will be entrusted to a committee of fifteen members, including the Vice-Chancellor, the rector of the Imperial College, and other members appointed as to a bare majority by the Senate, and as to the remainder by the governing body of the Imperial College. University and King's Colleges would each be represented by two of the appointees of the Senate, and three-fourths of the whole would consist of men of affairs and experts in the branches of technology dealt with. The income of the Imperial College and that available for the departments of engineering in University and King's Colleges would be at the disposal of this committee; and the annual budget of the committee would be submitted to the Senate, the governing body of the Imperial College, and the delegacies of King's and University Colleges.

Such, in very brief outline, and with many omissions, especially that of the important proposals with regard to medical education, is the scheme of the Commissioners, and they estimate that 99,000l. a year will be required to carry it into effect. They also consider that the headquarters of the University should be situate in Bloomsbury.

They have evidently done their best to meet the reasonable desires of all interests. The professors will have a freedom of teaching and testing their pupils which they have not enjoyed before. The internal students will be members of a more real and efficient teaching university. External candidates will probably have a better test than that to which they have been accustomed. These advantages must no doubt be purchased by some sacrifices in so far as they touch vested interests, but the whole scheme provides a much more satisfactory prospect both for internal and external students than that now in force.

RECENT HYDROGRAPHIC

INVESTIGATIONS.1

IN the first of the publications referred to below, Dr. Rolf Witting gives an account of the hydrographic observations-sea-temperaures, salinities, oxygen-contents, current and ice observations-made in the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland during the year 1911 by the Finnish hydrographers. The paper consists almost entirely of tables, and these are models of clear and orderly arrangement.

The second publication contains the hydroraphic data collected during the voyage to Spitsbergen, in 1910, of the Norwegian ship Farm. The observations are discussed by Drs. Helland-Hansen and Nansen, and deal chiefly with the distribution of the Atlantic current in the sea to the west of Spitsbergen. A considerable part of the paper is taken up with a

1 (1) Abhandlungen der finländischen hydrographischen-biologischen I'mersuchungen." No 10. Pp. 132+4 Taf. (Helsingfors. 1912.) () "The Sea West of Spitzbergen. The Oceanographic Observations of the Isachsen Spitzbergen Expedition in 1910." Vidensk. Skrifter. 1. Mar. Naturv. Klasse, No. 12. Pp. 89+6 plates. (Christiania, 1912) (4)Das Rodenwasser und die Abkühling des Meeres." Internat Revue Get. Hydrociologie . Hydrographic, Bd. v., Heft i. Pp. 42+12 figs. in erat. (Leipzig, 1912)

discussion of the errors of the hydrographers who had previously investigated the same area; but in addition to this the authors describe the gradual disappearance of the Atlantic current to the north-west of Spitsbergen, as this water becomes diluted by lighter arctic water flowing round the South Cape. There is a discussion of the parallelism in the annual variations in temperature of this Atlantic Spitsbergen current, and those of the Atlantic Norwegian stream. "Temperature anomalies" are compared-that is, the deviations, in each year, from the mean of a number of years. The variations in temperature of the Atlantic Spitsbergen stream are, then, roughly parallel to those of the Norwegian stream, if the former are compared with the latter of two years' previous date. That is, the water flowing to the north from the FaröeIceland channel takes about two years to travel from the latitude of 62° N. to that of about 78° N. The variations in temperature anomaly in the sea to the west of Spitsbergen are also parallel to the variations in the area of ice-free water in the Barentz Sea in May of the same year. The third paper is of considerable interest and importance. After indulging in a polemic with reference to the erring Swedish hydrographers, Dr. Nansen considers the mode of origin of the cold water occupying the basins of the North Atlantic and Norwegian seas. These watermasses are very homogeneous. At the bottom of the Norwegian Sea there is a salinity which varies only between 34'90 per cent. and 34'92 per cent., and thus requires very careful investigation in order to disclose differences of a real nature. The submarine Faröe-Iceland ridge divides the northern ocean into two masses with respect to the temperature of the bottom water: at a depth of about 1000-2000 mètres the water on the Atlantic side of the ridge has a temperature of about +2° C. to + 3° C.; on the Norwegian side the temperature of the sea-water at the same depth is about 0'5° C. to -0.8° C.

How does this cold and dense bottom water originate? It does not come from the southerlyflowing, cold polar currents, for this water is of low salinity, and in spite of its low temperature its density is less than that of the bottom Atlantic and Norwegian water, so that it cannot sink to near the sea-bottom. It does not proceed from melting ice, for water of such origin has also a very low salinity, and, notwithstanding its low temperature, its density is also low. The southerly-flowing polar currents, indeed, protect the underlying warmer water-masses from cooling, and melting ice has the same effect. In both cases the sea is covered with low-saline water which does not mix by convection with that beneath it. In order that a vertical circulation, accompanied by the formation of a cold bottom stratum of water, may occur, certain conditions. are necessary :-(1) The water at the surface of the sea must not be in rapid horizontal movement; the best conditions are those in the centre of an area possessing a cyclonic circulation.

