May 26, 1887] 



NATURE 



79 



;tates, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, and 

 Lussia, together with the microscopical, botanical, and 

 :)ological journals of those countries. It will be obvious 

 ) anyone who will compare the last few numbers of the 

 ournal with the first volume, from which we have just 

 uoted, that the former are no less superior to it in general 

 vccellencc than it was to its immediate predecessors. The 

 ditors have elaborated their scheme with the growth of 

 le Journal, and have, in their desire to satisfy the public, 

 one beyond the prescribed limits, and incorporated 

 bstracts of all the more important papers in certain 

 ranches of the science, whether microscopical or not. 



In no period of the history of biological science has 

 ivance been so rapid as within the last decade, and it 



no exaggeration to say that the Journal before us is a 

 lithful historical record of the work done during that 

 eriod, in those branches with which it professes to deal, 

 'o him who would labour in earnest at a given subject the 

 riginal monographs are indispensable ; but even the 

 arrowest of specialists must obtain some knowledge of 

 le advance made in cognate branches of his science, and 



ready means of acquiring this, as it applies to m'cro- 

 :opy, has been provided by the Journal named during 

 le period of which we write. 



It might naturally be supposed that the increase in 

 itive workers, whose labours have so far extended 

 le literature of the science and consequently swelled 

 le pages of the Journal in which that literature has 

 »en abstracted, must have resulted in a corresponding 

 crease in the circulation of the Journal itself. This, we 

 •e informed, has not been the case. In reflecting upon 

 lis fact we must remember that during the past de- 

 ide many changes have been wrought in the literature of 

 ological science. Anzeigers and Records have been 

 .tablished and augmented. But withal the " Notes and 

 emoranda" of the Society's Journal have made a place 

 r themselves in the library of the working biologist ; 

 e abstracts are up to date, and frequently fairly detailed, 

 id they are invaluable to workers who, though not 

 :tual specialists, are so placed as to be beyond reach of 

 good reference library. 

 The Journal is primarily a microscopical one, and such 



must continue to be under the Charter of the Society 

 hose organ it is. Supplemental matters are added by 

 •urtesy ; but we believe the editors would do well to 

 strict themselves to purely microscopical matters. In 

 ese days of profuse literature showered upon us from 

 I parts of the globe, it is highly desirable that the aims 

 id scope of all journals should be clearly defined and 

 Ihered to, if only by way of enabling the worker to 

 low approximately where to turn in search of informa- 

 )n upon a given subject. Much has been done of late 



this direction by other Societies, and we submit the 

 ggestion to the executive of the one whose Journal we 

 e considering, in full assurance that in restricting their 

 bours as indicated they will be still further contributing 



the utility and success of their venture. We would 

 50 suggest that pains might occasionally be taken to 

 t forth more fully than hitherto the precise vantage 

 ined by authors quoted, to the exclusion of purely his- 

 rical resumes and details of minor importance. The 

 :al points of a paper are occasionally sacrificed to the 

 producing of descriptions of insignificant structural 

 tails ; and attention to this point would, we believe, 

 hance the value of the abstracts without in any way 

 igthening them. Further, work in the native tongue 

 s not always received that attention which it merits. 

 The editorship of the Journal could not be in better 

 nds than at present. Officers of the Society and all 

 ?aged have laboured indefatigably, and they deserve 

 stinted praise in the execution of their somewhat thank- 

 s task. Under the present editorship the Journal 

 s attained a definite and responsible position, beyond 

 It which it occupies as the organ of a chartered Society ; 



its pages are quoted as authoritative records, and we would 

 fain see it more widely disseminated than at present. It 

 is pre-eminently a microscopical journal for workers ; it 

 stands unique in its combined features, and is second to 

 none extant in its dealing with the technique and optics 

 of the subject. If it is deemed worthy of the formula; of 

 Abbe, and of orginal articles by the President of the 

 Royal Society, it is deserving of maintenance at the 

 hands of English-speaking people. 



D' 



BRIDGING THE FIRTH OF FORTH > 



URING the past four years many thousands of 

 visitors from all parts of the United Kingdom, and, 

 indeed, I may say from all parts of the world, have more 

 or less carefully inspected the works now in progress 

 under the superintendence of Sir John Fowler, the 

 engineer-in-chief, and myself, for bridging the Firth of 

 Forth. All classes of visitors, whether possessed of 

 technical knowledge or not, have found at least some- 

 thing to interest them amongst the multifarious operations 

 incidental to carrying out so gigantic an undertaking ; 

 and I should have little fear of interesting my present 

 audience if I could change the scene from Albemarle 

 Street to the shores of the Forth. That is impossible, so 

 I must rest content with an imperfect attempt to convey 

 to you, by description and illustration, some notion of the 

 magnitude of the proportions and difficulties of construc- 

 tion of what is generally admitted to be one of the most 

 important engineering works yet undertaken. A "per- 

 sonally conducted " tour over the work would be far more 

 congenial to me than giving a lecture, and infinitely more 

 effective. Photographs, and even the highest efforts of 

 pictorial art, are a poor substitute for the reality. The 

 smallest street accident witnessed by ourselves affects us 

 more than a description or picture of the greatest battle, 

 and for similar reasons I well know that when I speak of 

 men working with precarious foothold at dizzy heights in 

 stormy weather my words will sound very different in 

 this room to what they would were my listeners standing 

 beside me in an open cage hanging by a single wire rope, 

 in appearance hke a packthread, and swinging more or 

 less in the wind at a height of between three and four 

 hundred feet above the ground ; or were they following 

 me up a ladder as high as the golden cross on the top of 

 St. Paul's Cathedral, with the additional excitement of 

 the rungs of the ladder being festooned with icicles a foot 

 long. You will lose a great deal in vividness of impres- 

 sion necessarily by the substitution of a lecture for a 

 personal visit to the works, but there are some compen- 

 sating advantages, as you will be saved between eight and 

 nine hundred miles of railway travelling, and a good deal 

 of clambering of the kind shadowed forth. 



I should not have thought it necessary to preface my re- 

 marks by the statement that the Forth Bridge has nothing 

 to do with the Tay Bridge, had not my four years' expe- 

 rience informed me that about one-half of my fellovv- 

 countrymen labour under that singular hallucination. 

 Even at this date I fully expect every second Britisher (of 

 course Americans and foreigners are better informed) to 

 say : " How are you getting on with the Tay Bridge ? " I 

 suggest " Forth Bridge," and the correction is generally 

 accepted as a mere refinement of accuracy on my part. 

 As a matter of fact, however, the Tay Bridge which was 

 blown down in 1879, and has since been rebuilt, is at 

 Dundee, whilst the Forth Bridge is near Edinburgh ; and 

 as regards type of construction there is nothing in com- 

 mon between the two. If my lecture serves no better 

 purpose, it will at least help, therefore, to disseminate a 

 little useful geographical knowledge respecting the Firths 

 of Forth and Tay. 



' Lecture delivered at the Royal In-^tituton, oil Friday, May 20, by B. 

 Baker, M. Inst. C.E. 



