492 



NATURE 



{Sept. 1 8, 1879 



each about the size of a sovereign. Seventeen of these were 

 Bactrian, or Indo-Scythian; and three were Roman. 



Major Campbell described the S/iora-.oak Valley and the Toba 

 Plateau in Afghanistan. — The Shorawak valley had never been 

 visited by Europeans before the recent campaign. It is a narrow 

 strip of flat country lying between the desert on the west and 

 north-west, and a range generally known as the Sarlat Hills to 

 the east. Its total length is about 40 miles, with a width of 10 

 miles at the northern end; and it is 3,250 feet above the sea. 

 The head of the valley, to the north, is closed in by the 

 southern spurs of the Khwaja-Amran range of mountains, 

 whick nearly join the north-western spurs of the Sarlat Hills, 

 only leaving a gap of about a mile through which the Lora river 

 runs into the valley. The valley is thickly populated, and crops 

 of wheat and barley are raised. Major Campbell suggested 

 that Shorawak was once a lake, which was gradually silted up 

 by deposits from the Lora, and this seems to account for most 

 of the phenomena. The river, after flowing through the valley, 

 is swallowed up in the sand of the desert. The Toba table- 

 land is at the north-eastern extremity of the Khwaja-Amran 

 range of mountains. The general elevation is over 7,000 feet. 

 Major Campbell gave an interesting account of this plateau and 

 of its inhabitants. It will probably form an excellent hill 

 sanatorium for the troops stationed in the Pishin Valley. The 

 climate of the plateau in summer is very pleasant. 



Papers were also read On Nezv Routes to Kandahar, by Captain 

 Haldich ; On Surveys Around Kandahar, by Captain M. Rogers, 

 R,E. ; and On the Orography of the North-West Frontier of India, 

 by Mr. Trelawny Saunders. 



Mr. Black read a paper, which had been contributed by Mr. 

 J. O. N. James, deputy superintendent of the Surveys of India. 

 The object of the paper was to sketch out, in a concise manner, 

 the nature of the work in progress and already performed by the 

 Indian Survey Department, and to point out its practical utility. 

 During the administration of Sir Henry Thuillier, late Surveyor- 

 General of India (1861 to 1877), an area of not less than 

 290,000 square miles was surveyed and mapped, including the 

 wildest and least known tracts of India. This enormous area, 

 more than double the size of Great Britain and Ireland, was 

 surveyed in sixteen years at an average cost of 2/. per square 

 mile. Also an area of 493,000 square miles was completed on 

 the village survey system on a scale of four inches to the mile, 

 and l2,2Sl square miles by cadastral measurement on a scale of 

 16 and 32 inches to the mile; making an aggregate of 5°5>574 

 square miles, considerably more than double the area of France. 

 The revenue surveys comprise a great portion of Bengal and 

 Assam, all Oudh,part of the North-West and Central Province's 

 and Bombay, nearly all the Punjab, and all Sind. There is not 

 a single official in India who does not possess maps of the 

 portion of the country included in his jurisdiction, which are 

 suited to every present requirement. The maps issued by the 

 Surveyor General's Department are also utilised by engineers in 

 the construction of public works, by the foresters for conser- 

 vancy purposes, by mining companies, planters, holders of 

 estates, and by every branch of the civil and military services 

 for purposes too numerous to detail. 



SECTION F — Economic Science and Statistics 



Papers were read in this Section by Dr. Gladstone On Ele- 

 mentary Natural Science in the Board Schools of London, by Mr. 

 Miss, of the Sheffield School Board, on a similiar subject, and 

 by Mr. Ilance, of the Liverpool School Board, describing the 

 successful efforts made by them in science teaching. In the interest- 

 ing discussion which followed, Mr. F. Wilson observed that what 

 they required was the introduction of the science of perception. A 

 child could see a thing and not always perceive it, therefore it 

 was most essential that they should teach scholars to perceive 

 and so obtain a system of order. 



