NATURE 



[January 5, 189^ 



customs too frequently lead, this second object is at 

 present attained. < 



It is almost ludicrous that at the very momenit 

 when a Royal Commission is sitting to determine the 

 constitution of a new University for London, Par- 

 liament should be asked to sanction a Bill which, 

 if it serves as a precedent, may make the teaching 

 of some of the most important sciences impossible 

 within the metropolitan area. Indeed, in this danger 

 we find a new confirmation of the importance of the 

 policy which we have often urged upon those who 

 are directly interested in the constitution of the future 

 University. 



Science teaching in Exhibition Road is threatened 

 to-day. It may be threatened somewhere else to-morrow. 

 It will be impossible for a number of competing 

 colleges to defeat the railway engineers, or to pre- 

 serve intact for scientific research a number of build- 

 ings planted upon sites selected without reference 

 to the new danger which has arisen. They will be at- 

 tacked in detail, and beaten one by one. How immensely 

 in this, as in many other matters, would their position be 

 strengthened if they were able to speak with one voice in 

 support of a plan decided on in common, and defended 

 together. If the hoped-for University of the future 

 already existed ; if it spoke with the prestige of the exist- 

 ing University of London, combined with that of the 

 consolidated teaching staffs of the London Colleges ; if 

 the support of a Government Department could be 

 asked to aid a University which, like the British Museum, 

 commanded universal respect and support ; then it might 

 be possible to obtain a ready hearing for opinions given 

 with all the weight of a great institution of which the 

 country would be justly proud. Till the union is effected, 

 which alone will make science in London able to meet 

 its enemies in the gate, we must struggle as best we can 

 to prevent irreparable mischief. . 



We can only hope that the Vice-President of the 

 Council, who is known to have the interests of the higher 

 education at heart, will not allow a railway, electrical or 

 other, to injure the teaching institutions clustered round 

 the magnificent collections of apparatus in his charge. 



SOUND AND MUSIC. 

 Sound and Music. By the Rev. J. A. Zahm, C.S.C, Pro- 

 fessor of Physics in the University of Notre Dame. 

 Large octavo, 452 pages. (Chicago : A. C. McClurg and 

 Company, 1892.) 



THIShandsomelygot-upand lavishly illustrated volume 

 is, the author informs us, a largely expanded tran- 

 script of a course of lectures delivered by him, in 189 1 " in 

 the Catholic University of America, at Washington, D.C." 

 Its "main purpose is to give musicians and general 

 readers an exact knowledge, based on experiment, of the 

 principles of acoustics, and to present at the same time a 

 brief exposition of the physical basis of musical harmony." 

 A clear intimation is given at the outset (p. 18) of the 

 predominant role which experiment is to play in the ac- 

 oustical portion of the undertaking. Had Prof. Zahm 

 not had at his disposal " all the more delicate and import- 

 ant instruments" of research and verification, in the 

 NO. I 2 10, VOL. 47] 



theory of sound, constructed by Dr. Koenig of Paris,, 

 he would " not have attempted to give the present lec- 

 tures on sound" before such an audience as that which 

 actually attended them. With Dr. Koenig's apparatus 

 around him, however, he had assured means of " enter- 

 taining" his hearers, and of " illustrating in a way that 

 would otherwise be impossible the most salient facts and 

 phenomena of sound." The late Isaac Todhunter has 

 deprecated the systematic repetition of perfectly esta- 

 blished experiments, on the ground that their results 

 ought to be believed on the statements of a tutor — " pro- 

 bably a clergyman of mature knowledge, recognised 

 ability, and blameless character " — to suspect whom 

 was in itself irrational.^ Prof Zahm's practice 

 pushes to a great length a view directly opposed to that 

 enunciated — with obvious humorous exaggeration — by 

 the well-known Cambridge private tutor. Not content with 

 a single experiment decisive of each successive issue pre- 

 sented, he performs a whole series bringing into action 

 all the resources of his superbly found collection of 

 acoustical apparatus. It is no detraction from the clear 

 and interesting manner in which these formidably numer- 

 ous experiments are set forth, to say that the amount of 

 space necessarily devoted to explaining the mechanism 

 of the apparatus used gives to parts of Prof. Zahm's 

 volume somewhat of the look of an acoustical instrument- 

 maker's illustrated catalogue. Subject, however, to this 

 defect, if defect it be, the lectures are decidedly pleasant 

 and attractive reading. The illustrations, too, are 

 thoroughly clear and beautifully executed, so that our 

 author may be fairly congratulated on success in 

 'entertaining' — the word is his own — his hearers 

 and readers. His object, to give to general readers 

 an "exact knowledge" of the principles of acoustics, 

 has also been in a fair measure attained, but subject 

 to certain not inconsiderable deductions. In de- 

 scribing the processes and results of experiment Prof. 

 Zahm is clear and thoroughgoing : in expounding the 

 parts of acoustical theory which must be mastered 

 if the facts thus obtained are to be understood in their 

 mutual relations, he is often vague and superficial Thus 

 the nature of wave-motion, the formation of stationary 

 undulations, the composition of small vibratory move- 

 ments — matters of crucial importance to any connected 

 comprehension of Acoustics — receive fromhimno effective 

 elucidation. Nay, he is even chargeable with having, by 

 the misuse of a technical term of perfectly settled mean- 

 ing, written in a way likely to confuse his readers' ideas 

 on these very matters. On p. 46 he calls certain points 

 in a series of progressive waves " nodal points where 

 there is no motion," thus confusing two things which 

 ought to be most carefully distinguished from each other, 

 a point of momentary rest in a progressive wave, and one 

 of permanent rest in a stationary undulation. The 

 usage which restricts 'node' to this latter meaning is so 

 well established that such use of it as the above is quite 

 inexcusable, especially in an author who himself else- 

 where, p. 146 &c., employs it in its ordinary signification. 

 The same indifference to accuracy of expression recurs 

 in this volume with a frequency not creditable to a 

 professor of an exact science. Thus on p. 50 the 

 return movement of a prong of a tuning fork is said 



' "The Conflict of Studies," p. 17. 



