47o 



NA TURE 



[Sept. 



0> 



1888 



H. — Anthropology. £ 



Effect of Occupations on Physical Development ... ... 20 



North-Western Tribes of Canada ... ... ... ... 150 



Editing a New Edition of Anthropological Notes and 



Queries ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 50 



Calculating the Anthropological Measurements taken at 



Bath 5 



Exploration of Roman Baths at Bath ... ... ... 100 



Characteristics of Nomad Tribes of Asia Minor ... ... 30 



Eor carrying on the Work of the Corresponding Societies 



Committee ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 20 



Total 



^'1645 



SECTION B. 



CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 



Opening Address by Prof. William A. Tildf.n, D.Sc. 

 Lond., F.R.S., F.C.S., President of the Section. 



. A part of the duty which devolves upon the President of a 

 Section of the British Association consists in delivering an 

 address, and the knowledge that a pretty full liberty of choice 

 is permitted in regard to the selection of a subject is the only 

 source of comfort which serves to alleviate the onerous nature of 

 the task. 



It seemed to me that the time is gone by when an attempt to 

 review progress over the whole field of chemical science is likely 

 to be useful or even possible, and an account of what is being 

 done within the narrow limits of those parts of the science to 

 which I have been able to give special attention would be ill- 

 adapted to the character of a speech addressed to the members 

 of the Section collectively. The fact that at the la^t meeting of 

 the Association a Committee was appointed to inquire into the 

 methods at present adopted for teaching chemistry suggested 

 that, as I had not been able to accept an invitation to join this 

 Committee, I might make use of this opportunity for contributing 

 to the discussion. The first report of the Committee will be 

 received with much interest by the Section. As might be 

 expected, it embodies the expression of many varieties of 

 opinion. 



The existence of chemistry as a department of science not 

 merely requiring the observation of facts that are to be made 

 useful, but seeking in the accumulated stores of observation to 

 discover law, is a thing of comparatively recent growth. I low 

 chemistry arose out of alchemy I need not remind you, but the 

 connection between the study of chemistry and that of medicine, 

 and the maintenance of this connection down to even the pre- 

 sent generation, is illustrated by the fact that a large number of 

 men who have become eminent as chemists bega-t their career 

 in the surgery or the pharmacy. Black, Davy, Berzelius, Wol- 

 laston, Wohler, Wurtz, Andrews, and W. A. Miller began by 

 the study of medicine, whilst Scheele, H. Rose, and the great 

 names of Liebig and Dumas are to be found in the long roll of 

 those who received their earliest notions of chemistry in the 

 pharmaceutical laboratory. Chemistry has been gradually 

 emancipated from these associations with enormous advantage 

 to both sides. So long as technical purposes alone were held in 

 view a scientific chemistry could not exist, but no sooner did the 

 study take an independent form and direction than multitudes of 

 useful applications of the facts discovered beeame apparent. 



It is only within a comparatively few years, however, that 

 universities, in this country at least, have ceased to deal with 

 chemistry as a kind of poor relation or humble follower of medi- 

 cine, and have permitted her to emerge from the cellars of a 

 museum or school of anatomy and have given her a commodious 

 dwelling in the fair light of day. 



In the old time such instruction in chemistry as was given in 

 the universities and mining or technical schools seems to have 

 taken the form of lectures read by the Professor, and access to a 

 laboratory for practical manipulation seems to have been a high 

 privilege accorded only under exceptional circumstances to the 

 few. We are told, for example, that when Liebig went to Paris 

 in 1823 he applied to Gay-Lussac for practical instruction at 

 first without success, and that admission to the laboratory of the 

 Ecole Polytechnique was ultimately granted him only through 

 the intervention of Von Humboldt. 



In a great many cases the student of chemistry must have 



been almost entirely dependent upon private study, though books 

 were scarce and materials more co-tly than now. Davy, for 

 example, seems to have had no instruction whatever previous to 

 his appointment as assistant to Dr. Beddoes at the Pneumatic 

 Institute at Bristol. 



