520 



NATURE 



{Sept. 29, 1887 



but the official auditor has decided that all expenses incurred in 

 respect of it are illegal, and has surcharged the Board with the 

 balance not covered by the receipts. Appeal will be made to 

 the Local Government Board against the decision of the auditor. 

 The experiment in manual instruction at Beethoven Street 

 School was considered by the London School Board so success- 

 ful that it was resolved to open five more classes of the same 

 kind, but they were suspended in consequence of the official 

 auditor having in the meantime surcharged the Board with the 

 costs incurred for the workshop and tools. Appeal was made in 

 November last against the surcharge of the auditor, but no 

 answer has yet been received from the Local Government Board. 

 The instruction is now being continued at Beethoven Street 

 School, as a specific subject, with the concurrence of the in- 

 spector. That this subject finds favour with the elementary 

 teachers is manifest from the fact that eighty of them have 

 availed themselves of the opportunity offi^red by the City and 

 Guilds of London Institute of qualifying themselves to give 

 instruction in the use of tools, and many more applied who could 

 not be accomruodated. 



The British and Foreign School Society have started a joinery 

 class at their Training College in the Borough Road, which is 

 attended by all the senior students, in which instruction is given 

 both in the theory and practice of carpentry. 



The London School Board on May 19 adopted, by a very 

 large majority, the motion of the Rev. C. D. Lawrence — " That, 

 in the opinion of this Board, it is necessary to introduce into 

 elementary schools some regular system of manual training," — 

 and the matter was referred to a special committee on the subjects 

 and modes of instruction in the Board's schools, which is now 

 sitting. 



The first examination by the Science and Art Department in 

 the alternative first stage of chemistry has taken place, and may 

 be considered to mark a great advance in the teaching of that 

 subject. That the teachers were eager for such instruction is 

 evident from the fact that as many applied for permission to 

 attend Prof. Armstrong's course of lectures established by the 

 City and Guilds of London Institute as that institution could be 

 made to accommodate. 



There has recently been formed a " National Association for 

 the Promotion of Technical Education," which includes the 

 leading politicians who have given special attention to the 

 subject of education. 



From this review of the present situation it would appear that 

 the action of the Education Department tends positively to frus- 

 trate the effisrts of those who desire to increase the teaching of 

 natural science in elementary schools ; but your Committee do 

 not believe that that is the intention of those in authority, and 

 feel sure that the great advance in public opinion will ultimately 

 lead to a knowledge of the elements of science being made an 

 essential part of all State-aided education. 



Report of the Egyptian Photographs Committee. — A full 

 account was given of the valuable work done by Mr. Flinders 

 Petrie, on behalf of the Committee, in the early part of the 

 year. In addition to the photographs, Mr. Petrie obtained 180 

 casts from paper squeezes of the sculptures, and from these casts 

 photographs have been taken on a uniform scale ; a full list of 

 the casts and photographs is appended to the report. 



Report of the North Amei-ican Indian Committee. — This report 

 contains a Circular of Inquiry drawn up for distribution amongst 

 those most likely to be able to supply the Committee with in- 

 formation ; and a Report on the Blackfoot Tribes, drawn up by 

 the Rev. Edward F. Wilson, and supplemented by some notes 

 by Mr. Horatio Hale. ^ ^ 



Report of the Electrolysis Committee, by Dr. Oliver Lodge. 

 — In laying before the Section this report of the Committee 

 appointed by Sections A and B to consider the subject of 

 electrolysis in its physical and chemical bearings, I should first 

 say that, whereas the main lines of the report have been approved 

 and ordered by the Committee, the details and wording have not 

 yet received final sanction, so that if the first person singular 

 should accidentally occur in places where it ought not, it is to be 

 understood that the real official report is that which will appear 

 in the annual volume of the Association, and that the present is 

 to be regarded as merely a general outline of that report. 



Work has been carried on during the past year by several 

 members of the Committee ; and nearly all the questions issued 



after the Aberdeen meeting by the secretary have been in some 

 shape or other attacked. 



