet. and on the reproduction of mosses and ferns, J. Burton. Cards of admission to the demonstrations or the ordinary meetings may be obtained from the hon. sec, Mr. A. Earland, 31 Denmark Street, Watford, Herts.

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UEBER DIE ZELLE " (Leipzig: W. Engelmann, price 60 pf.) is the title of a fragment (45 pp.) of a work n the cell begun by the late Prof. Alfred Schaper. It contains a short historical introduction wherein the chief stages in the development of the cell theory are given, and also a discussion of the more modern views as to the structure of the cell constituents. Its chief interest will probably be for those who knew its author.

SOME phases of the gastrulation of the horned toad (Phrynosoma cornutum) form the subject of a paper by Messrs. C. L. Edwards and C. W. Hahn published in the The egg American Journal of Anatomy (vol. v., No. 3).

in the genus Phrynosoma comes nearer to those of lower vertebrates than does that of any other of the Amniota in that its protoplasmic pole seems less encumbered with yolk, while the elevation of the blastoderm renders the processes, taking place therein as independent as in amphibians. Phrynosoma is, in fact, a connecting link in this respect between other reptiles and the axolotl, and thus with the mollusc Bithynia.

To the Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Zoologie (vol. Ixxxiv., part iii.) Mr. H. Schlichter communicates a paper on the electrical organs of the proboscis-fish (Mormveus oxyrhynchus) of the Nile, dealing specially with their histology, which has hitherto received little or no attention, although the organs themselves have been long known. Although situated in the tail, as in Torpedo and Raia, the electric organs of Mormyrus (which have but little power) have each plate composed of a whole bundle of modified muscular fibres instead of a single fibre, so that they must be regarded as representing the union of numerous electro-blasts. Special attention is devoted by the author to the manner in which the nerves supplying these organs terminate, and to the nature of such terminations. Another and longer article in the same issue by E. Rossbach, is devoted to the anatomy and developmental history of the "redia "-stages of the trematode worms infesting (in the above-mentioned stage) the pond-snails Paludina vivipara, Limnaea stagnalis, and certain other species of the same genus as the latter. The budding, degeneration, and regeneration phenomena of certain marine

ectoproctous Bryozoa form the subject of the third article, by Mr. O. Römer.

Is the Revue Scientifique (September 1) Dr. A. Calmette discusses the channels of entrance of the tubercle bacillus into the organism. The chief conclusion is that both in man and animals the tubercle virus usually gains access by the digestive tract, particularly the intestine.

THE Bio-Chemical Journal for September (vol. i., Nos. 8 and 9) has a number of important papers, including a study of the digestive gland in mollusca and crustacea, by Mr. H. E. Roaf; variations in the gastric hydrochloric acid in carcinoma, by Mr. F. W. Morton Palmer; an investigation of the staining act with eosin-methylene blue, by Dr. Wakelin Barratt; secretin in relation to diabetes mellitus, by Messrs. F. A. Bainbridge and A. P. Beddard; and further observations on the treatment of diabetes by acid extract of duodenal mucous membrane, by Prof. B. Moore, Mr. E. S. Edie, and Dr. J. H. Abram.

Is the opening article of the sixth number (July) of the Philippine Journal of Science, published at Manila, Mr. P. G. Woolley discusses the disabilities against which the serum-laboratory has had to contend in its crusade against rinderpest in the islands, one of these being the difficulty of procuring cattle sufficiently susceptible to the disease. As the investigations connected with the nature of the virus are only in their infancy, it will suffice to state that the results at present obtained are not in all ways in accord with previous theories. As the result of a preliminary survey of the Lobu Mountains, in the Batangas province, Mr. W. D. Smith is enabled to report the occurrence of post-Eocene strata containing the gastropod genus Vicarya, so widely distributed in the Indo-Malay countries. The remaining articles are devoted to the vegetation of the Lamao forest, a catalogue of Philippine Hymenoptera, with descriptions of new species, and notes on Mindoro birds.

AN extension of cotton cultivation is again recorded in the annual report for 1905-6 on the botanic station in Antigua, the crop being estimated at forty tons. A new variety, Centreville, received from the Department of Agriculture in the United States, and said to be immune to wilt, was grown experimentally; the yield was good, but the staple proved to be irregular. An experiment is being fostered by the curator, Mr. T. Jackson, to grow broom corn with the object of manufacturing brooms to supply local requirements.

In an article on Antarctic botany, printed in the Scottish Geographical Magazine (September), Mr. R. N. R. Brown discusses our present knowledge and future problems. Only two flowering plants have been collected in the Antarctic regions as compared with about 400 species from Arctic countries, but the lichens and algæ are better represented, and fifty mosses have been recorded. Seeing that the mean summer temperature never rises to 32° F., the vegetation is richer than would be expected. Much still remains to be done in collecting, especially from the Pacific and Indian sides, to obtain data that may throw light on the former configuration of land and water.

