NATURE 



[.\I 



\V 4. M)I I 



'•■ Adnm do*** not go fnMf-r now than 



■y mill «. ;n, .1 :,:. \ .say» he 



should iik' '«> go 6. 



' >•'" -' ., i... .uiy prac- 



It 1 can keep up 



ihifikiof* nb^urd, hut 



ling /n'lic 

 Parii.'Mii' II 

 sppcd • 

 agror 



on wiih -. 



■ ind thf 



Ico ;inv 



, d limit 



that is, the 



the speed of 



till luir-. 

 most p- 

 limit, ! 



a dailv 1 idp 



ih( Instiiution of Mechanical Engineers, and 

 1» ■ n brout^'^lit up to date, how the speedier 

 v'iiiil' ;- 1' adiiiL; to the disappearance of 



lommittee, arguments of Mr. i 



Mni, tliK v II' Liverpool and Man- i 



' jority of 19 to 13. In order to 



; as were general, the following 



the great journal of the day. The 



<-an be more palpably absurd and 



ill! i .^ (>rospect held out of locomotives travel- 



(C jast ,i.v stage coaches? .... We trust that 



'• v.'ll. :■! all raihva\s it mav sanction, limit the 



' hirh we entirely 

 i .i!i be ventured 

 itvty." 

 I.\i n ill inorc recent li 

 road lindiiiofion question imii'ii im <iiic- , 

 support*'!- of ihr \\i\v dcp.ntiirc wcrr ini. 

 headway for inan\ xcn-., jiartlv liccaus' 

 \\M'' I'lil at hriwfiii ; jinij .) luilc- an hour 

 hiiiil iif a waliiini,'' 111. in. A fi\v xirirs ai^o 

 12 miles an hour whicli. aftir a ijnat strufjfjle, was 

 ohl.iiiicd, >^:\\i- place lo .'o miles ;m liour. \nu ran sec 

 from the (liaLjrams whirh Mr. Legros gave in a recent 



paper hefoi 

 wliich ha\i 



If-prop.ll, d veil!, I.- ; 



■ ..•■\ rate in London, and the difficulty which 

 to feel is not how to get above the speed 

 ' keep within it, and the papers show, bv 

 ■^ad examples, how only too painfully easy 

 it is not to do so. 



Xothint; points more rienrly to wh.nt I have indicated as 

 the hasi^ of our insiinctive desire for speed, as the fact 

 that (uir measure of speed is entirely relative. Thus 

 Oil miles an hour would be a slow ?:peed for a motor-car on 

 a rai ini,' track, as seen by the speeds of the motor races 

 at [Mooklands last Saturday (.April 2:;th), but this speed, 

 whi( h would be even quite good along the open road to 

 nri;^hton, would he considered decidedly on the high side 

 for motoring aloni;- the Str;ind. Our ideas of what is 

 slow and what is fast are largelv derived from habit, and 

 |)ariicnlarlv from surrounding- (-onditions and from our 

 niode (if estimation. For instaiK e. \\-i' have been carried 

 in this hall during the last hour with the surface of 

 the_ earth round its axis a distance of about 600 miles. 

 This speed would require a line on our speed chart 

 about as liirjh as the donv of the hall to represent 

 It graph'. ,i!!v. Rut if we judge the speed from observ- 

 "' "'^ rate of motion of the moon and 



^ ''"■■'^ could never realise this. Far less 



roulil W' 1-. alive by the change in the seasons the speed 

 at which we are travelling with the earth round the sun, 

 accompli-^hing a distance, as we do. of ^40 million miles 

 in 365; d^ivs, wliich represents, roughlv, a distance of 

 60,000 mHes per hour. We have thus travelled together, 

 since we came into this hall, n speed of 60.000 miles'. The 

 line required on our chart for this speed would he about as 

 hifh as St. Paul's Cathedral. Rut these speeds fall far 

 short of those of certain heavenlv bodies with which we 

 are familiar, such as the meteors, some of which are 

 travelling at 160,000 miles an hour, and the recent comet, 

 which nrobablv exceeded this speed one part of its journey 

 round the sun ; whereas the fastest spe^d which man has, 

 up to the pres-nt, been able to produce, even in a pro- 

 T'k^^ t?^'"*^""^^ ^° between 2000 and 3000 miles an hour 

 (the Krupp 10-7 centimetre having a velocitv of 3201 

 metres per second, and a 6-inch Vickers, -,100 metres^ per 

 second). The highest projectile speeds we have attained 

 are thus onlv about one-tenth of the speed at which Jules 

 Verne fired M. Barbicnne and his friends off, in order to 

 overcome the earth's crravitv and reach the moon, since the 

 speed he required was 12,000 vards per second, or 24,000 

 miles per hour. Such an idea we are quite justified in 

 NO. 2166, VOL. 86] 



ise it cost I'hi 

 rvant roun<i i 



of Messrs. Cooi 



inyone present < 



i. with 



ivoriu 111 i-,!^iuy iJays. 



