August 12, 1897] 



NA TURE 



359 



worship has had a world-wide fame : the image of the Ephesian 

 Artemis. This worship had its centre at Ephesus, but was 

 widely extended along the shores of the Mediterranean. Temple 

 after temple was built on the same site at Ephesus, each 

 superior to the preceding, until the structure was reckoned one 

 of the seven wonders of the world. As a tem]>le, it became the 

 theatre of a most elaborate religious ceremonial. As an asylum, 

 it protected from pursuit and arrest all kinds of fugitives from 

 justice or vengeance. As a museum, it possessed some of the 

 finest products of Greek art, notably works of Phidias and 

 Apelles. As a bank, it received and guarded the treasures 

 which merchants and princes from all lands brought for safe 

 keeping. In its own right it possessed extensive lands and 

 large revenues. The great city of Ephesus assumed as her 

 leading title that of vfwKopoi, or temple-warden of Artemis, 

 putting his name on her coins, and in her monumental in- 

 scriptions. 



The image, which was the central object in this temple, was 

 said to have fallen from heaven. Copies of it in all sizes and 

 forms were made of gold, of silver, of bronze, of stone and 

 of wood, by Ephesian artificers, and were supplied by them to 

 markets in all lands. What a lifelike picture is given us in the 

 igih chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, of the excited crowd 

 of Ephesians, urged on by the silversmiths, who made for sale 

 the silver shrines of the goddess, and who saw that their craft 

 was in danger if men learned to regard Artemis as no real 

 divinity, and to despise the image that fell down from the sky. 



We cannot suppose that the Ephesian Artemis image of the 

 first century was a meteorite, though we have the distinct appel- 

 lation, Diipetes, fallen from the sky. But I believe that there 

 was a meteoric stone that was the original of the Ephesian 

 images, and it seems not at all improbable that in some one 

 of the destructions of the temple it disappeared. Or, in 

 the progress of time, there may have been a desire to repre- 

 sent the goddess in a more artistic form than the shapeless 

 stone afforded. 



Many forms of the Ephesian Artemis are still preserved, and 

 they have, amid all their variations, a certain peculiar character 

 in common. That common character seems to me to con- 

 firm the statement that the original image fell from heaven. 

 This goddess is regarded, let me say, as different from the 

 Grecian Artemis, the beautiful huntress so well known in 

 Greek art, and I am speaking only of the images of the Ephesian 

 Artemis. 



There is one peculiarity in the outward forms of the meteor- 

 ites that is characteristic of nearly all of them. I mean the 

 moulded forms, and the depressions all over the surfaces. They 

 are better appreciated by being seen, than by any description I 

 can give you. They are common to meteorites of all kinds, 

 from the most friable stone to the most compact iron. (I show 

 you one, a stone from Iowa — also the plaster cast of another, 

 a stone from some fall, I know not which one.) Those who 

 have lately visited the collection in the Peabody Museum 

 may recollect the model of an iron that fell two or three years 

 ago in Arkansas, which displays most beautifully these de- 

 pressions. 



Let now an artist attempt to idealise anyone of these moulded 

 forms, and to make something like a human shape out of one of 

 them. He must necessarily set it upright, and he must give it 

 a head. You have then a head surmounting one of these 

 moulded forms. Let now the convenience and the taste of the 

 artificers of the images have some liberty to act — and we know 

 that they did act, for we have considerable variety in these 

 images — and a development in the conventional representation 

 of the image is sure to follow. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



The State of Pennsylvania has made a grant of 150,000 dollars 

 to Lehigh University. 



Dr. Ralph Stockman has been appointed to succeed the 

 late Prof. Charteris in the chair of Materia Medica and 

 Therapeutics in the University of Glasgow. 



It is announced that the late Dr. Matthew HinchlifTe, of 

 Dewsbury, Yorkshire, has bequeathed about 50,000/. — almost 

 the whole of his property — for purposes of higher education in 

 De wsbury. 



NO. T45O, VOL. 56] 



In connection with the opening of a technical day school at 

 the Borough Polytechnic Institute next month, and the general 

 development of the Institute, the Governors have made the fol- 

 lowing appointments : — Mr. E. T. Marsh, head-master ; Dr. F. 

 MoUwo Perkin, head of the chemistry department; Mr. G. E. 

 Draycott, lecturer in engineering. 



