German air-nitrate factories are situated. A process has been discovered by which nearly twice the usual amount of ozokerite can be obtained from lignite, and the gas is being more extensively used for heating and smelting purposes.
Nature reports that one of the great captains of industry of Scotland has specially
organized and equipped an engineering factory for the employment exclusively of educated women of good social standing instead of the usual woman factory worker, and with the fixed determination to carry on operations permanently under those conditions, the work to be taken up being that associated with the manufacture of internal-combustion motors. There is a fully illustrated account of the new factory in Engineering for November 9, from which it appears that it has some of the salient feature of a technical college combined with practical work in the factory, which gives that stimulus to study not realizable in the laboratory of a college. The factory is situated in the south of Scotland amidst beautiful scenery, so that students of botany and of wild-life generally can have full opportunity of pursuing their hobby. All the accessories which are now placed under the wide term "welfare" have been adopted to the fullest extent. Highly trained lecturers conduct classes at the works; these are compulsory. Entrants receive 20s. per week during the probationary period of six weeks; they then decide whether or not they intend to pursue the engineering career. If such be the case, and they are considered suitable, an apprenticeship agreement is entered into, and the wages become 25s. per week. Examinations are held at six months' intervals, and each "pass" means an increase of 5s. per week. It is evident that the whole scheme provides for women the opportunity of prosecuting an engineering career under the most favorable and stimulating conditions, and that the conditions are those best calculated for women of good education and social standing to attain a broad experience of engineering science and practise.
We learn from the British Medical Journal that the Army Council has issued an instruction providing that students who at the time of their enlistment (whether they enlisted voluntarily or were called up under the military service acts) were actively engaged in medical studies and had completed the second year of their professional course, are, if eligible, and they so desire, to be transferred to
the reserve, or discharged if ineligible for transfer to the reserve, for the purpose of resuming their studies with a view to obtaining a medical qualification. For the purpose of this instruction a man who had on or before enlistment completed two years of medical study, and who can within thirty-six months complete his professional curriculum and obtain his medical degree or license, is to be regarded as a third-year medical student. Students who do not pass the professional examination in anatomy and physiology within six months of resuming study will be recalled to the colors, and a student transferred to the reserve, unless he resumes his medical studies and enrolls in an Officers' Training Corps, will be recalled. Any third-year medical student who is desirous of being released from the colors under this instruction must apply through the usual channels, stating the date on which he desires to be released, and that he undertakes to resume his studies with a view to obtaining a medical qualification. A similar difficulty is being met in a different way in France. Owing to the prolongation of the war the supply of newly qualified men is drying up; casualties among medical officers have been numerous, the medical service in this respect coming next after the infantry. The French mobilization scheme provided that a medical student in a certain stage of the curriculum, reached usually at the end of the second year, should, when called up, be appointed médecin auxiliaire, a grade unknown in the Britsh army, but corresponding with that of surgeon probationer in the Royal Navy, which itself is the revival of the old grade of surgeon's mate. The case of medical students who have not advanced so far has recently engaged the attention of the Ministers of War and of Education, and of the General Staff, with the result that arrangements have been
