LABORATORY ENDOWMENT. 729 



be now rapidly twisted by the thumbs and forefingers of both hands, 

 the key wiil assume an horizontal position, and the string revolve in 

 the form of a cone. 



The friction of the jet must, therefore, tend to rotate a ball on an 

 axis at right angles to the path of the jet, and, if this axis is not the 

 shortest one passing through its centre of gravity, several oscillations, 

 back and forth, must occur before the necessary adjustment is made. 



When two balls of different densities are sustained by the same 

 jet, it seems plain that each is sustained by the pressure of the air on 

 the side opposite to the contact of the jet, for it is evident that, farther 

 from the orifice, the jet has less power to displace the atmospheric 

 pressure, and at that point the lighter ball only can be sustained. 



In its rapid revolutions in such a jet of air as we have described, 

 a light and hollow India-rubber ball affords a beautiful illustration of 

 the flattening of the earth's poles by its revolutions on a free axis. 







LABORATORY ENDOWMENT. 



By F. W. CLAEKE, 



PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI. 



THE advancement of science is at once a glory and a disgrace to 

 our modern civilization. It is glorious that so much has been 

 done, but disgraceful that the public should be so often indifferent to 

 the doing. In view of the benefits derived from scientific research, 

 it would seem as if governments and communities ought to vie with 

 one another in its encouragement. But, as a matter of fact, this assist- 

 ance has in every country been unsystematic, meagre, partial, and 

 infrequent. A museum may be equipped, perhaps, an exploring 

 expedition fitted out, a geological survey established, or a party of 

 astronomers sent forth to observe an eclipse or transit. Even these 

 things are too often done grudgingly, and on a basis of false econ- 

 omy. Physics and chemistry, the two sciences most immediately 

 bound up with modern progress, have received little or no public aid. 

 No laboratory exclusively for research has yet been endowed either 

 by national or private enterprise. Colleges enough have been 

 founded, with laboratories more or less fitted for the work of routine 

 instruction ; but these are manifestly unsuited to the production of 

 remarkably far-reaching results. Every great industry in America 

 has been directly benefited either by one or the other of the two sci- 

 ences in question ; fortunes have been made from practical applica- 

 tions of their principles, and yet scarcely anything has been done for 

 them in return. It would seem as if our manufacturers expected to 

 get applications of science without any science to apply. Nearly all 



