284 



NA TURE 



[Fed. 10, 1876 



submitted to distillation in order to obtain the ketone 

 known as acetophenone :— 



Calcium acetate. 



Calcium benzoate. Methyl-phenyl 

 ketone. 



Calcium 

 carbonate. 



Methyl-phenyl ketone when treated with fuming nitric 

 acid yields two isomeric nitro-derivatives, C8H7(NOa)0, 

 one of which when heated with a reducing mixture com- 

 posed of zinc dust and soda lime is converted into indigo 

 blue ; — 



2C8H,(NO.,)0-2HaO;-02 = CieHioNjOa 

 Nitro-acetophenone. Indigo blue. 



The process above given is at present only valuable 

 from a scientific point of view, since the yield of indigotin 

 is but small. It yet remains to convert this laboratory 

 reaction into a practicable process, in order to do for indi- 

 gotin what has already been accomplished for alizarin, 

 and thus completely revolutionise another large branch 

 of the colour-producing industry, 



R. Meldola 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



Scientific Culture. By Josiah P. Cooke, Jun,, Professor 

 of Chemistry and Mineralogy in Harvard College 

 (U.S.). (London : H. S, King and Co,, 1876,) 



This is altogether an admirable address, characterised 

 by real eloquence and by clearness and decision of view 

 as to the place which science ought to occupy in any 

 system of education. Most of Prof Cooke's audience 

 were teachers by profession, attending Harvard Univer- 

 sity mainly to become acquainted with the experimental 

 methods of teaching physical science. We commend the 

 address not only to scientific students and teachers of 

 science, but to all who take an interest in education, and 

 to all students who desire a clear statement as to what, 

 in the not distant future, will be regarded as the only 

 liberal education, an education in which science will be 

 allotted a place of at least equal importance with that of 

 literature. What Mr, Cooke's views are on certain matters 

 which have for long been discussed in this journal, may 

 be learned from the following extracts. On the place 

 which Science ought to occupy in education, he says : — 



" I must declare my conviction that no educated man 

 can expect to realise his best possibilities of usefulness 

 without a practical knowledge of the methods of experi- 

 mental science. If he is to be a physician, his whole 

 success will depend on the skill with which he can use 

 these great tools of modern civilisation. If he is to be a 

 lawyer, his advancement will in no small measure be 

 determined by the acuteness with which he can criticise 

 the manner in which the same tools have been used by 

 his own or his opponent's clients. If he is to be a cler- 

 gyman, he must take sides in the great conflict between 

 theology and science, which is now raging in the world, 

 and unless he wishes to play the part of the doughty 

 knight, Don Quixote, and think he is winning great vic- 

 tories by knocking down the imaginary adversaries which 

 his ignorance has set up, he must try the steel of his 

 adversary's blade 



" I feel that any system of education is radically defec- 

 tive which does not comprise a sufficient training in the 

 methods of experimental science to make the mass of 

 our educated men familiar with this tool of modern civi- 

 lisation ; so that when, hereafter, new conquests over 

 matter are announced, and great discoveries are pro- 

 claimed, they may be able not only to understand but 

 also to criticise the methods by which the assumed results 

 have been reached, and thus be in a position to distin- 

 guish between the true and the false. Whether we will 



or not, we must live under the direction of this great 

 power of modern society, and the only question is whether 

 we will be its ignorant slave or its intelligent servant." 



On the uses to which Universities should be put, Mr. 

 Cooke's opinions are decided : — 



" The time has passed when we can afford to limit the 

 work of our higher institutions of learning to teaching 

 knowledge already acquired. Henceforth the investiga- 

 tion of unsolved problems, and the discovery of new 

 truth, should be one of the main objects at our univer- 

 sities, and no cost should be grudged which is required 

 to maintain at them the most active minds in every 

 branch of knowledge which the country can be stimu- 

 lated to produce, 



" I could urge this on the self-interest of the nation as 

 an obvious dictate of political economy. I could say, and 

 say truly, that the culture of science will help us to develop 

 those latent resources of which we are so proud ; will 

 enable us to grow two blades of grass where one grew 

 before ; to extract a larger per cent, of metal from our 

 ores ; to economise our coal, and in general to direct our 

 waiting energies so that they may produce a more abun- 

 dant pecuniary reward, , . , This is all true, and may be 

 urged properly if higher considerations will not prevail. 

 It is an argument I have used in other places, but I will 

 not use it here ; although I gladly acknowledge the Provi- 

 dence which brings at last even material fruits to reward 

 conscientious labour for the advancement of knowledge 

 and the intellectual elevation of mankind. I would 

 rather point to that far greater multitude who have 

 worked in faith for the love of knowledge, and who have 

 ennobled themselves and ennobled their nation, not 

 because they have added to its material prosperity, but 

 because they have made themselves and made their 

 fellows more noble men," 



These are but small samples of the many good things 

 contained in Prof, Cooke's address, which we should like 

 to see in the hands of all students. The latter portion of 

 the address students of mineralogy will find of special 

 value. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[ The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, 

 or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications. ^ 



On the most Northerly Latitude at which Land and 

 Freshwater Molluscs have hitherto been found 



I AM very sorry that I have involuntarily made a mistake in a 

 letter to Mr. Oscar Dickson (Nature, vol. xiii. p. 96), in 

 which it is stated that Dr. Stuxberg had found a Physa on the 

 most northerly locality from which land and freshwater molluscs 

 have hitherto been obtained. When I made this statement I 

 had not Middcndorff's "Sibiritche Reise" with me, and I did 

 not then remember that this celebrated naturalist had found a 

 species of the same genus on the Taimur peninsula north of the 

 seventy-third degree N.L, A. E. Nordenskjold 



Stockholm, Jan. 29 



Prof. Tyndall on Germs 



Having commented elsewhere {Lancet zxA Brit. Med. Journ, 

 Feb, 5) upon Prof, Tyndall's recent attempt to establish the truth 

 of the Germ Theory of Disease, my remarks in your columns 

 may be very brief. 



Prof. Tyndall tells the public he has uniformly failed to obtain 

 evidences of putrefaction in previously boiled organic infusions 

 protected from contamination by atmospheric particles. 



The following investigators have, however, with one or other 

 fluid, been able t« obtain such results : — 



1. Schwann, Isis, 1837; Vog<gtxidjorfi''s Annalen, 1837. 



2. Mantegazza, Giorn. dell. R. Istit. Lombard., t. iii., 185 1, 



3. Schroeder and Dusch, Annal. de Chimie, tome xli,, 1854. 



4. Schroeder, Licbig's Annalen, ck., 1859, and Chem. News, 

 vol. v., 1862. 