(2) The surface water must be of approximately the same salinity as that of the sea bottom; if it has a much lower salinity, its density may not be increased by a reduction of temperature to an extent sufficient to set up convection movements reaching to the sea-bottom. (3) It must be cooled to a slightly lower temperature than that of the water at the sea-bottom, for its adiabatic contraction, by pressure, as it sinks, must warm it slightly; this may be the cause of the slight increase in the temperature of oceanic water as we approach great depths-an increase which has been attributed to the emission of heat by radio-active substances in the oceanic bottomdeposits. (4) The formation of ice on the seasurface may favour convection currents by raising the salinity of the superficial water; but this is not an important factor.

The cold bottom water of the North Atlantic Ocean originates in a restricted area of sea, outside the boundaries of the southerly-flowing polar current, and lying to the south-east of Greenland. Some of this water may also proceed from the surface of the Norwegian Sea after flowing over the Faröe-Iceland ridge.

Incidentally Dr. Nansen directs attention to the presence of Mediterranean water in the channel between Ireland and Rockall. This originates from warm and dense water flowing out as an intermediate current through the Straits of Gibraltar. The presence of this water in British seas was pointed out by Dickson in 1909 as the result of observations made in 1903 by Wolfenden. Dr. Nansen in 1909 referred to the methods of these observations as "so inaccurate as to be of little use." Nevertheless, he now adopts the conclusions drawn from them, without, however, referring to Dickson's prior discovery.

S

J. J.

SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTE FOR
MEDICAL RESEARCH.

OUTH AFRICA has decided to have an insti

tute for medical research on the same lines as the Pasteur Institute in Paris, the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine in London, or the Rockefeller Institute in New York. To this end a new building is now in process of erection in Johannesburg, and is expected to be complete in about twelve months.

A site has been provided by the Government, and we understand that the cost of building and equipping the new institute will be provided by the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association. The maintenance of the institution will be undertaken by the Government of South Africa and the association in equal shares.

A very satisfactory feature of the institute will be its close proximity to the largest hospital in South Africa, with which it is intended that it should work in conjunction. It will also be equipped with four wards for the purpose of treating patients, who will be the subject of special study.

From the present plans, the institute seems t be suitably arranged, and will be an imposin structure. It will comprise, in a main block, forming a two-storied quadrangle, the institute offices, experimental and observation hospital, animal house, mortuary, and director's house. Ample space is allowed here for future extension. Of this main block the northern and southern sides are prolonged eastwards and westwards to form two further quadrangles. These will contain the hos pital wards and research laboratories, also library, museum, and further laboratories. The building will carry as well a lecture theatre, basement work. shops and storage rooms, and a number of rooms for miscellaneous scientific purposes. A dome eighty feet in height will crown the building, and will carry a finial emblematic of the surrender by Death of his secret, and we understand that a second dome of equal magnitude is aspired to. Although we realise that an institute which is intended to render valuable service to the State should be housed in fashion suitable to the importance of the work it is to undertake, we sincerely hope that contemplation of the domes and the finial will not distract the attention of the authorities from the fact that the success of their scheme will essentially depend upon the personnel of the staff and the funds made available for scientific investigation.

The research work of the institute is, we understand, to be primarily directed towards the industrial diseases of the Transvaal, but all diseases will come under its scope. It is intended that research fellowships shall be available for medical men, in order that they may carry out special lines of investigation; also it is hoped that in the near future medical students will be enabled to undertake courses in pathology and bacteriology at the institute, of a character which can now only be attended in Europe.

Two appointments to the staff of the institute have already been made: the director of the insti tute will be Dr. Watkins Pitchford, and the statistician Dr. G. D. Maynard, both of whom have already accomplished sound work in connection with one or other of the public health organisations of the colonies now forming the

Dominion of South Africa.

EDUCATION OF THE AUDITORY
CENTRES.1

PROF MARAGE, who is well known as an

otologist and for his researches in physiological acoustics, has issued a small but suggestive pamphlet on what he terms the education of the auditory centres. It is known that there are cases in the clinique of the aurist where there is sensitiveness to even feeble noises while there is deafness to music and to speech. In others the patient may hear noises, music, and even speech sounds, but without any understanding of the meaning of the speech sounds. Prof. Marage

1 "Education et Rééducation des Centres auditifs." By Prof. Marage. Pp. 15. (Paris, 19 Rue Cambon.)

explains these facts on the supposition that the cause is not to be sought in the mechanism of the ear alone, but in the relation of this mechanism to different parts of the brain.

