NATURE 



[July 9, 1891 



The preface to "Geometry of Position," by R. H. 

 Graham, must be consulted for the counterblast in favour 

 of Maxwell's claim to the honour of priority. 



A. G. G. 



The History of Commerce in Europe. By H. de B. 



Gibbins. With Maps. (London : Macmillan and Co., 



1891.) 

 The chief defect of this little book is that the author 

 does not bring into sufficient prominence the geographical 

 element in commercial history. What are the geo- 

 graphical conditions which have favoured the growth of 

 particular industries in special localities ? And in what 

 ways have such conditions affected the interchange of 

 commodities between one part of the world and another ? 

 Mr. Gibbins has not, of course, neglected these questions, 

 but he scarcely seems to have realized that they are of 

 vital importance for the scientific presentation of his 

 subject. On the other hand, his appreciation of the 

 action of historical causes in the development of commerce 

 is excellent ; and for a general view of commercial pro- 

 gress his manual will be of much service to students. After 

 an introductory chapter he considers " ancient commerce," 

 by which he means the commerce of the Phoenicians, 

 the Carthaginians, and the Greek colonies. He then deals 

 with the ancient Greek States and Rome as trading com- 

 munities. Next comes "mediaeval commerce," in con- 

 nection with which he has much that is interesting to say 

 about the Italian cities, the Hansa towns, mediaeval trade 

 routes and fairs, the manufacturing centres of Europe, 

 and other topics. Under " modern commerce " he treats 

 of the commercial empires in the East, the commercial 

 empires in the West, English commerce from the six- 

 teenth to the eighteenth century, European commerce in 

 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the industrial 

 revolution in England and the Continental wars (1793), 

 modern English commerce, and the development of 

 commerce in France, Germany, Holland, Russia, and the 

 other European States. The maps are very good, and 

 add considerably to the value of the text. We may 

 also note that the volume includes a useful series of 

 questions on the various chapters, and two appendices, 

 in one of which there is a list of British produce and 

 manufactures in 1840 and 1889, while the other consists 

 of a table showing the present colonial empires of 

 European Powers. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 

 \The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of I^atvk^. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous co9?imunications.'\ 

 The Albert University. 

 The remarks of Mr. Thiselton Dyer upon the draft charter of 

 the " Albert University" have my fullest concurrence. I have 

 never desired to see such a University as is sketched in that 

 charter set up in London by the side of the existing University. 

 The charter and the general scheme of its proposals never ob- 

 tained the sanction of the professoriate of University College 

 whilst I was a member of that body ; and manv of us were as 

 active as circumstances allowed us to be, in opposing its federal 

 principles and bureaucratic tendency. That University and King's 

 Colleges should be united in some way to form a University is 

 one proposition : that the University should take the particular 

 form excogitated by Sir George Young is another. It is 

 well that it should be generally known that the elaborate (and 

 to my mind mischievous) constitution sketched in the draft 

 charter of the Albert University is the product of the devotion 

 and ingenuity of Sir George Young, an active member of the 

 Council of University College. 



I was not aware, when I wrote in Nature some weeks 

 ago on this subject, that the Lord President of the Privy 

 Council had determined to set aside the recommendations of 

 the late Royal Commission, and to hurry through a formal 



NO. I 132, VOL. 44] 



inquiry into the draft charter propounded by the Councils of 

 University and King's Colleges. 



So long as the matter was in the hands of the Commission, 

 this charter, put forward by the Councils of the two Colleges, 

 was merely one of many suggestions as to the proper forni which 

 a new or reconstituted University of London should take. It 

 was notorious that the Councils' support of Sir George Young's 

 scheme did not represent the attitude either of the Professors of 

 the two Colleges or of those throughout the country who have 

 special knowledge of Universities and of the best methods of 

 academical organization. 



. The Royal Commission of 1888 was appointed to inquire 

 "whether any and what kind of new Univer.-ity or powers is or 

 are required for the advancement of higher education in 

 London." The Commission took a large amount of evidence 

 from interested parties — practically none from persons outside 

 the London institutions concerned — and recommended that the 

 University of London should be invited to meet the needs set 

 forth in such documents as the draft charter of the Albert Uni- 

 veisiiy, by some modifications of its constitution and procedure. 

 In the event of a failure on the part of the University to do this, 

 the Commissioners recommended that the matter should be 

 referred back to them. 



My support of the claim of University and King's Colleges to 

 be incorporated as some kind of University has always depended 

 on the assumption that no Commission or other serious authority 

 could possibly accede blindly, and without full consultation of 

 the best authorities in the land, to the scheme embodied in the 

 Albert University draft charter. The Commissioners took, it 

 seems to me, the only rational view of that charter — namely, 

 that it might serve as a suggestion to the University in Burlington 

 Gardens for a reform which would meet, at any rate, some of 

 the objections raised to the existing constitution of the latter 

 body. 



Lord Cranbrook, however, seems anxious to hurry on the 

 shelving if not the solution of the University of London question. 

 Instead of referring the matter back to the Commissioners, he 

 takes the matter out of their hands. The Commissioners have 

 never reported in answer to the question set before them. No 

 one knows whether they think any, and, if so, what kind of 

 new "University is required in London. 



Having failed to settle the question for the time being by such 

 a reform of the University in Burlington Gardens as Mr. Dyer 

 advocates, the Commissioners ought — accordmg to their own 

 recommendation — to have been allowed to proceed further. " It 

 is now ascertained," they would have said, "that the existing 

 University of London will not reform itself in the way we have 

 suggested : what sort of University shall we now recommend, if 

 any ? " They might have suggested the coercion of the Convo- 

 cation of Burlington Gardens by an Act of Parliament ; or they 

 might have — after inquiring from authorities in Oxford, Cam- 

 bridge, Dublin, Edinburgh, and wherever else some under- 

 standing of the nature and objects of Universities happens by 

 chance to dwell — recommended the formation of a professorial 

 University in London similar to those of Scotland and of 

 Germany, 



I confess that it has always been my hope, though not my 

 expectation, that they would take the latter course. I am sure 

 that if they had proceeded to take the evidence of experts in 

 University matters, and had not attached undue importance to 

 the proposals of competing corporations, they w ould have found 

 the balance of unprejudiced opinion to be in favour of a 

 " professorial " rather than a " federal " University. The diffi- 

 culty they would have had to contend with would have been that 

 some of their own body, and nearly every witness whom they 

 lately examined, are very far from having a clear idea as to what 

 are the possible forms of University organization, what the 

 merits and the demerits respectively of the " federal" and the 

 " professorial " scheme as now in practice in Europe. This is 

 obvious enough from the printed " Minutes of Evidence taken 

 before the Royal Commissioners appointed to &c.," which 

 can be purchased of Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode for about 

 half-a-crown. 



But whatever else the late Royal Commission might have 

 done, I cannot believe that they would have proposed to £et up 

 so extraordinary and useless a piece of complicated machinery 

 as the Albert University (of the draft charter) by the side of 

 Burlington Gardens. The draft charter, having failed to reform 

 the existing University of London, ought, one would have 

 thought, to have been torn up. 