Doubtless, therefore, the recollection of his own early dil' 

 culties when seeking instruction contributed largely to influence] 

 Liebig in the establishment of the laboratory in the Univer- itv 

 of Giessen, and in the adoption of the principles which guided ! 

 his teaching there. For the fir.-,t time in the history of chemistry j 

 students met not merely to listen to the discourse of a pn 

 concerning his own experiments and conclusions, but to examine! 

 for themselves the basis of the theories taught, to learn the ] 

 processes of analysis, and by independent investigation to extend t 

 the boundaries of existing knowledge. 



The fame of the new school spread fast and far, and soon 

 men from every part of the civilized world assembled to share 

 in the advantages offered. The influence of the new method 

 can be estimated when we reflect that nearly all the now passing 

 generation of chemists in England and America obtained the 

 greater part of their training in Liebig's laboratory ; and as a 

 large number of them have been teachers, it may be assumed 

 that they transplanted into their own countries the methods they 

 had learnt from the great German master. 



It was not till 184.6, long after the school at Giessen had risen 

 into fame, that in England a sense of our deficiencies in respect 

 to provision for teaching chemistry was felt strongly enough to 

 lead to the establishment of a College of Chemistry. At that | 

 time the Professor of Chemistry at Oxford was also Professor of 

 Botany. At Cambridge it was thought praise and boast enough 

 that the occupant of the chair of chemistry had, during more 

 than thirty years, frequently resided at the University and every! 

 year gave a course of lectures. The Jacksonian professorship' 

 was not then, as now, in the possession of a chemist. University 

 College, London, had at this period a very distinguished man 

 in the chair of chemistry, but it was only in 1848 that a com-i 

 modious laboratory was provided by public subscription, raised 

 in commemoration of the services of Dr. Birkbeck in promoting 

 popular education. In that year Fownes was appointed to co- 

 operate with Graham in the work of teaching, though his pre- 

 mature death soon after left but little time for the fulfilment of 

 the rich promise of his earlier years. At Manchester, John 

 Owens had died in 1846, leaving the bulk of his estate for the 

 purpose of establishing a university in Manchester, but as yet 

 the Owens College was not. 



The foundation of the College of Chemistry in 1846 was 

 therefore an event of supreme importance in the history of 

 chemical teaching in this country ; and though at the time some 

 dissatisfaction was expressed at the choice of the professor 

 selected to direct the work, who, though a distinguished pupil 

 of Liebig, was not an Englishman, all British chemists now 

 concur in believing the choice to have been a most fortunate 

 one. The great majority of my contemporaries having begun, 

 continued, or ended their studies in Oxford Street, they and all; 

 who have come under Dr. Hofmann's teaching know how vast 

 was his capacity for work and how marvellous was the power 

 he possessed of communicating his own enthusiasm to his 

 pupils. 



Since the time of which I have been speaking the means of 

 instruction in science in England have multiplied enormously. 

 In University College, London, founded in 1828, and in Owen< 

 College, Manchester, founded in 1851, not only have chairs ol 

 chemistry existed from the fir>t, but they have been occupied by 

 a succession of chemists of the highest eminence. But long 

 after 1846 the whole of the serious teaching of scientific chemistry 

 was accomplished at the College of Chemistry, and it was nigh 

 upon twenty years before the Manchester school began to attract 

 considerable notice. 



In 1872-73 the movement set in which has resulted in the 

 erection of colleges for higher instruction at a number of im- 

 portant English and Welsh towns. These, together with the 

 pre-existent Queen's Colleges in Ireland and the Univer 

 more ancient foundation in the three kingdoms, are for the most 

 part provided with pretty good laboratories and a competent staff. 

 We have also the Normal School of Science and the Institute 

 raised by the City and Guilds of London at South Kensington. 

 and its Associate College at Finsbury. England is therefore at 

 the present time as well provided with places of instruction foi 

 the study of chemistry as any country in the world. 

 •' And a very large proportion of the professors or head> of 



I 



