January 5, 1893] 



NATURE 



222 



We need not waste time in considering whether some 

 means could not be found to continue to take astrono- 

 mical photographs of say an hour's exposure, or to use 

 chemical balances of the greatcot delicacy, with a railway 

 or tramway of any kind running intermittently within 

 twenty yards of the laboratory in which the work is sup- 

 posed to be carried on ; and it is also clear that the result 

 would be disastrous if the traffic were carried on at any 

 practicable depth. 



Last year a joint Committee of the Houses of Lords 

 and Commons fully considered the question as to the 

 principles on which future extensions of what may be 

 called omnibus traffic should be carried on, and they 

 came to the conclusion that electric and cable railways 

 constructed at a considerable depth below the surface 

 would probably be the most convenient means for 

 uniting the various parts of the metropolis more closely. 

 Some people have attempted to read into this part of 

 the Committee's report that given a cable or electric 

 railway there will be no shaking ! And it has been sug- 

 gested that all such opposition as we have expressed 

 above should disappear. This of course is the view of the 

 company- promoter, but it will commend itself to no one 

 else. In fact there are special objections to an electric 

 railway in addition to those earthquakes more or less 

 mitigated which are associated with any system of 

 traction. 



No evidence was laid before the Committee as to 

 some of the disadvantages which aie incidental to the 

 use of electricity. It is true that these disadvantages 

 are not such as to interfere with the further extension 

 of electrical railways, but they are of sufficient import- 

 ance to be considered in deciding on the routes which 

 the railways shall follow. Experiments made some little 

 time ago in the neighbourhood of the South London 

 Electrical Railway proved that the electrical disturbances 

 were so great that it was doubtful whether ordinary 

 higher students' work could be carried on within a 

 quarter of a mile. 



A quarter of a mile ! And the proposed railway, or 

 electric way, or cable way, or tramway is to run within 

 twenty yards of electrical and magnetic laboratories. 

 " Rien tCest sacre pour un safieur /" an evil hidden in the 

 ground ceases to be one. 



It must not be forgotten that the interests at stake are 

 not only those of the higher sciences and research. It 

 might, perhaps, be argued that as the instruments used 

 for investigation become more sensitive, and as the neces- 

 sity for accuracy increases, it may be necessary that 

 researches of a special character should be carried out in 

 places specially selected for their freedom from all 

 external disturbance. A serious damage will, however, be 

 done to our large towns if it becomes necessary for every 

 middle-class youth who wants to master more than the 

 elements of science to become a boarder at a country 

 college. It is frequently complained that there is an 

 increasing separation between class and class, those who 

 are able to do so leaving the towns for the more distant 

 suburbs. It would be a thousand pities if the higher 

 education were also, even in part, to be banished from our 

 great centres of population. 



It may be urged by the promoters of the company that 



it will be easy for them or the Government to plant the 



NO. 1210, VOL. 47] 



Royal College of Science elsewhere, but if the buildings 

 of the College are nororiously inadequate, it was clearly 

 stated at the time when the proposal to place a collec- 

 tion of pictures on the site reserved for science made it 

 necessary to explain the future policy of the Department 

 of Science and Art, that the collections and the labora- 

 tories attached to them were in the future to be housed on 

 the plot close to the present site. 



But as stated before, it is not necessary only to base 

 our case upon the injury which would certainly be done 

 to the Royal College of Science ; it must be remembered 

 that hard by is the City and Guilds Central Institution, 

 in which extensive and costly laboratories, built by the 

 munificence of the City Companies, have during the 

 last few years been filled with students, many of whom 

 are engaged in advanced studies. 



Every argument which applies to the one case holds 

 good in the other. The work of the City Companies and 

 the interests of these institutions are endangered in the 

 same way, and for the same reasons, as those of the 

 Government College over the way. 



On the previous occasion, when it was proposed to 

 bring a railway at the back of the Central Institution, 

 the Professors there, with the sanction of the City and 

 Guilds of London Institute, opposed the scheme. We 

 understand that the Professors have again made a re- 

 presentation to the Institute which in all probability will 

 result in steps being taken to prevent the construction 

 of any railway or tramway which would interfere with 

 the work carried out in the Physical Department of the 

 Central Institution. 



In both these institutions it is as important that the 

 apparatus should be used without let or hindrance from 

 external disturbances, as say, that the reading-room in 

 the British Museum should not be rendered uninhabit- 

 able by a nuisance produced either by private individuals 

 or by some company in the neighbourhood. 



On these grounds we protest in the name of science 

 against a railway of any kind in Exhibition Road. 



If there is one district in the metropolis which ought 

 to be thus secured, it is the neighbourhood of the 

 great national scientific school and its associated collec- 

 tions. 



And here a word about these Science Collections. 

 There are philistines among us who think that the collec- 

 tions would do very well without the schools, as the 

 schools could do very well without either higher teach 

 ing or research. 



There is no doubt a certain advantage to be gained by 

 collecting types of all sorts of apparatus, exhibiting them 

 appropriately labelled in glass cases, through which the 

 public may gaze with, it is to be feared, somewhat indis- 

 criminate admiration ; but it must always be recollected 

 that the nation is proud of the British Museum and Art 

 Galleries, not merely because they play a useful part in 

 educating the crowds who visit them, but also because 

 they are centres to which students resort from all parts, 

 not only of the United Kingdom, but of the civilized 

 world, not to gaze at the collections but to use 

 them. In like manner a national collection of scien- 

 tific apparatus should be brought together, not merely 

 to be stared at, but to be used. By an arrangement 

 more logical than those to which our haphazard English 