In the annual report for 1905-6 on the botanic station and experimental plots in St. Kitts, the curator, Mr. F. R. Shepherd, notes that a number of cacao and rubber plants have been distributed, the latter being principally specimens of Castilloa elastica; a first consignment of Hevea plants was received during the year. The crops grown on the experimental plots included sweet potatoes, cassava,

yams, onions, and cotton. The cotton exports from St. Kitts, Nevis, and Anguilla, amounting to 120 tons of lint, showed a very large increase over the preceding year. A trial was made in St. Kitts of growing wrapper tobacco under shade and Sumatra tobacco in the open; as this was a first attempt, the curing presented difficulties that might be avoided in the future.

WE have received a short pamphlet referring to the preservation of a portion of the primeval forest, known as Riccarton Bush, that still exists on the Canterbury Plains in New Zealand, about two miles from Christchurch. The pamphlet gives some details as to the indigenous and rare plants growing there, and contains a list of the flowering plants and ferns. The dominant tree is the kahikatea, Podocarpus dacryoides, but there are large specimens of two other species of Podocarpus and two species of Elæocarpus. There are also found the urticaceous milk-tree Paratrophis heterophylla, a Pseudopanax with protean foliage, the pepper tree, Drimys colorata, and other specialities. The acquisition of forest land containing so many unique specimens merits the consideration, not only of the citizens of Christchurch, but of the inhabitants of formed to raise the necessary funds, and the Government New Zealand generally. An influential committee has been of New Zealand has promised a vote of about one-fifth of the sum required.

A MEMOIR of the Geological Survey on the water supply of the East Riding of Yorkshire, by Mr. C. Fox-Strangways and Dr. H. R. Mill, has just been published by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries. The memoir contains an outline of the geology of the East Riding and of portions of the vales of York and Pickering, with especial reference to the water-bearing strata. It includes records of all known sinkings and borings in the area, together with analyses of waters and a bibliography. There is also a section on the rainfall, with a colour-printed map. Copies may be obtained from any agents for the sale of Ordnance Survey maps, or directly, or through any bookseller, from the Ordnance Survey Office, Southampton, price 38.

THE latest addition to the series of reports designed by the Geological Survey to describe the mining centres of Western Australia is a report (Bulletin No. 22, Perth, 1906) by Mr. H. P. Woodward on the auriferous deposits and mines of Menzies, North Coolgardie goldfield. It covers ninety-two pages, and is accompanied by two maps and six plates of sections. The area embraced covers about fifty square miles, and consists of a complex series of basic rocks through which have been intruded a series of acidic dykes. The quartz veins, which are confined to the greenstones, are of various types, most of the gold having been obtained from segregation veins of lenticular form. From the area described there have been produced 403,787 ounces of gold, derived from the treatment of 348,967 tons of quartz. The deepest mine in Menzies, the Menzies Consolidated Gold Mine, has yielded 65,875 ounces from 99,371 tons of quartz. The vein in this case is clearly of the true fissure type.

THE standardisation of error is a difficult problem to which the attention of the Engineering Standards Committee has been directed. Much has been written on the limits of error, but no attempt has hitherto been made to deal with the subject in the exhaustive manner that it is treated in reports No. 25 (London: Crosby Lockwood and Son, price 10s. 6d. net) and No. 27 (price 2s. 6d. net), issued by sectional committees of the Engineering Standards Com

mittee.

Report No. 25 deals with errors in workmanship, based on measurements carried out for the committee by the National Physical Laboratory. In order to assist them in the formulation of a system for limit gauges, the committee, in addition to collecting evidence from both manufacturers and users, carried out a comprehensive series of measurements on actual work, and a record of these measurements is contained in report No. 25, but no system of limits is laid down therein, the recommendations being contained in report No. 27, which deals with British standard systems for limit gauges (running fits). The measurements were carried out on a number of plain cylindrical shafts and holes from 2 inches to 12 inches in diameter. The recommendations based on these measurements deal with running fits, and cover diameters of inch up to 12 inches. It is proposed that the allowance for a running fit shall be made in the hole, and not on the shaft. The standard tolerances and allowances are clearly shown graphically and in tabular form. Four grades of work are provided for, the highest being intended for special cases in which extreme accuracy is necessary. The reports should be carefully studied by all mechanical engineers, and it is to be hoped that the committee will carry its investigations still further, and ascertain whether it is possible to draw up recommendations for standardising driving fits.

