August 4, 1892] 



NATURE 



These remarks do not apply to the education of students in- 

 tending to make chemistry iheir profession, who have many op- 

 portunities, in the large laboratories of Great Britain and the Con- 

 tinent, of obtaining all the necessary instruction. The Institute 

 of Chemistry, which was founded to improve the status and also 

 the education of professional chemists, requires that its mem- 

 bers should have a thoroughly scientific training. Before a 

 candidate for the associateship is admitted to examination, he 

 must bring evidence that he has passed satisfactorily through a 

 systematic course of at least three years' study in the subjects of 

 theoretical and practical chemistry, physics, and elementary 

 mathematics, in some recognized college or school ; and before 

 admission to the fellowship he must have passed through three 

 additional years of work in chemistry. It is to be hoped that 

 an example of this kind will ultimately have a good effect in 

 improving the modes of teaching the science in its elementary 

 stages. 



There is another class of workers in chemistry who must not 

 be forgotten at the present time, as they have much influence on 

 the life of the world and have been working for ages, but have 

 only recently been recognized. I mean those organisms which 

 are included under the name of microbes. These organisms are 

 capable of producing chemical changes which entirely surpass 

 all the results hitherto obtained by the chemist in his laboratory. 

 That the transformation of sugar into alcohol and carbonic 

 anhydride in the ordinary process of fermentation is due to a 

 living organism, has been known for some years ; the 

 important transformation of ammonia into nitrous and nitric 

 acids in the soil has been shown to be due to organisms 

 which have recently been investigated by many chemists ; it 

 is possible to transform ammonia into these acids in the labora- 

 tory by oxidation under certain conditions and at a high 

 temperature, whereas the organism does the work quite as 

 efficaciously at the common temperature. Other organisms have 

 the power of producing complex organic poisons by the altera- 

 tion of some of the constituents of the animal body, and the 

 relation of these products to the study of diseases is of the 

 highest possible importance. As we hope to have a discussion 

 on this interesting subject by many eminent authorities, both 

 from the chemical and biological points of view, it will be 

 unnecessary to pursue the subject further, unless it be to urge 

 some of the younger chemists to work at the chemical aspect of 

 bacteriology. They must be prepared for hard work and many 

 disappointments, for the subject is undoubtedly a difficult one. 



I cannot conclude this address without reference to the great 

 loss which chemistry has sustained by the death of Prof. A. W. 

 von Hofmann. I had the good fortune to be under him as 

 student and assistant from 1856 until he left this country in 1865 ; 

 all who worked with him must have been deeply impressed 

 by his capacity for work and his povter of inducing work in 

 others. Although perhaps some of us did not appreciate this at 

 the time, yet we feel we owe him a debt of gratitude for his 

 having started us in the right way. The list of papers under 

 his name in the Royal Society Catalogue up the year 1883 is 

 299, written by himself alone, besides twenty-two joint papers. 

 One of his characteristics which impressed me was his investi- 

 gation for the purpose of furthering chemical knowledge without 

 any view to practical applications, and I well remember his 

 lecture at the Royal Institution, in 1862, on Mauve and Magenta 

 (which owed so much of their success to his work), in which he 

 produced the original specimen of benzene which had been 

 obtained by Faraday from oilgas in 1825. He pointed out that 

 Faraday had prepared this substance and investigated its pro- 

 perties without ever supposing that it could have any practical 

 application. The following is the concluding paragraph of the 

 lecture : — 



" Need I say any more? The moral of Mauve and Magenta 

 is transparent enough ; I read it in your eyes. We understand 

 each other. Whenever in future one of your chemical friends, 

 full of enthusiasm, exhibits and explains to you his newly-dis- 

 covered compounds, you will not cool his noble ardour by ask- 

 ing him that most terrible of all questions, ' What is its use ? 

 Will your compound bleach or dye ? Will it shave ? May it be 

 used as a substitute for leather? ' Let him quietly go on with 

 his work. The dye, the lather, the leather will make their 

 appearance in due tiuie. Let him, I repeat, perform his task. 

 Let him indulge in the pursuit of truth— of truth pure and simple 

 —of truth not for the sake of Mauve, not for the sake of 

 >Lagenta, let him pursue truth for the sake of truth." 



This seems to me the true spirit of the scientific investigator 



NO. II 88, VOL. 46] 



and in many cases the reward consists solely in the consciousness 

 that the investigator has done his duty ; in some cases the 

 reward may take a more substantial form, and since the above 

 paragraphs were written I have been informed that Prof, von 

 Hofmann has left a large fortune, the result of the applications 

 of his discoveries in technical chemistry. 



NOTES. 



We hope to publish shortly, in the series of "Scientific 

 Worthies," a portrait of Sir Archibald Geikie, whose address as 

 president of the British Association we print to-day. The por- 

 trait will be accompanied by a sketch of Sir Archibald's career 

 as a man of science. 



The International Congress of Experimental Psychology 

 began work at University College, Gower Street, on Monday, 

 when an address was delivered by Prof. H. Sidgwick. We 

 propose to give on a future occasion some account of the pro- 

 ceedings. 



The Helvetic Society of the Natural Sciences will hold its 

 seventy-fifth annual meeting at Basel from September 5 to 7. 

 The Basel Society of the Natural Sciences will celebrate its 

 seventy- fifth anniversary at the same time. 



Mr. J. Bretlanu Farmer, M.A., Fellow of Magdalen 

 College, Oxford, and Demonstrator of Botany in the University, 

 has been appointed Assistant- Professor in Botany at the Royal 

 College of Science, London, as successor to Dr. D. H. Scott, 

 who becomes Honorary Keeper of the Jodrell Laboratory, at 

 the Royal Gardens, Kew. 



Mr. H. M. Bernard, M.A., has been elected to the Mar- 

 shall Scholarship, Royal College of Science, South Kensington, 

 for the ensuing year, in place of Mr. G. Biebner, whose term of 

 office has expired. 



Mr. J. P. Hill, of the Royal College of Science, South 

 Kensington, and the University of Edinburgh, has been 

 appointed to the Demonstratorship of Biology in the University 

 of Sydney. 



Mr. SiLVA White has, for reasons of health, resigned his 

 office as secretary and editor to the Royal Sco'ttish Geographical 

 Society, a post he has filled since the institution of the society. 



We regret very much to hear of the death of Dr. H. J. 

 Tylden, whose article on "The bearing of pathology upon the 

 doctrine of the transmission of acquired characters " was printed 

 in Nature last week. At the beginning of last week he died 

 of typhoid fever. Dr. Tylden had been engaged in investigating 

 the etiology of typhoid fever, and there is no doubt that he thus 

 contracted the disease. 



Two eminent men who had been intimately connected with 

 India died last week — Dr. Forbes Watson and Dr. H. W. 

 Bellew. Dr. Bellew was well known as an Oriental linguist and 

 as the author of various works in which he made important con- 

 tributions to ethnology. Dr. Forbes Watson acted for many 

 years as Reporter on the Products of India and Director of the 

 India Museum. He did much to give the English people a 

 wider and more accurate knowledge both of the races and the 

 material resources of India. 



The death of Dr. Felice Giordano, of Rome, is announced. 

 He was the head of the Geological Survey of Italy and Chief 

 Inspector of Mines, 



The Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College has 

 issued its calendar for the year 1892-93. 



On July 27 the eruption of Mount Etna, which on the pre- 

 vious day had increased considerably in activity, was again as 



