454 



NATURE 



[Febkuakv I, 1912 



of the Imperial College are well aware how con- 

 siderably the equipment and buildings of the con- 

 stituent institutions have been supplemented. 



On Tuesday, January 30, the Bessemer Memorial 

 Committee formally handed over to the j^'overnors 

 of the Imperial Collef?e a costly plant for use in the 

 Royal School of Mines. Visitors to the institution on 

 that occasion will have fully realised the relation 

 which this gift must bear to the efficiency of the 

 School of Mines. The laboratory within which the 

 Ikssemer gift has been accommodated is one of the 

 numerous extensions now taking place at South Ken- 

 sington in connection with both the City and Guilds 

 (Knginccring) College and the Royal School of Mines. 

 The ore floor of the laboratory, which runs across 

 its east end, is 121 feet lonp by 30 broad, and is 

 continued as a 12-foot jjfallery along the south side, 

 and as a 6-foot gallery along the west end. Accom- 

 modation is afforded for nine ore bins of 10 tons 

 capacity each, with discharge-gates above the ground 

 floor to fill cars running on a line of track to the 

 elevator. A large dry crushing-room has been pro- 

 vided beneath the ore floor with an elevator passing 

 through it to a sizing-trommel and shaking-screen, 

 unother elevator passing up to a line of trommels 

 feeding four jigs on the concentration floor. There 

 is a Blake crusher at the northern end connected by 

 rails from the elevator, rails being also laid along 

 the south gallery to the furnace department at the 

 extreme west. 



We have here the complete equipment of the most 

 recent mining and metallurgical plant which has ever 

 been installed in an educational institution. But if 

 this plant were only designed for academic purposes 

 it would scarcely constitute a sufficient memorial to 

 Sir Henry Bessemer. It is gratifying, therefore, to 

 find that in consequence of representations made to 

 the governors by many practising mining engineers 

 and metallurgists, as well as by the Bessemer Memo- 

 rial Committee itself, the whole instalment of 

 machinery will be placed at the disposal of profes- 

 sional men for private research and investigation. 

 We cannot imagine anything more appropriate as a 

 memorial to Bessemer than this fact, which was 

 announced on the occasion of the donation. 



On behalf of the Bessemer Memorial Committee, 

 Colonel Sir Charles Allen formally handed over the 

 equipment to the governing body. In this connection 

 he referred specially to the appropriateness of the 

 memorial, both as regards the particular form it had 

 taken and its association with the Royal School of 

 Mines, and expressed his great satisfaction in that he 

 liad been selected by his colleagues, in the absence in 

 Egypt of Sir William Preece, the chairman of the 

 Bessemer Memorial Committee, formally to make the 

 presentation. Sir Charles further stated that as a 

 near relative and an intimate friend of the late Sir 

 Henry Bessemer he felt sure that the memorial could 

 not have taken a form which would have appealed 

 to him more, since he was very specially interested 

 in the educational training of the engineer. 



The Right Hon. Gerald W. Balfour, chairman of 

 the executive committee, accepted the gift of the 

 equipment on behalf of the governing body, associat- 

 ing especially those who are members of the com- 

 mittee, and who, in consequence, have been so inti- 

 mately concerned with the collection of the memorial, 

 in particular Sir William Preece, and also those others 

 who have contributed to the memorial and so enabled 

 the main ideas to be realised. He heard with the 

 greatest possible satisfaction that the committee 

 was not now to be dissolved, but that it hoped to 

 obtain sufficient funds to enable it to maintain the 

 first equipment and keep it in closest touch with in- 



NO. 2205, VOL. 88] 



dustrial requirements, and also to add to and extend 

 it from time to time as is found to be necessary. He 

 understoofJ that as a laboratory and as an equipment 

 it compared most favourably with anything of the 

 same kind in this or any other country, and went on 

 to state that this implied a corresponding obligation 

 on the governing body of the Imperial College to see 

 that it was put to the fullest and best possible use. 

 He hoped that in this respect the Royal School of 

 Mines would justify its former proud record and its 

 present objects as a part of the Imperial Coll- ' 

 would by research and the most advanced 

 work render imperial service to the industri- 

 ciated with mining and metallurgy. 



NOTES. 



We regret to see the annoniy^irent of the death. 

 January 28, of .Admiral the Right Hon. Sir John Ch. 

 Dalrymple-Hay, Bart., G.C.B., F.R.S., in his ninet>- 

 ypar. 



Dr. a. p. Laurie, principal of the Heriot-Watt Coli< j^ . 

 Kdinburgh, has been elected to the professorship of chem- 

 istry in thp Royal .Academy, vacant by th^ resignation of 

 SirArthur Church, K.C.V.O., F.R.S. ' 



The death is announced, at the age of eighty-nine yt... . 

 at Schaffhausen, of M. Jacob .Amsler, corresponding 

 member of the Paris .Academy of Sr!""'-"- '<" ''" ^-.. .ion of 

 mechanics since 1892. 



.According to the daily papers, M. Verities, tlie French 

 aviator, is, in conjunction with Dr. Charcot, making 

 arrangements to attempt, probablj' in two years' timr 

 reach the South Pole by aeroplane. 



The annual meetings of the Institution of Naval^ 

 •Architects will be held on March 27-29 in the hall of the 

 Royal Society of .Arts, John Street, .Adelphi, London,' 

 W.C. The president, the Marquis of Bristol, R.N., will; 

 occupy the chair. 1 



The Paris correspondent of The Times states that a i 

 committee has been formed at Ddle, the native town of. 

 Pasteur on the slopes of the Jura, for the purchase of the 

 house in the Rue des Tanneurs in which this great man> 

 of science was born, and that Mr. J. D. Rockefeller has" 

 subscribed the remaining 2200/. required to purchase the' 



house. : 



i 



The Darboux jubilee celebration passed off successfully! 

 on January 21. Congratulatory speeches were made by] 

 MM. Lippmann, Poincar6, Appell, and others, including the! 

 Minister of Public Instruction, after which a commemora-1 

 tive gold medal (by Vernon) was handed over to M. GastonI 

 Darboux. In his reply M. Darboux referred with satisH 

 faction to the present organisation of higher education im 

 France, as compared with what he could remember. Many 

 delegates from foreign societies were present on tbd 

 occasion. 



Dr. Charles Chilton, professor of biology at Canter< 

 bury College, New Zealand, has been granted leave ci 

 absence for 1912, and will spend nearly the whole of tiM 

 year in Europe visiting the chief biological laboratories 

 and stations. He is at present working at the Marine 

 Laboratory at Plymouth, and is preparing a report on the 

 Amphipoda collected by Dr. Bruce during the voyages of 

 the Scotia in Antarctic seas. 



At its annual conversazione this year, the Selb' 

 Society proposes to arrange a Gilbert White exhibi; 

 consisting of relics and manuscripts of the author of i-..-^ 



