April 14, 1910J 



NATURE 



209 



On the occasion of the opening of the Carnegie Science 

 Building at Acadia University, Wolfville, N.S., last 

 October, Prof. H. A. Bumstead, of Yale University, 

 delivered an address on the functions of a university 

 laboratory. A reprint of the address is published in Science 

 of March ii. After dealing with scientific studies from 

 the disciplinary and ethical points of view, and urging 

 that they are peculiarly adapted to the purpose of leading 

 young men into the paths of careful, sensible, fearless, 

 original thinking, he pointed out that laboratories have a 

 much higher educational function to perform than merely 

 to produce engineers or technical chemists or practising 

 physicians ; but Prof. Bumstead insisted most on the 

 laboratory being a place for research. True research, real 

 scientific pioneering, does not strongly appeal to the 

 general public ; its applications may be remote, it shows 

 no immediate profit, its achievements are not spectacular, 

 and are often too technical to be understood fully by any 

 but experts. Thus it comes about that it must be 

 encouraged and supported by the more enlightened frac- 

 tion of mankind, and the chief agency through which this 

 support may be given is the university or college. No 

 other institution has been devised or seems likely to be 

 invented which can perform the task so well. Research is 

 not altogether a business, but an art as well, and that 

 while organisation and division of labour may be the life 

 of business, it is not the soul of art. To produce the 

 highest results in scientific research there must be in- 

 dividuality and freedom, and there is room for far more 

 individuality in a university laboratory than in any special 

 research laboratory which has hitherto been established. 

 Engaging in research is the best way and the only certain 

 way for a teacher to keep himself alive intellectually and 

 to retain his spirit and enthusiasm to the end. Even if 

 the college he serves regards teaching and not research as 

 its chief business, even then a professor must be given 

 a reasonable amount of time and reasonable opportunities 

 for research in order that he may keep his intellectual 

 health, just as he is given time for phj-sical exercise in 

 order that he may maintain his bodily health. 



When we directed attention about two years ago to the 

 second part of the first volume of the Journal of the 

 Municipal School of Technology, Manchester, a volume of 

 130 pages of reprints of papers written by members of 

 the staff of the school during the years 1903-7, we ex- 

 pressed doubt as to whether the output of research from 

 the school was adequate in view of the fact that the staff 

 numbered 100. The appearance of vol. ii. of the journal, 

 which contains nearly 300 pages, and covers the papers 

 published by the staff during the year 1908 only, removes 

 all possibility of doubt on this score, and shows conclusively 

 that the educational authorities of Manchester are alive to 

 the importance of creating an atmosphere of investigation 

 throughout the school. Of the sixteen papers reprinted in 

 the second volume, three deal with pure chemistry, and 

 form part of the series on the relations between outer 

 form and chemical structure with which Prof. Pope's 

 name is so closely associated ; six deal with cotton, . the 

 staple trade of Manchester ; five deal with electrical 

 engineering and its teaching ; one with mechanical and one 

 with sanitary engineering. This list shows that the most 

 important departments are all permeated by the desire to 

 advance the subject with which they deal, and we mav 

 hope for a long succession of volumes from the school 

 like the one before us. In the note referred to above 

 regret was expressed that there seemed to be little evidence 

 that the larger polytechnics in and about London, and the 

 technical schools in the great towns of the provinces, 

 r.g. Birmingham, Glasgow, and Belfast, adequately 

 appreciated the importance of making themselves, above 

 everything, centres of research for the solution of those 

 problems which the highly specialised processes carried 

 out in each district are constantly encountering. Far too 

 many of the institutions of this type distributed over the 

 country are content to record the thousands who have 

 been taught elementary science within their walls, when 

 the record is but one of their failure to do anything more 

 than fill in some of the most conspicuous gaps in the 

 education of those who come to them from the primary 

 or secondary schools of the district. It is necessary to urge 

 NO. 21 1 1, VOL. 83] 