The paths by which nervous impulses, generated by a sonorous vibration, say, in the cochlea, are communicated to the brain, are very complicated, and come into anatomical connection with many nervous centres. Such centres may be considered as being of higher and lower orders, and the nervous impulses may pass from lower to higher, calling forth at each stage a particular sensation-say, that of a noise or of musical sensations until they reach the highest cerebral centres where there is the appreciation of all kinds of auditory sensations, such as noises, music, and speech.

Prof. Marage's method of stimulating the ear by his ingenious syren is well known. This instrument can transmit to the drumhead sonorous waves of a measured intensity (that is, the airpressure is measured), and the special quality of each vowel tone is produced by sending the waves of pressure through resonators moulded on the form of the mouth and throat cavities for each vowel. Thus, by using the syren methodically, the ear may be stimulated by tones that, as regards both intensity and quality, are natural to it, instead of tones produced by tuning-forks, or noises, or by spoken words. Thus the ear and the nerve centres may be put through a course of education, a kind of drill, in short, produced by the syren. The results are said to be very encouraging with cases of whole or partial deafmutism.

Prof. Marage also gives in this pamphlet copies of tracings of vowel-forms produced by this syren which are well worthy of study, but he does not mention how these beautiful photographs were obtained. The gist of the whole matter is that in attempting to explain auditory mechanisms, we must not confine our attention to the ear alone, but to the ear as associated with auditory nerve centres. The investigation, in short, becomes more and more complicated.

JOHN G. MCKENDRICK.

NATURAL HISTORY IN CEYLON.

SPOLIA ZEYLANICA is an excellent quarterly publication designed to promote a knowledge of the natural history of Ceylon and its surrounding seas. It was established by Prof. A. Willey (now at Montreal) some eight or nine years ago when he was director of the Colombo Museum, and has been kept up since with admirable skill and energy by his successor, Dr. Joseph Pearson, the present editor. The part for January, 1913, contains, along with several notes on land and fresh-water animals, three articles of special interest on pearl-oyster fisheries.

The first article, by Captain Legge, "Master Attendant" at Colombo and inspector of the pearl banks, is semi-popular, and is written rather from the navigator's and the historian's

point of view, containing notes and stories of fisheries and celebrated pearls. Here and there in Captain Legge's chatty account of his personal adventures on the pearl banks one comes on quite important observations, such as, when describing a walk in diving-dress over the sea-bottom:

Immediately I walked off the "paar" I was upon very loose sand, in waves like giant furrows in a ploughed field; whilst for quite two feet high above the ground there was sand in suspension. Here oysters are covered up, buried and destroyed immediately.

Yet some recent writers have argued that there can be no movement of the sand on the bottom, and that beds of oysters cannot be silted up by moving sand.

Captain Legge gives us an additional instance of the now well-known danger to beds of oysters from predatory elasmobranch fish, as follows:

At the inspection in November, 1902, I decided that a certain bed was quite the gem of those to be fished in March, 1903; the oysters were larger and older than any others I had inspected, and were very plentiful; however, as I was passing over this spot on my way back at the end of the inspection, I observed a very large shoal of rays in the vicinity. In the following March, about the second week of the fishery, I moved to this my pet bed of oysters, only, however, to be told by the divers that there were no living oysters there. I at once descended in the diving dress and found the bottom of the sea strewn with empty oyster shells, each valve turned nacre upwards and shining, giving a very curious effect, whilst each shell or valve was broken obviously by external pressure into three pieces. This could only have been done by the powerful jaws and teeth of the ray.

The second article is a well-considered, judicial account of the scientific work on the Ceylon pearl banks in the last decade, 1902 to 1912, by the editor, Dr. Pearson, director of the Colombo Museum and Government Marine Biologist. Dr. Pearson passes in review the scientific exploration of the pearl banks in 1902, the recommendations in Prof. Herdman's report to the Government, the formation of a financial syndicate in 1906 to take over a twenty years' lease of the fisheries at a large annual rental, their two highly profitable fisheries which cleared the ground of adult oysters, and then the subsequent failure of yield and resulting barren condition of the banks.

The various operations suggested and performed

are discussed, and the conclusion is reached that:

The work subsequent to Herdman's reports gives very little evidence that his recommendations have been carried out seriously.

Dr. Pearson brings together a good deal of argument in favour of the possibility of oysterbeds being buried and lost by movements of the sand, and he quotes some personal observations, made on the bottom by the inspector of pearl banks, such as:

What impressed me most was that the spots I dived on last March, which were then level rock, with a coating of 3 or 4 in. of sand, had now as much as a foot of sand in places. All over the sand was in fairly deep ridges, not so deep as the ridges of the

paar proper, but quite distinct from the appearance of the sea bottom last March.