Dr. R. Wormell remarked upon the importance of having 

 teachers who knew something about the teaching of science in 

 the beginning, and spoke of the necessity of a college where 

 teachers could be instructed in order to carry on the work of 

 scientific teaching. There were 1,600 young men entering the 

 training colleges every year, and at least 100 of these would do 

 better as teachers of science than of other subjects. Scientific 

 education ought to find its way into all schools from the earliest 

 stages to the nust advanced. The Kindergarten system was a 

 fair beginning, but it was too restrictive. Observation and ex- 



periment were the means by which truth had to be discoverec . 

 and when science was taught simultaneously with other subjecis 

 they would find that the intelligence of the pupils was heigh:- 

 ened, and that their skill in manipulation, and ability to use their 

 hands, would increase, no slight point when it vas remembered 

 that the manufacturing population were educated in these school-. 

 It would, in his opinion, help such bodies as the London School 

 Board, who were anxious for this scientific teaching, if the 

 British Association had a permanent committee to consider the 

 question and give assistance if required. 



The Rev. A. Harland referred to the difficulties of teaching 

 natural science in the country school. It was not only necessary, he 

 said, that our teachers should have a thoroughly scientific know- 

 ledge, but that the inspectors of the schools should also possess 

 it. So little encouragement had the inspector given that he had 

 even told them in their school to drop such subjects as botany, 

 and to confine their attention pretty much to the three R's. 

 He had, however, an evening with the village children, when he 

 tried to give them some knowledge of chemistry and physiology 

 in order to show them the evils of intemperance, and he thought 

 this was much better than making them commit to memory silly 

 recitations, as was the practice in some Bands of Hope. 



Miss Becker (Manchester School Board), after remarking that 

 the question of giving children scientific teaching was only 

 valuable as to the help it would give them in making their way 

 through the world, said she was sorry the science of mechanics 

 was confined to the boy's school because any girl or woman who 

 had to do household work was painfully conscious that she had 

 frequently to move weights, and if she understood the principles 

 of mechanical science it would be far less laborious and less 

 painful — in fact, the principle of the lever was of the utmos: 

 consequence in domestic economy. The scrubbing of a floor, 

 and the carrying of a coal-box were mechanical operations which 

 were much better done on scientific principle". Animal physio- 

 logy had avery close relation to the, infant's organisation in its 

 most tender stages, and in the interests of the babies she did 

 think it most important that the common elementary principles of 

 physiology should be known to their mothers. 



After some further remarks by Miss Becker, showing the 

 value of a knowledge of science in the commonest duties of 

 every-day life, 



Prof. Silvanus Thompson spoke of the advantage of ap- 

 prenticeship schools, but said that if such schools w-ere estab- 

 lished in England it would be by local, rather than Imperial 

 effort, for they succeeded better when they were not fettered by ' 

 Imperial legislation. Whatever science teaching existed was nob 

 merely a scrap, but part of the organic whole, and this wasf 

 sufficiently elastic to allow of there being special schools, ii 

 building school, a school of carpentry, a school for other kinds o( 

 technical education, all having their base in the elementary schools^ 

 but there should be more community of idea between the lowetj 

 and the higher scientific training. Miss Becker had affirmed the*' 

 children seven years old ought to be able to read perfectly if they 

 were scientifically taught, but they were not scientifically taught,^ 

 nor did he think the difficulty would be removed until they had 

 done away with the abominable irregularities of the detest-ible 

 English spelling, and reformed the table book. 



The Rev. W. Delaney (St. Stanislaus College, TuUamore) 

 said he should like to change the idea that science was merely 

 the handmaid of education, for he believed it was really the best 

 educational weapon, and as a schoolmaster he valued almost 

 infinitesimally the knowledge that boys and girls, and even 

 university men, carried with them into life. Education hitherto 

 had gone too much in grooves, and what they required was a 

 great improvement in scientific teaching, especially in interme- 

 diate schools, where it was in a deplorable state. He found that 

 boys who could learn nothing learn science easily, and that when 

 they had learnt science they could learn other things easily. There 

 was an absolute inutility and absurdity in teaching grammar in 

 which boys were taught to know the unknown by the unknown, 

 and he found moreover that whilst Latin and Greek m ere well 

 known in scientific schools, scholars simply studying the classics 

 often failed in that special study, whereas those who studied 

 science as well as classics passed often at the head of the list. 



The President (Mr. Mundella) in summing up the discussion, 

 said he believed that science teaching tended to redeem school 

 life from its drudgery and monotony. In the science schools 

 abroad the interest manifested by the children in a proper object 

 lesson, and the facility with which they acquired knowledge, 

 had very much struck him. The step which, above all others, 



