96 



NATURE 



[April 3, 19 19 



manv, if not all, other elements should be tested in 

 the same way. The outcome, while not in the least 

 affecting our table of atomic weights so far as prac- 

 tical purposes are concerned, might lead to highly 

 interesting theoretical conclusions. 



How can such remote scientific knowledge, even if 

 it satisfies our ever-insistent intellectual curiosity, be 

 of any practical use? Who can tell? It must be 

 admitted that the relationship is apparently slight as 

 regards any immediate application, but one can never 

 know how soon any new knowledge concerning the 

 nature of things may bear unexpected fruit. Faraday 

 had no conception of the electric locomotive or the 

 power plants of Niagara \yhen he performed those 

 crucial experiments with magnets and wires that laid 

 the basis for the dynamo. Nearly fifty years elapsed 

 before his experiments on electric induction in moving 

 wires bore fruit in a practical electric lighting system ; 

 and vet more vears before the trolley-car, depending 

 equally upon the principles discovered by Faraday, 

 became an everyday occurrence. At the time of dis- 

 covery, even if the wide bearing and extraordinary 

 usefulness of his experiments could have been fore- 

 seen by him, they were certainly hidden from the 

 world at large. 



The laws of Nature cannot be intelligently applied 

 until they are understood, and in order to understand 

 them many experiments bearing upon the fundamental 

 nature of things must be made in order that all may 

 be combined in a far-reaching generalisation impos- 

 sible without the detailed knowledge upon which it 

 rests. When mankind discovers the fundamental laws 

 underlving any set of phenomena, these phenomena 

 come in much larger measure than before his con- 

 trol, and are applicable for his service. Until we 

 understand the laws, all depends upon chance. Hence, 

 merely from the practical point of view, concerning 

 the material progress of humanity, the exact under- 

 standing of the laws of Nature is one of the most 

 important of all the problems presented to man ; and 

 the unknown laws underlying the nature of the 

 elements are obviously among the most fundamental 

 of these laws of Nature. 



Such gain in knowledge brings with it augmented 

 responsibilities. Science gives human beings vastly 

 increased power. This power has immeasurably 

 beneficent possibilities, but it may be used for ill as 

 well as for good. Science has recently been blamed 

 by superficial critics, but she is not at fault if her 

 great potentialities are sometimes perverted to serve 

 malignant ends. Is not such atrocious perversion due 

 rather to the fact that the ethical enlightenment of a 

 part of the human race has not kept pace with the 

 progress of science? May mankind be generous and 

 iiigh-minded enough to use the bountifuK resources of 

 Nature, not for evil, but for good, in the davs to 

 ■come ! 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Bristol. — In the university courses for training 

 engineers in the United States and Germany a certain 

 amount of business training is given, with the result 

 that in these countries there are many more engineers 

 directing and administering engineering concerns than 

 is the case in Great Britain. At the suggestion of the 

 Dean of the faculty of engineering of the University, 

 Dr. Werthelmer, the Senate has now decided that in 

 future the curriculum for the B.Sc. degree shall include 

 attendance at a course dealing with book-keeping, 

 methods of administering and organising works, ele- 

 ments of commercial law, depreciation, estimating, 

 costing, and the writing of specifications. 



NO. 2579, VOL. 103] 



Cambridge. — Major II. McCombie, lecturer in 

 chemistry in Birmingham University, has been elected 

 to a fellowship at King's College. 



Leeds. — The council of the University has accepted 

 with regret the resignation of Dr. C. Lovatt Evans, 

 professor of experimental physiology and experimental 

 pharmacology, who is leaving the Leeds Medical 

 School at the end of June next in order to undertake 

 research work in the Department of Pharmacology and 

 Biochemistry of the Medical Research Committee. 



London. — Capt. J. R. Partington has been ap- 

 pointed as from April i, 1919, to the newly estab- 

 lished University chair of chemistry tenable at East 

 London College. In 1910 Capt. Partington was elected 

 Beyer research fellow of the University of Manchester, 

 and in 1911 he was awarded an 1851 Exhibition scholar- 

 ship. From 1911 to 1913 he studied under Profs. 

 Nernst and Planck at Berlin. In 1913 he was appointed 

 assistant lecturer and demonstrator in chemistry at 

 Manchester, and, having served in the Army from 

 1914-16, he was recalled to take charge of research in 

 the Ministry of Munitions Inventions Department. 

 His principal publications are " Higher Mathematics 

 for Chemical Students" and "A Text-book of Thermo- 

 dynamics." 



It can now be announced that the anonymous 

 donor who in 1911 presented to the University the 

 sum of 3o,oooZ. for the erection of a school of archi- 

 tecture, a department of eugenics, and sculpture 

 studios at the college is Sir Herbert H. Bartlett, Bart. 

 The School of Architecture and the Department of 

 Eugenics have been already completed, and the Sculp- 

 ture Studios, towards the cost of which Sir Herbert 

 Bartlett has presented an additional sum of loooL, 

 will be put in hand immediately. 



An offer by Mr. G. S. Baker of 500L for the founda- 

 tion at University College of a prize for the en- 

 couragement of botanical research to be named after 

 his daughter, the late Dr. Sarah M. Baker, an old 

 student and member of the staff of the college, has 

 been accepted by the Senate with thanks. 



Owing to ill-health, Prof. Vaughan Harley has 

 resigned' the chair of pathological chemistry, which 

 he has held for twenty-three years. 



The degree of D.Sc. In biochemistry has been con- 

 ferred on Mr. E. C. Grey, an Internal student, of the 

 Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, for a thesis 

 entitled "The Enzymes of B. coli communis.'" 



Mr. A. P. McMuLLEN, senior science master. Royal 

 Naval College, Dartmouth, has been appointed Adviser 

 on Education, Admiralty. 



The Pharmazeutische Zeitung reports the following 

 changes in German botanical chairs : — Prof. Ludwig 

 Jost, of Strasbur.cf. succeeds at Heidelberg Prof. G. 

 Klebs. who died last October in his sixty-first year, 

 and 'Dr. W. Ruhland, of Halle, succeeds Prof, von 

 Vochtlng at Tubingen. 



It is announced In Science that the Carnegie Cor- 

 poration of New York has voted a grant of ioo,oooZ. 

 to the Medical Department of Queen's University, 

 Kingston, Ont. This grant is related to that in the 

 'will of Dr. James Douglas, New York, and is condi- 

 tional on an additional ioo,oooL being raised. 



The committee of the Summer School of Civics 

 and Eugenics has arranged to hold its second school 

 in August next, during the first two weeks. The 

 centre selected for the meeting this year is Cam- 

 bridge. The programme will fall into two portions, 

 the first week being devoted to a preparatory course 

 dealing with the scientific bases of educational and 

 social work, and the lectures of the second week 

 with special applications of civics and eugenics 