The third "pearl-oyster " article, also by Dr. Pearson, is a report on the remarkable "windowpane oyster," Placuna placenta, in the great inland sea at Tamblegam, near Trincomalee; and other papers, by various authors, on fresh-water fishes, Oligochaetes, Termites, &c., all show that the investigation of the natural history of Ceylon is in capable hands, and bids fair soon to make the fauna and flora of that charming island better known than those of most other parts of the eastern tropics.

NOTES.

As we went to press last week a case was concluded in the course of which the methods of anti-vivisectionists were again exposed. A Swedish lady, Miss Lindaf-Hageby, brought an action against The Pall Mall Gazette and Dr. Saleeby for alleged libel published in The Pall Mall Gazette. The jury, after listening to sixteen days of talking, gave their verdict for the defendants, and the judge received their verdict with most emphatic and outspoken approval. It has all happened before. There comes an opportunity for legal action: the statements of anti-vivisectionists are brought to the test of evidence on oath; the whole thing is thrashed out in the Law Courts, and the inevitable verdict is given. The Pall Mall Gazette has done a great service to the nation by thus exposing, once more, the uncharitableness-to say the least --of anti-vivisectionists. The Research Defence Society, likewise, deserves the thanks of lovers of truth. We trust that the public will bear in mind the lesson of this case, and will treat with contempt the methods upon which the obscurantism of anti-vivisection thrives. A campaign which appeals to those who have been least fortunate in the matter of education, inflames passion, stirs up hatred, and delights in imputing evil to men who are devoting their lives to the increase of knowledge of diseases which afflict mankind, may not be stopped on its downward course by the verdict given last week, but the light which was thrown upon it in the course of the evidence will perhaps do something to scatter the thick darkness of prejudice which anti-vivisection requires for its existence.

THE Bill to consolidate and amend the law relating to ancient monuments was read a second time last Thursday in the House of Lords. Such a measure must necessarily be tentative, and Earl Beauchamp admitted that it was not ideal. But he claimed justly that it was a considerable step for the object in view, while in no way penalising owners or interfering with the rights of property. The same difficulties occur as in other branches of the movement to make the country a decentralised museum, both of antiquities and of natural history and scenery. But there are also special difficulties in the case of ancient monuments. The Marquess of Salisbury pointed out that consideration would have to be given to the resident owner of a historic house. The question might arise as to whether he could be precluded from throwing

two bedrooms into one. The case of cathedrals is peculiar, as Earl Curzon of Kedleston showed; the are not protected by a faculty, as churches are, h are the absolute property for the time being of the dean and chapter. Earl Beauchamp had not sen his way to include ecclesiastical buildings, but appears that the bishops would not object to the i clusion of cathedrals. The power of purchase by the State is eliminated from the Bill; full powers for Preservation Order are considered to render this urnecessary. The power of purchase is given to the local authorities, chiefly in view of the smaller mon ments of local interest. Here comes in the diffic of funds; even for small purchases there must be af increase of the rates. Meanwhile the larger morements seem to be unprotected. There is no do b that owners of great historic heirlooms do treat them as in trust for the nation. But the modern tender is to bring this spirit into the machinery of organisa. tion. The passing of such a Bill may be expected to react favourably on the connected questions of nature reserves and the endowment of science.

THE relation between insect-eating birds and the abundance or otherwise of insects, ticks, and other creatures which may act as hosts for organisms as ciated with various diseases, is known to every ti logist. A correspondence between Sir Harry Johrston and the chairman and secretary of the Plumage Committee and Textile Trade Section of the London Chamber of Commerce, published in The Times of Tuesday, April 29, deals with some points of this relationship, with particular reference to tsetse-flies mosquitoes, and other blood-sucking insects of Africa. Sir Harry Johnston points out that tsetse-flies of the genus Glossina are particularly abundant in all those parts of West and Central Africa where the plumage trade has done so much to lessen the numbers of the insect-eating birds-more especially white herons (egrets, large and small), ibises, rollers, bee-eaters, glossy starlings, drongo and "cuckoo" shrikes bishopfinches, and kingfishers. As remedial measures to prevent the disturbance of the balance of nature caused by the destruction of these birds, he suggests "that the secretary to the British Museum (Natural History) or the secretary to the Zoological Society, or perhaps the two jointly, should be asked to compile a list of species, genera, and perhaps families of birds which should be placed on the prohibited list. That is to say, that the skins or other trophies of such birds should be forbidden as an article of import inte Great Britain and Ireland and into all parts of the Empire of which the fiscal affairs are influenced by the Foreign and Colonial Offices; and that we should use our best endeavours with the Governments ci the self-governing portions of the British Empire to secure a like prohibition in their own Customs regula. tions."

In a letter to the Lord Mayor, the Prime Minister has announced the extent of the provision which the Government proposes to make for the dependents of Captain Scott and of those who so heroically lost their lives with him in the Antarctic. The Govern ment intends to ask Parliament to sanction a Special