ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



tinctly showed the dual nature of the air. He 

 detected the existence of what we call oxygen in 

 the air, and demonstrated some of its most 

 remarkable properties. The Oxford School 

 of Chemistry was a school of research. Boyle 

 gave no instruction and had no official connec- 

 tion with the university. Notwithstanding his 

 devout ness and his charity, his work was at- 

 tacked in the university pulpit, in public ora- 

 tions, in private squibs; his theories were de- 

 scribed as destructive of religion, his experiments 

 jis undermining the university. Chemistry in 

 inodern Oxford is accorded place side by side 

 with older studies, but I believe we have made 

 two mistakes with regard to the teaching of s t ci- 

 ence we have by our science scholarships en- 

 couraged too earfy specialization at school, and 

 we have overburdened our undergraduates with 

 a multitude of facts. We teach too many facts. 

 Finally, we want men trained not only in what 

 has been done, but taught how to be set about 

 winning new knowledge. The universities, I 

 urge, should teach the art of research. 



The following-named papers were among those 

 read before this section : 



" The Proportions of Carbonic Acid in Air which 

 tire extinctive to Flame, and which are irrespirable," 

 by Frank Clowes; "'Demonstration of the Properties 

 of Hydroxylamine," by Lobry de Bruyn; "The 

 Chemical Action of a New Bacterium in Milk," by 

 Alexander Bernstein; "Behavior of Gases with re- 

 gard to their Electrification," by J. J. Thomson ; 

 u Experiments on the Influence of Moisture on Chem- 

 ical Substances," by II. Brereton Baker ; " The Eate 

 of Oxidation of Phosphorus, Sulphur, and Alde- 

 hyde," by T. Ewan ; " New Methods of Spectrum 

 Analysis, and on Bessemer Flame Spectra," by W. 

 N. Hartley ; " The Chemistry of Coal Formation," by 

 J. W. Thomas; "The Iodine Value of Sunlight in 

 the High Alps," by S. Rideal. The special paper pre- 

 sented "at this meeting was one by Lord Rayleigh 

 and Prof. William Ramsay, announcing their dis- 

 covery of a new gas, procured by exposing nitrogen 

 obtained from the air to the action of magnesium. 

 This substance constitutes 1 per cent, of the atmos- 

 phere, and gives a spectrum with a single blue line 

 much more intense than the corresponding blue line 

 in the nitrogen spectrum; " Schuler's Yellow Modifi- 

 cation of Arsenic," by Herbert McLeod ; " Experi- 

 ments on the Electrolysis of Glass," by William C. 

 Roberts- Austen ; " Experiments on the Relations be- 

 tween the Viscosity of Liquids and their Chemical 

 Nature," by James W. Rodger; "Some Experiments 

 on the Rate of Progress of Chemical Change," by 

 John H. Gladstone ; " A New r and Delicate Method 

 for determining the Freezing Points of very Dilute 

 Solutions," by Percy B. Lewis ; " An Apparatus for 

 measuring the Color Tint of Dilute Solutions," by W. 

 W. Randall ; " On the Distinction between Compounds 

 and Homogeneous Mixtures," by Philip Hartog; 

 w New Evidence as to the Atomic W eight of Carbon," 

 by G. A. Wanklyn ; " A Simple Form of Apparatus 

 for determining Carbonic Acid in the Air " and " The 

 Constitution of the Acid Amides," by J. B. Cohen; 

 "Certain Phenomena of Equilibrium during the 

 Evaporation of Salt Solutions," by W. Meyerhoffer; 

 " The Diffusion of very Dilute Solutions of Chlorine 

 and Iodine," by A. P.'Laurie ; " On Dinitroso-deriv- 

 atives of the Aromatic Series " and " On the Forma- 

 tion of Indazoles from Diazo-compounds," by E. 

 Noelting : " A Method of obtaining a New Rhoda- 

 mine," by Dr. Caro ; " Investigations on Tautomerism," 

 by J. W. Bruhl: and "On Tetrarsenites," by G. G. 

 Henderson and A. R. Ewing. The following re- 

 ports were presented : " Report of the Committee on 

 an International Standard for the Analysis of Iron 

 and Steel " ; " Report of the Committee on Electrolytic 



Methods of Quantitative Analysis " ; ' Report of the 

 Committee on the Action of Light on Dyed Colors"; 

 and " Report of the Committee on loomeric Naphtha- 

 lene Derivatives." 



C. Geology. Mr. Lazarus Fletcher, keeper of 

 minerals in the Natural History Museum, South 

 Kensington, presided over this section. His ad- 

 dress was a summary of the important results 

 obtained in mineralogy since 1832 ; also he con- 

 trasted the encouragement given to the study of 

 mineralogy abroad with its neglect in England. 

 He said that with the exception of the year 1862, 

 when Prof. William H. Miller occupied the chair, 

 no mineralogist had presided over the section 

 since 1832, when Dr. William Whewell, then 

 Professor of Mineralogy in Cambridge, was in- 

 vited to draw up a report on the state of knowl- 

 edge of the science, which report was published 

 a year later. It was therefore desirable to con- 

 sider the advances made in pure mineralogy 

 since that time. The special topics then taken 

 up one by one and discussed included : The sys- 

 tems of crystallization; crystallographic nota- 

 tion ; rationality of indices and the law of zones ; 

 symmetry; 32 types of symmetry in crystals; 

 simplicity of indices; complexity of indices; op- 

 tical characters ; optical anomalies ; planes of 

 gliding ; piezo-electricity ; pyro-electricity ; elec- 

 trical methods; and other physical characters. 

 Brief mention was made of the increase of knowl- 

 edge of the chemical relations of minerals, in 

 which reference was made of the work done on 

 the topaz by Prof. Samuel L. Penfield, of Yale 

 University. The history of the development of 

 instrumental appliances which have been placed 

 at the disposal of the mineralogist since the time 

 of Whewell was given. In concluding, he called 

 attention to the position of mineralogy in Ger- 

 many, where that science has been assiduously 

 cultivated since 1766, when the scientific training 

 of students in minerals was begun in Freiberg, 

 Saxony, under Werner. To-day the laboratories 

 and instruments available for the teaching of 

 practical work are in many cases notably in 

 Strasburg, Munich, Gottingen, and Berlin of 

 an elaborate character. Contrasting this situa- 

 tion with that at home, he said : ' In the univer- 

 sities of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland 

 there is a grand total of two professorships of 

 mineralogy one of them in Cambridge, the 

 other and younger one in Oxford. Further, the 

 stipends are as low as they can be made," being 

 300 in Cambridge and less in Oxford. In con- 

 clusion, he said : " I shall not have broken the 

 long silence in vain if I have made clear to you 

 that, though the science of mineralogy is itself 

 making great progress, we have hitherto given 

 too little encouragement to its study in our own 

 universities, and lag far behind both Germany 

 and France in the recognition of its importance." 



There were 43 papers read before this section, 

 among which were the following : 



" Points of Special Interest in the Geology of the 

 Neighborhood of Oxford," by A. H. Green ; On the 

 Terraced Hill Slopes of North Oxfordshire," by Ed- 

 win Walford; "On the Probable Range of the Coal 

 Measures in Oxfordshire '' and ." On Some Iron Ore 

 found in the Boring at Shakespeare Clitf's at Dover, ' 

 by W. Boyd Dawkins ; " The Cause of Earthquakes," 

 by Logan Lobley ; " On Volcanic Subsidences in the 

 North of Ireland," by Tempest Anderson ; " Some 

 Traces of Two Rivers of Tertiary Time in the Inner 



