6o8 



NATURE 



\Oct. 17, 1889 



in the higher grade public schools, with which the Report of the 

 Committee last year was chiefly concerned, the condition of the 

 teaching in public elementary schools is far from satisfactory. 

 As a rule chemistry is not taught on the proper lines. The 

 pupils frequently receive the same kind of instruction in chemistry 

 as they would at a later stage if they were preparing for a 

 professional or technical career; consequently the subject has 

 failed to provide that mental education which it should be the 

 main object of elementary teaching to develop. It appears, too, 

 that in many of these schools physical science has not hitherto 

 been regarded as a necessary part of the educational scheme. It 

 is essential that this state of affairs should be altered, and that 

 physical science should occupy a more favourable position in the 

 Education Code, and that its teaching should be more thoroughly 

 controlled. 



It is to be hoped also that the Education Department, as well 

 at the Science and Art Department, South Kensington, will 

 take steps to arrange a more efficient mode of inspecting science 

 teaching than that at present in vogue, which can only be 

 regarded as satisfactory from a purely statistical standpoint. 

 Under the present system little or no control can be exercised 

 over the science teaching, since the Whitehall inspectors are, as 

 a rule, not qualified to form an opinion as to its value. There 

 would seem to be no difficulty in obtaining the services of 

 properly qualified persons to act as additional inspectors for the 

 purpose of reporting on the character of the science teaching. 

 It is probable that many of the professors and lecturers in 

 University Colleges, and other educational institutions, might be 

 willing to take part in such inspection, and it would thus 

 become possible to maintain a high standard of excellence in the 

 teaching. 



THE GEOLOGICAL PAPERS AT THE 

 BRLTISH ASSOCIATLON. 



/^N Thursday morning the first business of Section C was 

 ^^ to hear Prof. Milne's ninth Report on the earthquake and 

 volcanic phenomena of Japan, in which a list of seventy-nine 

 earthquakes occurring between June 1888 and March 1889 is 

 given. After a paper by Dr. Naumann, which will be referred 

 10 later on, Mr. T. P. Barkas read a paper on footprints of four-, 

 three-, and two-toed animals, discovered in Lower Carboniferous 

 sandstones near Otterburn, of which he exhibited specimens. A 

 paper by Mr. Meilard Keade reviewed the chief theories ad- 

 vanced to account for the Lower Triassic rocks, and advocates 

 their formation by tidal action in straits, seas, and bays from 

 the denudation of the rocks of the Channel, Mendips, Belgian 

 coal-field, Pennine, and the Old Red of Herefordshire. 



Friday's sitting opened with Dr. A. Geikie's paper on the age 

 and origin of the crystalline schists of Norway. In the Trond- 

 hjem region ordinary sedimentary rocks, much disturbed, contain 

 Lower and Upper Silurian fossils, and are underlain by basic lavas 

 ■and tuffs, succeeded by grits, slates, and schists with black 

 pyritous and carbonaceous beds. Traced southwards, the whole 

 series becomes progi^essively more crumpled and crystalline until 

 it passes into a group of twisted mica schists, in which, however, 

 the pyritous shales, although converted into mica schists, are 

 still recognizable. Specimens were exhibited to show every 

 step of metamorphism from an amorphous igneous rock to a 

 perfect schist, the change being sometimes visible in a hand 

 -specimen In Bergen the author confirmed the discovery of 

 fossils by Dr. Reusch in a frilled mica schist or phyllite, proving 

 that the regonial metamorphism in this area was of post-Silurian 

 date. Mr. Marr followed with a description of the Skiddaw 

 slates on the east side of Brownber, where quartz veins have been 

 intruded between the bedding planes, the rock has been contorted, 

 and converted into a rock composed largely of mica and 

 secondary quartz, and exhibiting ausweichtcngsclivage, in fact a 

 mica schist. Prof. Bonney contributed a paper showing that the 

 hmestones associated with crystalline rocks were coarsely 

 crystalline as a rule, but that pressure often obliterated this 

 coarse texture by crushing, and thus could only be appealed to 

 ■as a minor agent in producing crystallization ; a further paper by 

 the same author dealt with the fossils obtained amongst the 

 crystalline schists in the Val Canaria, Val Piora, Nufenen Pass, and 

 Lukmanier Pass ; he concluded that in the first two localities the 

 relations of the rocks had been misunderstood, while in the last 

 two the fossils were in a rock whose minerals were in a very 

 different state from those in the older crystalline schists. Mr. 



Watts exhibited a collection of Belemnites from the rocks of the 

 Lukmanier Pass. Dr. Hatch described potash and soda felsites 

 from the Lower Silurian of Ireland, which were ancient equiva- 

 lents of the rhyolites and pantellerites of to-day ; and Mr. A. R. 