Senior county scholarships, tenable for three years, pro- 

 viding free tuition (up to 30/. a year) and a maintenance grant 

 of 60/. a year, have been awarded by the Technical Education 

 Board of the London County Council to the following candi- 

 dates : — Charles Cornfield Garrard, of Finsbury Technical 

 College, who intends to proceed to Germany for three years to 

 study chemistry ; George William Howe, of Woolwich Poly- 

 technic, who intends to proceed to the Durham College of 

 Science, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, to study engineering ; Edith 

 Ellen Humphrey, of Bedford College, who intends to proceed to 

 Germany for three years to study chemistry ; Frederick Edwin 

 Whittle, an intermediate county scholar of the Central Tech- 

 nical College, who desires to continue his engineering studies at 

 the college. A senior county scholarship, tenable for one year, 

 has been awarded to William Laurence Waters, of the Central 

 Technical College, to enable him to complete his engineering 

 course. The following special grants have been made : — To 

 H. C. Green, H. H. F. Hyndman and W. H. Winch, grants of 

 50/. each for the coming year, to assist them in their studies at 

 the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge ; to T. M. Lowry, 

 A. W. Poole, and H. E. Stevenson, grants of 30/. each for the 

 coming year, to assist them in their studies at the Central 

 Technical College, St. John's College, Cambridge, and the 

 East London Technical College, respectively. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Chemical Society, June 17. — Prof. Dewar, President, in 

 the chair. — The following papers were read: — Molecular re- 

 fraction of dissolved salts and acids. Part ii., by J. H. Gladstone 

 and W. Hibbert. The molecular refraction of a salt in aqueous 

 solution is sometimes greater and sometimes less than that of the 

 same salt in the crystalline state. The authors have also made 

 determinations of the refraction constants of various substances^ 

 hydrogen chloride, nitric acid, lithium chloride, and ferric 

 chloride— in water and organic solvents. — On a space formula 

 for benzene, by J. N. Collie. The author has devised a new 

 space formula for benzene in which the six hydrogen atoms are 

 divided into two sets of three each, one set being situated inside 

 the molecule, whilst the other set is on the outside. — On the 

 production of some nitro- and amido-oxypicolines, by A. Lap- 

 worth and J. N. Collie. Dioxypicoline, CgH^-NOo, is readily 

 nitrated, yielding a nitrodioxypicoline, C6HgNo04 ; this, on 

 reduction, yields an amidodioxypicoline CgHgNjOj, which is 

 easily hydrolysed with formation of a trioxypicoline, CgHyNOg. 

 — Further experiments on the absorption of moisture by 

 deliquescent substances, by H. W. Hake. From experiments 

 made on a number of deliquescent substances the author con- 

 cludes that during deliquescence a quantity of water correspond- 

 ing to a definite hydrate is taken up. — The fusing point, boiling 

 point and specific gravity of nitrobenzene, by R. J. Friswell. 

 In view of the discordant values given by various authors for the 

 above constants, the author has re-determined the physical con- 

 stants of both solid and liquid nitrobenzene.— The action of 

 light on a solution of nitrobenzene in concentrated sulphuric acid, 

 by R. J. Friswell. A solution of nitrobenzene in concentrated 

 sulphuric acid is very rapidly blackened by exposure to sunlight 

 or burning magnesium ribbon.— The reduction of perthiocyanic 

 acid, by F. D. Chattaway and H. P. Stevens. The reduction 

 of perthiocyanic acid by tin and hydrochloric acid gives an almost 

 quantitative yield of thiourea and carbon bisulphide in accordance 

 with the equation :— H.^N2C2S3 -h 2H = CS(NH2)2 -J- CSj.— 

 The so-called hydrates of isopropyl alcohol, by T. E. Thorpe. 

 The author has been unable to find any experimental evidence in 

 favour of the existence of the four hydrates of isopropyl alcohol 

 which have been described. — The carbohydrates of cereal straws, 

 by C. F. Cross, E. F. Bevan and C. Smith.— Studies on the 

 constitution of tri-derivatives of naphthalene. No. 16. Con- 

 version of chloronaphthalenedisulphonic acids into dichloro- 

 naphthalenesulphonic acids, by H. E. Armstrong and W. P. 

 Wynne. The authors find that the conversion of naphthalenesul- 