such schools to leave elementary-school work to the 

 elementary schools, and to make themselves efficient as 

 centres for the higher work of teaching and research in 

 the subjects which bear on the principal trades of the 

 district. May the example of Manchester spur them on 

 to a better use of their opportunities. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Zoological Society, April 5. — Prof. E. A. Minchin, vice- 

 president, in the chair. — R. H. Whitehouse : The caudal 

 fin of the Teleostomi. The paper dealt with the structure 

 of the caudal fin in about fifty different species of fishes, 

 mostly Teleostei, and representative of nearly all the sub- 

 groups. After each sub-group a few general remarks were 

 added, and these were followed by a short summary of 

 results dealing with definitions and the taxonomic value 

 of the caudal fin. — T. M. S. English : Some notes on 

 Tasmanian frogs. The paper was based on observations 

 made during rather more than two years' residence in 

 Tasmania. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, April 4. — M. Emile Picard in 

 the chair. — The president announced the death of A. 

 Agassiz, foreign associate. — Wilfred <Je Fonvielle : The 

 theory of Fontenelle relating to the constitution of comets. 

 The author maintains the possibihty of Fontenelle's view 

 that the comet acts as a gaseous lens, and discusses 

 Kepler's objections to this theory. — ^J. Haagr : The 

 spherical representation of certain famihes of Lam6. — 

 Rene Arnoux : The longitudinal equilibrium and curvature 

 of the carrying surfaces of aeroplanes. The effect of 

 increasing the curvature of the supporting surfaces is to 

 increase the power of support, but, at the same time, the 

 resistance to translation is increased, ajid the longitudinal 

 equilibrium becomes unstable. — A. Votton and H. 

 Mouton : Havelock's relation between double refraction 

 and the index of refraction. Havelock's formula has been 

 verified experimentally by Skinner and McComb for the 

 magnetic double refraction of eight liquids, and the 

 authors have also verified it for nitrobenzene. This 

 formula is based on the assumption that the field modifies 

 the distribution, but it is also consistent with the hypo- 

 thesis that there is an orientation of the anisotropic mole- 

 cules. — F. Croze : The prolongation of the band spectrum 

 of nitrogen in the extreme red and the infra-red. — V. 

 Cremieu : A systematic error limiting the precision of 

 the Cavendish experiment. A new method for the study 

 of gravitation. The error is caused by a supplementary 

 couple resulting from the bending of the supporting wire. 

 A method is outlined by which this error can be eliminated. 

 — C. Ch^neveau : The specific refractive powers or 

 optical constants of dissolved substances in very dilute 

 solution, .^n interference method was used, and the error 

 due to differences of temperature in the two vessels dis- 

 covered and eliminated. lonisation does not appear to 

 have any sensible influence on the refractive power of a 

 dissolved substance in solutions of which the concentra- 

 tions are more than 0-5 gram per litre. — Louis Werten- 

 stein : The paths of radio-active projections. — A. Besson 

 and L. Fournier : The reduction of the chlorides of boron 

 and arsenic by hydrogen under the influence of the silent 

 discharge. Arsenic trichloride is reduced, and a substance 

 is formed the composition of which corresponds to As„Cl ; 

 this may possibly be a mixture of arsenic and a lower 

 chloride than .AsCl,. No subchloride of boron could be 

 obtained. — J. Bougrault : The acid-alcohols of conifers. 

 Juniperic and sabinic acids. Juniperic acid was proved to 

 be CH„(OH).(CH,)„.CO,H, and sabinic acid 



CH,(OH).(CH,)io.CO,H. 



Thapsic acid, extracted by F. Canzoneri from the resin 

 of Thapsia Garganica, was shown to be identical with 

 juniperic acid. — Marcel Deldpine : Some organic com- 

 pounds spontaneously oxidisable with phosphorescence. 

 Eleven substances are described which possess this 

 property, all having in common the group (S=C — O — ). 

 — E. Voisenet : The detection of hexamethvlenetetramine 