The first, on the accuracy of Ohm's law of electrolysis, by 

 Prof. FitzGerald and Mr. Trouton, who reported last year and 

 will make a further report to-day. 



The second, on conduction in semi-insulators, by Prof. J. J. 

 Thomson and Mr. Newall. See the Proceedings of the Royal 

 Society, No. 256, 1887. 



On the third question, the mode of conduction of alloys, Prof. 

 Roberts- Austen will inform us of his experiments to-day. 



Mr. Shelford Bidwell has experimented on the subject of the 

 fourth question, concerning the transparency of electrolytes. 



The sixth, seventh, and eighth, on the velocity of ions, are 

 being worked at by the secretary. 



Concerning the ninth we have heard from Mr. J. Brown, of 

 Belfast ; and on the tenth we have had a letter from Prof. Willard 

 Gibbs. 



In order to enable the members of so large a Committee to 

 work with some knowledge of what each other is donig, and 

 also to keep up a general intercommunication and interest in the 

 subject, it has been thought desirable and proper to spend a 

 certain portion of the sum granted to the Committee in printing 

 and postage. Periodical circulars have been sent among the 

 members and to a few outsiders likely to be interested, and these 

 have been the means of drawing out one or two communications 

 of very distinct interest and value. 



It is felt that such informal reports of discussion and free cir- 

 culation of provisional communications are sufficiently useful to 

 justify the Committee in continuing the practice, which was 

 begun as an experiment, and they accordingly are asking for re- 

 appointment, with another grant of ;,^50, of which not more 

 than £,zo is to be spent in printing and postage. They should 

 explain that of the grant made last year to the Committee £20 

 has been purposely allowed to lapse, for it had been intended to 

 try some chemical experiments on very pure substances, and 

 these experiments have not yet been begun. The ;^30 applied 

 for has been spent, about ^^15 in printing, £,i, in postage, and 

 £\\\xi experimental expenses contracted by the secretary. 



Your Committee feel that the expenditure of a small sum such 

 as this has acted, and may be expected to act, as a trigger 

 capable of liberating in useful directions a considerable amount 

 of'energy, which otherwise might have remained p3tential. 



There are several moot points at present more or less under 

 discussion within the Committee, and I am instructed to lay them 

 before this meeting with the object of eliciting some opinions, 

 suggestions, or information. 



First I may instance the obvious question whether electro- 

 lytic conduction and metallic conduction are sharply separated off 

 from one another by a line of demarcation, so that no substance 

 distinctly possessing one also possesses a trace of the other. 



Certain contributions by von Helmholtz, among vyhich we 

 must reckon one on our list for to-day, lead one to believe that 

 the conduction of ordinary electrolytes is purely electrolytic, and 

 that no trace of current slips through them without carrying the 

 atoms with it, i.e. without incipient decomposition. 



A contribution expected from Prof. Roberts-Austen may 

 perhaps answer the opposite question, viz. whether any ordinary 

 metallic alloy can conduct in the least electr lytically— z.a 

 whether a well-marked metallic alloy or (/z^aw- compound can be 

 in the slightest degree electrolyzed by an exceedingly intense 

 electric current. 



Supposing both these questions answered in the simplest 

 manner, viz. in the negative, there must surely remain a groupj 

 of bodies on the borderland between alloys proper and electro- j 

 lytes proper, among which some shading off of properties, somej 

 gradual change from wholly metallic to wholly electrolytic con- 

 duction is to be looked for. Until all such bodies as arel 

 tractable to experiment have been cautiously and strenuouslyj 

 examined, we are unable to say whether there is a hard and fasti 

 line between the two modes of conduction, or in what mannerj 

 the gradation from one to the other occurs. 



That is the first question. A second concerns the very vital 

 point whether an electric current actually decomposes or tears 

 asunder the molecules of a liquid through which it passes ; or 

 whether it finds a certain number of ihem already torn asunder 

 or dissociated into their atoms by chemical, or at any rate non- 

 electrical, means, these loose and wandering atoms thus falling 

 an easy prey to the guiding tendency of the electric slope, an« 

 joining unresistingly one or other of two processions towards! 



