484 



NATURE 



[August 22, 1918 



Horizons: At Dawn and at Dusk. Poems by 

 Colin Tolly. Pp. ix + 82, (London: Hodder 

 and Stoughton, 1918.) Price 3s. 6d. net, 



Mr. Tolly Is clearly a scholar who has been 

 thrown, like so many others, into the brutalities 

 of war, and who heartens himself by writing- 

 verses that recall the happier years. But, though 

 he has studied the ancient classics, and also zoo- 

 logy, his manner is not that of a poet, or even 

 of a teacher, seeking in the concise forms of verse 

 the expression of cumulative research. Why, for 

 example, and for what mechanical reason, did the 

 dead Adonis sail "to sea, on springs "•? Does the 

 sun "shine" a beam? And will the general 

 reader, who has still so much to learn about an- 

 cestral forms of life, really gather anything from 

 the condensed text-book terminology of pp. 49-60? 

 We might, indeed, be pleasantly surprised to 

 "hear the tune " that the Permian reptiles "sang 

 at sundown . , . pregnant with speech and night- 

 ingales " ; but we cannot believe that, by any 

 process of selection, "Death . . . endowed with 

 brains the victors" in the struggle for existence. 

 The crowded stanzas on* the development of re- 

 ligions are not more satisfactory. It is unfair to 

 suggest what Swinburne or Flecker might have 

 made of them; but, even between Olympos and 

 Salonika, Mr. Tolly has caught only the spray of 

 the high and rising wave of war-time Inspiration. 



• G. A. J. C. 



Journal of the Institute of Metals. Vol. xix. 

 Pp. X + 316. (London: Published by the In- 

 stitute, 1918.) Price 21S. net. 



The latest volume of this useful journal contains 

 several papers of interest. Prof. Carpenter, in 

 addition to his presidential address, in which he 

 deals with the relations between scientific investi- 

 gation and training and technical practice, con- 

 tributes, with Miss Elam, a paper on the cause 

 ot unsoundness in bronze castings. The subject 

 is a difficult one, and the principal conclusion 

 confirmed by the experience of others who took 

 part in the discussion, Is that the most Important 

 factor in ensuring soundness is the proper control 

 ot the pouring temperature. The equilibrium 

 between a molten alloy and the gases dissolved 

 m It still remains somewhat mysterious. Die- 

 casting, especially of alloys of high melting-point, 

 has received little attention in technical journals 

 although It IS widely and successfully used in prac- 

 tice, and the paper by Messrs. Rix and Whitaker 

 is the more welcome on that account. By using 

 an aluminium bronze containing iron, excellent 

 results have been obtained with complicated cast- 

 ings. The discussion turns largely on the be- 

 haviour of the dies. Aluminium bronze is also 

 studied from the point of view of the hardness 

 of alloys by Mr. Greenwood, and other matters 

 dealt with are the determination of the grain size 

 of metals and the annealing of aluminium. The 

 volume also incliides abstracts of metallurgical 

 papers from all sources. 



NO, 2547, VOL.. lOl] 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 

 opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 

 can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 

 the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 

 this or any other part of Nature. No notice if 

 taken of anonymous communications.] 



Science and the Civil Service. 



In the article on the above subject in Nature of 

 August 8, the unsatisfactory method of selecdng candi- 

 dates for Civil Service appointments is very justlv 

 emphasised. I desire to make the following sugges- 

 tion, which will obviate the system of patronage and 

 to a great extent that of competidve examination, 

 both of which suffer from serious inherent defects 

 which need not be discussed. 



My suggestion is that each university of the United 

 Kingdom be granted the right to nominate each year 

 one or more candidates (according to the number of 

 vacancies) from its most promising honours graduates. 

 A further selection from among the nominees might, 

 if necessary, be made by some form of oral or written 

 examination. 



It is improbable that any university would abuse 

 this privilege and thereby discredit itself by nominating . 

 a student who is likely to prove a failure. The ex- 

 perience in the selection of the 185 1 Exhibition scholars 

 is a sufficient guarantee of the highly satisfactory 

 results of such a system. 



The most promising arts and science men in the 

 country would thus become available for Govern- 

 ment appointments, and it is to be hoped that with 

 this choice the science departments of the State will 

 in future be administered by men whose training has 

 not been exclusivelv classical. J. B. Cohen. 



THE ROYAL INSTITUTION: A RETRO- 

 SPECT. 



A RECENT issue of the Proceedings of the 

 ^ *■ Royal Institution contains a reprint of a 

 lecture delivered in its theatre on March 3, 1810, 

 by the then professor of chemistry, " H. Davy, 

 Esq., Sec, R.S. " This lecture, as its title-page 

 informs us, was originally published by desire of 

 the managers ; it is now reproduced at the sug- 

 gestion of the Fullerian professor of chemistry. 

 It is entitled "A Lecture on the Plan which It is 

 Proposed to Adopt for Improving the Royal In- 

 stitution and Rendering it Permanent." To 

 understand the significance of this wording it is 

 necessary to recall some circumstances connected 

 with the early history of the institution. 



As conceived by Its founder, Benjamin Thomp- 

 son, a Royalist American who had been created 

 a Count of the Holy Roman Empire by the Elector 

 Palatine of Bavaria, it was intended to be part 

 of an establishment for the benefit of the poor. In 

 1796 Rumford, who was a practical philanthropist 

 on a pretty broad gauge, and an early worker 

 In what Is now styled "domestic science," put 

 forth a 



proposal for forming in London (by private subscrip- 

 tion an establishment for feeding the poor and giving 

 them useful employment, and also for furnishing food 

 at la cheap rate to others who may stand in need of 

 such assistance, connected with an institution for intro- 



