November 15, 1900] 



NATURE 



69 



ployed in the laboratories, in the collecting and preserving 

 departments, aquarium and elsewhere. 



This seems at the first thought a very large staff, but the 

 activities of the institution are most varied and far-reaching, 

 and everything that is undertaken is carried to a high standard 

 of perfection. Whether it be in the exposition of living animals 

 to the public in the wonderful tanks of the " Acquario," in the 

 collection and preparation of choice specimens for Museums, in 

 the supply of laboratory material and mounted microscopic 

 objects to Universities, in the facilities afforded for research, or 

 in the educational influence and inspiration which all young 

 workers in the laboratory feel — in each and all of these directions 

 the Naples station has a world-wide renown. And the best 

 proof of this reputation for excellence is seen in the long list of 

 biologists from all civilised countries who year after year obtain 

 material from the station or enrol as workers in the laboratory. 

 Close on I2CX3 naturalists have now since the opening of the 

 Zoological Station in 1873 occupied work-tables, and as these 

 men have come from and gone back to practically all the 

 important laboratories of Europe and America, from St. 



discovery, and he goes there because he knows he will find 

 material, facilities and environment such as exist nowhere else 

 in the same favourable combination. The British Association 

 Committee consider it most important that these opportunities 

 for research should be open to British biologists in the future as 

 they have been in the past, and it is on this ground that they 

 confidently recommend the policy of sending selected investi- 

 gators to Naples each year — a practice which has led to such 

 satisfactory results in the past, and is full of promise for the 

 future. W. A. Herdman. 



THE BRADFORD MUNICIPAL TECHNICAL 

 COLLEGE. 



TOURING the recent Bradford meeting of the British Asso- 

 ciation many members availed themselves of the oppor- 

 tunity of inspecting the splendid Technical College which com- 

 menced a new era under the auspices of the Municipal Council 

 twelve months ago. A description of the organisation of the 



Fig. I — Department of Textile Industries, Bradford Municipal Technical College — power loom shed, showing dress goods and coating looms and 



embroidery frame. 



Petersburg to Madrid, and from California to Japan, Naples 

 may fairly claim to have been for the last quarter of a century a 

 great international meeting-ground of biologists, and to have ex- 

 ercised a stimulating and co-ordinating influence upon biological 

 research which it would be difficult to over-estimate. 



The opportunities for taking part in collecting expeditions at 

 sea are most valuable to the young naturalist. Dredging, 

 plankton-collection and fishing are carried on daily in the Bay 

 of Naples by means of the two little steamers belonging to the 

 station, and a flotilla of fishing and other smaller boats. Many 

 of the Neapolitan fishermen are more or less in the employ of 

 the station, or bring in such specimens as they find in their 

 work. The collecting organisation, under the charge of Dr. Lo 

 Bianco, is now sufficient to provide from fifty to sixty workers at 

 a time with all the material requisite for their varied researches. 



But although the work of the Naples Zoological Station is 

 thus many-sided, the leading idea is certainly original research. 

 An investigator goes to Naples to make some particular 



NO. 1620, VOL. 63] 



college, and the work of its various departments, is given in the 

 current number of The Record of Technical and Secondary 

 Education, from which source, and the Bradford Observer, the 

 following particulars have been derived. We are indebted to 

 the Editor of the Record and to Mr. J. Nutter, secretary of the 

 school, for the accompanying illustrations. 



The management of the college is now in the hands of the 

 Technical Instruction Committee of the Bradford City Council, 

 and the scheme defining the objects of the college is as follows : — 

 " The general object of the foundation shall be the maintenance 

 of a technical college under the Technical Instruction Acts for 

 persons above 14 years of age, subject to the provision that no 

 secondary day school or school of science shall be carried on in 

 the college, but that day and evening classes may be held in the 

 subjects of art, and of manual, scientific or technical instruction 

 connected with the trades and manufactures of Bradford and the 

 neighbourhood, to which none shall be admitted under the age of 

 15 years, except on the recommendation of the governing body of 