 Hunt brought forward a view that the granites of Dartmoor and 

 of the Channel were of pre-Devonian and probably Archaean 

 age. Mr. Teall sent an interesting communication on the 

 amygdaloidsof the Tynemouth dyke, in which he summarized the 

 history of the rock as follows : (i) development of granular 

 aggregates of felspar allied to anorthite under plutonic conditions ; 

 (2) addition of new felspar substance to these, giving them 

 outward crystalline form ; (3) formation of lath-shaped felspars ; 

 (4) separation of augite ; {5) formation of vesicles probably due 

 to relief of pressure when the magma rose into a fissure ; 

 (6) filling of .'■ome of these vesicles with interstitial matter which 

 probably oozed into them from the surrounding liquid magma, as 

 they are seen in all stages of filling ; (7) consolidation of intersti- 

 tial matter ; (8) filling up of the rest of the vesicles with 

 carbonates. Mr. Swan exhibited specimens of marble from 

 Paros, and described the new and old quarries; and then the Section 

 listened to an account from Dr. Fridljof Nansen of the geological 

 bearings of his journey across Greenland. 



Greenland is covered by a shield of ice rising to a height of 

 9000 or lo.oco feet in the centre, where it probably covers an area 

 of mountains and valleys, and not a table-land, reduced to a 

 gently sloping surface, and even polished, by the wind. The 

 only evidence of ice melting cm the surface in the interior con- 

 sists of thin ice crusts at varying depths. The enormous pres- 

 sure of the ice mass forces it out partly as ice and partly as 

 water melted by friction, thus giving rise to the rivers, which 

 flow even in winter. The great rate at which the ice flows out 

 into the fjords makes the author an advocate for the agency of 

 ice in forming these features. 



On Saturday, Prof. W. C. Williamson read a paper in which 

 he acknowledged the help he had received from all parts of the 

 world in acquiring specimens and slides of coal and mineral 

 charcoal from many English, Welsh, and Scotch localities, as 

 well as from Japan, New Zealand, America, Europe, Asia, and 

 Australia. The inquiry was still proceeding, with a view to 

 ascertain the nature and origin of this mineral charcoal, and to 

 estimate the extent to which cryptogamic spores contributed to 

 coal formaiion. Prof. Williamson further stated that in Zj'^/«^- 

 (iendron Oldliaviutm, he added a fern to the other cryptogams 

 in which exogenous growth took place, and announced what he 

 termed another botanical heresy, that in the Carboniferous 

 Lycopods the vascular bundle enlarged into a ring inclosing a 

 medulla which enlarged pari passu with the ring. Prof. T. R. 

 Jones reviewed the advancement made by himself and others to 

 our knowledge of the Palzeozoic Phyllopoda ; and Dr. Johnston- 

 Lavis's Report onVesuvius was presented. This Report announces 

 that Messrs. Philip and Son will shortly publish the map of 

 Vesuvius ; it further gives a diagram of the cone in 1887 and 

 1886 (?i888), and three taken in January, May, and August, 

 1889, so as to show the changes resultant on overflows of lava, 

 formation of fissures, and building of new cones. The Report 

 concludes with a further account of the new railway tunnels in 

 the Phlegrtean Fields. 



Further specimens of the peculiar coral-like structures from 

 the limestone of Culdaff have been obtained by the Geological 

 Survey, and some of these, with photographs, were exhibited to 

 the Section by Prof. Hull. Some foreign palaeontologists, 

 judging from the photographs, regarded them as organic, and 

 referred them to Favistella, but English palaeontologists give 

 only a hesitating assent to this view. Mr. Cameron described 

 Kellaway's sand and doggers from exposures near Bedford, and 

 Mr. Vine described sixteen species of Stomatopora and Proboscina 

 from the Hunstanton Red Chalk. 



On Monday, Mr. Ussher's paper on the Devonian rocks of 

 Britain was presented. He divided the rocks into three typical 

 areas, in each of which they presented peculiar characters. In 

 North Devon there are arenaceous deposits indicating shoal 

 water ; in' South Devon the rocks are variable, with sporadic 

 volcanic and coral deposits ; while in Cornwall and Devon, 

 west of Dartmoor, the succession, though much disturbed and 

 faulted, consists chiefly of mud and slates. A table is given, 

 correlating the principal divisions in these three areas with their 

 Franco Belgian and German equivalents. An important paper 

 by Prof. Lebour and Mr. Marley, on the South Durham salt 

 industry and the extension of the Durham coal-field, followed. 

 The area of proved salt amounted to at least twenty square miles, 