A PAPER by Mr. Wilkinson in the current number of the Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, on waste in incandescent lighting, is of particular interest in view of the recent recommendations of the standardising committee in connection with incandescent lamps. Mr. Wilkinson deals very fully with the question, and gives examples of waste due to various causes, and suggests remedies to counteract them. The need for local laboratories and standardising of the pressure of supply is very strongly insisted upon, and several pressure charts are given which show how irregular the pressure regulation is at various supply stations. Automatic regulators in the generating stations are the author's solution of the latter difficulty, the benefit of which has already been proved at Harrogate, where they are installed. Mr. Wilkinson also finds that "local control" of lamps to be used on the supply mains is effective in ensuring that the lamps supplied by the manufacturers are up to specification, and at the same time leaves the contractors the benefit of the trade in lamps.

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MR. F. HOWARD COLLINS has sent us a specimen of the 360° Mariners' Compass Card," designed and registered by him. There is nothing new in the idea of marking by degrees, it having been suggested for use in ships of H.M. Navy so far back as about 1896. But though the plan is a good one, the great difficulty is to get it made universal. Ships nowadays generally do steer by degrees, but the card is marked from N. and S. 90° each way to E. and W. Thus a ship would steer N. 80° W. present style, new style 280°, which would convey very little to a poorlyeducated sailor man. As regards compasses in use ashore for surveying and similar purposes, they have been marked to 360° for a very long time; and the only other markings on the card are the cardinal points, the method of recording being similar to that suggested. The system has much to commend it, and if it could only get generally known there is no doubt its advantages would in time lead to its adoption throughout the fleets of the world.

THE development of certain species of moulds, such as Penicillium and Aspergillus, is shown by B. Gosio in the

Atti dei Lincei (vol. xxv., ii., p. 59) to be accompanied by the transformation of carbohydrate into phenolic derivatives containing a closed carbon chain. In certain cases coumarin and its derivatives seem to be formed, which show characteristic colour reactions with alkalis and with ferric chloride. The production of such substances, it is suggested, may prove a valuable means of detecting changes in maize caused by parasitic agency, and a method of diagnosis in cases of pellagra, which is generally regarded as due to the toxic action of substances elaborated in maize owing to the development on it of certain fungi.

search.

We have received a copy of vol. xix. of the annual reports on the advancements of pharmaceutical chemistry and therapeutics, issued by Messrs. E. Merck, of Darmstadt. The work comprises 260 pages of information of a character sufficiently defined by the title, and supplies a really valuable summary of recent pharmacological reEach substance is dealt with under the heading of its name, the names of the drugs being arranged alphabetically. A useful index of diseases and symptoms is appended as a guide to the appropriate drugs for their The fact that particulars are given of the chemical nature and properties of new drugs which have been put on the market with fancy names makes the report valuable, not only to the medical man, but to the chemist. The work is sent free to medical men and others interested in pharmacology or therapeutics on application at Messrs. Merck's London office, 16 Jewry Street, E.C.

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IN No. 85 of the Communications from the Physical Laboratory of the Leyden University Prof. H. Kamerlingh Onnes and Dr. W. Heuse describe some experiments made on the coefficient of expansion at low temperatures of Jena and of Thüringen glass. An ordinary dilatometer method was employed, the temperature of the rods of glass. which were about I metre long, being measured by an appropriate platinum-resistance method, accepting for this platinum the relation between resistance and temperature obtained in experiments described in Communication No. 77, R, R, (1+0.0038641-000001031). The steady. low temperatures were obtained by means of liquid gases contained in an ingeniously constructed vacuum vessel open at both ends, into the outer wall of which was sealed about the middle point a kind of "aneroid box," to take up the strains due to the very different expansion of the outer and inner glass tubes. The results of the experiments gave for the range 182° C. to +16° C. the following values of the coefficients in the ordinary formula for linear dilatation, L, L,(1+at+Bt2) :

:

For Jena glass 16", a=774X10-6, and B=0·00882 x 10** For Thüringen glass, a=9.15 x 10-", and B=0-0119 x 10-* The authors seem unaware of the experiments by Dr. Travers on the same subject, and their result gives for mean expansion of ordinary glass a value considerably greater than that found by him.

AMONG the articles in the current number of the Monthly Review are two dealing with scientific subjects. M Henryk Arctowski deals with polar problems and the international organisation for their solution. He first directs attention to the conference held on September 7 in Brussels, when the three questions it is suggested might be solved by international cooperation were discussed, viz. the problem of the North Pole, the geographical problems of the Antarctic regions, and the scientific problems necessitating simultaneous expeditions and universal cooperation M. Arctowski gives a brief historical sketch of polar re

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