10,000/. to take htm«elf 



a . Itihtv days. A tele- 



.0 ago elicited 



■^rrow morntnji 



servant, in less than haft 



less than one-fiftieth of the above 



:i, impelled by instinct, man will ever con- 

 I o ini rease his speeds of travelling, and with 

 hinery and invention doubtless 

 uiay be safely said that, notwith- 

 standing the still increasing upward angle on some of the 

 speed lines of the charts I have shown to-night, this rate of 

 increase will before long begin to take place at a con-- 

 tinually diminishing rate. .Such feats as the journey from 

 Pari- to London within the hour may be regarded as quite 

 'ng proposition in the future, though 

 ! used for the purpose, without the 

 ' ; 1 and with a modification of the 



p! 11 ■! great genius Brunell. We sbouW, 



houe\. r, in Momf; ims journey, be only travelling at half 

 the r.iie we are actually moving at this spot round th*" 

 e.irili's .i\is, while to do it at the rate we are travelling 

 round the sun. ue --hould onlv ocrupv a quarter of a 

 minute. Tie.; latter spe.d. nparf 'v<'[r. the fact that it is 

 g'tti' n-.-ir th« -ich meteors fuse 



with la of the ahere, seems to be 



quite .iai-:.|. the limit oi Tie pii":tMlities of artificial 

 io.dinotion liy man, but who can tell how far we shall 

 go towards it ! 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Ca.mbridge. — It is proposed to confer the degree of 

 Doctor of Science, honoris causa, upon Dr. T. W. 

 Richards, professor of chemistry in the University of 

 Harvard. 



On Thursday, May 11, a Grace will be offered to the 

 Senate proposing that the Most Reverend St. C. G. A. 

 Donaldson, D.D., of Trinity College, Lord Archbishop of 

 Brisbane, be appointed as the representative of the Uni- 

 versity at the inaugural ceremony of the Queensland 

 University to be held at Brisbane on June i. 



The special board for biology and geology has 

 nominated Mr. E. S. Goodrich, fellow of .Merton College, 

 Oxford, to use the University table at Naples for one 

 month. 



-Mr. A. R. Hinks will deliver a lecture on Monday, 

 May 8, at 2.30 p.m., on " Recent Prepress in the Measure- 

 ment of the Earth." 



On Friday, April 28, a meetir nity 



College to consider the formation Ini- 



versity Eugenics Society to promote ilie study of heredity 

 in its bearings on racial and social questions. The Dean 

 r' "-v T^aul's presided. It was resolved to form such a 

 nd the following officers were elected: — Presto 

 :. f. Seward, F.R.S. : council, thp Rev. the Presi- 

 dent of Queens', Mr. Horace Darwin, Prof. Punnett. Mr. 

 L. Doncaster, Mr. \V. C. D. Whethn- . Mr. T. M. Krvnes, 

 M-. K A. Fisher, Mr. C. S. S- ^vne, 



M- <.. K. M. MacMullan, and Mr. 



Oxford. — The Halley Lecture for luii w;ll be doHvered 

 in the examination schools on Monday, May 22, at 

 S.30 p.m., by Prof. H. H. Turner, F.R.S., the Savilian 

 professor of astronomy. Subject : — " The Movements of the 

 Stars.*' 



A ooi_-RSE of eight lectures will be delivered by Dr. 

 W. M. Bayliss, F.R.S., on " The Mechanism of Oxida- 

 tion in Plants and Animals," at University- College, on 

 Fridays at 4.30 p.m., beginning on May 5. These lec- 

 tures are open free to all internal students of the Uni- 

 versity of London and to curb other persons as are specially 

 admitted. 



Dr. H. N. All o> k i.:;- ■ -en appointed to the chair of 

 physiology in McGill University. Montreal, Canada. Dr. 

 Alcock holds at present the post of lecturer on physiology 



