POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



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section in iiis department, devoted to work 

 of that character. 



The British Association,— The British 

 Association met at Aberdeen, Scotland, Sep- 

 tember 9th, and was opened by the presi- 

 dent for the year, Sir Lyon Playfair, with 

 an address which we publish in the present 

 number of the Monthly. Among the more 

 noteworthy papers presented were the vice- 

 presidential addresses of Professor H. E. 

 Armstrong, on more efficient methods of 

 teaching chemistry ; of Professor Judd, in 

 the Geological Section, on some unsolved 

 problems of Highland geology; of Mr. B. 

 Baker, of the Mechanical Section, calling 

 attention to deficiencies in bridge construc- 

 tion ; of Mr. Galton, in the Anthropological 

 Section, on " Types and their Inheritance" ; 

 and of Professor Sidgwick, of the Section 

 of Economical Science and .Statistics. In 

 the last section Professor Leone Levi read 

 an elaborate paper on "The Alleged De- 

 pression of Trade; its Causes and Reme- 

 dies." 



New Problems in Chemistry. — In his 



address as Vice-President of the Chemical 

 Section of the British Association, Pro- 

 fessor II. B. Armstrong criticised the way 

 in which the science is taught in the schools, 

 and insisted upon the importance of giving 

 more prominence to research by the stu- 

 dents, and of cultivating in them the spirit 

 of original investigation. They must not 

 mCTely be taught the principles and main 

 facta of the science, but must be shown 

 how the knowledge of those facts and prin- 

 ciples has been gained, and must be so 

 drilled as to have complete command of 

 their knowledge. Chemistry was no longer 

 a purely descriptive science. The study of 

 carbon compounds and Mendelejeff's gener- 

 alization had produced a complete revolu- 

 tion. The faults in the present system of 

 teaching were precisely those which had 

 characterized the teaching of geography 

 and history, and which were now becoming 

 80 generally recognized and condemned. 

 Both in teaching and examining two im- 

 portant changes ought to be made. The 

 students ought at the very beginning of 

 their career to become familiar with the 

 use of the balance; and the imaginary dis- 



tinction between so-called inorganic and or- 

 ganic compounds should be altogether aban- 

 doned. Touching on the progress that had 

 been made in chemical theory. Professor 

 Armstrong mentioned the change which 

 had taken place in views concerning chemi- 

 cal action. Hitherto it appeared to have 

 been commonly assumed and almost univer- 

 sally thought by chemists that action took 

 place directly between A and B, producing 

 AB, or between AB and CD, producing 

 A C and B D. In studying the chemistry of 

 carbon compounds, they became acquainted 

 with a large number of instances in which a 

 more or less minute quantity of a substance 

 was capable of inducing change or changes 

 in the body or bodies with which it was as- 

 sociated without apparently itself being al- 

 tered ; but so little had been done to ascer- 

 tain the influence of the contact-substance, 

 or catalyst, as he would term it, that its im- 

 portance was not duly appreciated. Recent 

 discoveries, however, must have given a 

 rude shock, from which it could never re- 

 cover, to the belief in the assumed simpUci- 

 ty of chemical change. Then, after consid- 

 ering briefly some questions of the relations 

 of chemical and electrical action. Professor 

 Armstrong went on : Complaints are not 

 unfrequently made that a large proportion 

 of published work is of little value, and 

 that chemists are devoting themselves too 

 exclusively to the study of carbon com- 

 pounds, and especially of synthetic chemis- 

 try; that investigation is running too much 

 in a few grooves, and that we are gross 

 worshipers of formulae. But the attention 

 paid to the study of carbon compounds may 

 be more than justified, both by reference 

 to the results obtained and to the nature of 

 the work before us. " The inorganic king- 

 dom refuses any longer to yield up her se- 

 crets — new elements — except after severe 

 compulsion. The organic kingdom, both 

 animal and vegetable, stands ever ready be- 

 fore us. Little wonder, then, if problems 

 directly bearing upon life prove the more 

 attractive to the living. The physiologist 

 complains that probably ninety-five per cent 

 of the solid matters of living structures are 

 pure unknowns to us, and that the funda- 

 mental chemical changes which occur dur- 

 ing life are entirely enshrouded in mystery. 

 It is in order that this mav no longer be the 



