Junk 13. 1^95] 



NA TURE 



159 



conditions which were brought about by the arrest of pollarding 

 enacted in 1878. 



" Many^of these pollards, whether single trees or groups, are 

 ca|)al>le of picturesque development, but only under healthy 

 conditions and with adequate space. To leave them all to grow 

 together — several hundreds to the acre — will lead to mutual de- 

 struction, while the continuous overhead shade destroys the 

 undergrowth and the varied vegetation which constitutes the 

 chief charm of a forest and the hope of its reproduction in the 

 future. 



"The evils we have indicated are already sufficiently manifest, 

 and it must be obvious to all competent observers that, unless 

 timely steps are taken, a few years" further growth must produce 

 a singularly monotonous, artificial, and unhealthy result. 



" Some of us have been familiar with the Forest for many years, 

 anil can certify to the great improvement and the increase of 

 natural growth which has already resulted from the operations of 

 your Committee, now continued for many years." 



The following signatures were attached : — The Earl of Gains- 

 borough, Viscount I'owerscourt, Lords Northbourne, Rayleigh 

 (Lord Lieutenant of Essex) and Walsingham, Sir John Lub- 

 iKick, Sir \V. H. Elower, Right Hon. J. Br>ce (President of the 

 Hoard of Trade), Right Hon. G. Shaw Lefevre ( President Local 

 i'lovernment Board), Mr. Justice Wills, .Sir Robert Hunter 

 (Solicitor to the I'ost (Jfifice), Prof. G. S. Boulger, Mr. Horace 

 T. Brown, Mr. Y. Chancellor (Mayor of Chelmsford), Mr. \V. 

 Cole (Secretary to the E.ssex Field Club), Dr. M. C. Cooke, 

 Prof. J. B. Farmer, Prof W. R. F'isher ( Royal Indian Engineer- 

 ing College), Mr. W. Forbes (Agent to the Duke of Richmond 

 and Gordon), Mr. F. Carruthers Gould, .Mr. J. E. Harting, 

 Mr. T. V. Holmes, Mr. David Howard (President of the Essex 

 Field Club), Mr. Andrew Johnston (Chairman of the Essex 

 County Council), Mr. H. Joslin (High Sheriff of E.ssex), .Mr. T. 

 Kemble, Colonel Lockwood, M.P. , Dr. Maxwell Masters, Prof. 

 R. Meldola, Mr. Briton Riviere, R..^. , Prof E. B. Poulton, 

 Mr. -V. Savill, Prof. Stewart, Mr. W. White (Curator of the 

 Ruskin Museum). 



The following memorial , bearing the signatures of about forty 

 residents in the Forest district, was at the same time pre- 

 ■sented : — 



" We, the undersigned, being residents in the Forest parishes, 

 beg to state that we have witnessed with satisfaction a great 

 improvement in the aspect of the Forest directly due to the 

 removal, during the i>ast sixteen years, of inferior stems, and to 

 the crmscquent advance in beauty of tho.se that remain, as well as 

 the encouragement f)f healthy young growth. We are certain 

 that it will be an irreparable misfortune if the careful thinning 

 which has been hitherto carried out is not steadily continued. 



" We further beg to assure the Committee that in our opinion 

 the operations in Hawk Wood, so far from being excessive, 

 still fall short of what is required for the healthy growth of oak 

 trees. 



" In Monk Wood there is already a marked improvement 

 following on your removal, eighteen months ago, of a propor- 

 tion of the poorest pollarded trees. The .same is true, even in a 

 more marked degree, of Lord's Bushes. We believe that, if 

 the gentlemen w ho have appeared as critics of your management 

 were to judge of it by the appearance of the portions thinned 

 three or four years after thinning, instead of immediately after, 

 when they necessarily have a bare and unattractive effect, they 

 would themselves be of a different opinion. 



" In conclusion, we beg to assure you that the view that the 

 action of the Committee has been destructive is not entertained 

 by those living on the spot who are most i|ualified to judge."' 



The deputations were formally introduced by the Chairman of 

 the Essex Council, and the first memorial was presented by Prof. 

 Meldola. The Committee was addressed also by Sir Robert 

 Hunter, Prof Boulger. and Mr. F. C. Gould, .\fter these re- 

 Iircsertations the public may safely disregard all future expres- 

 sions of irresponsible and unskilled opinions in the press. The 

 Ch.iirman of the Committee assured the deputation that their 

 policy would not be influenced by such criticisms. 



SCIENCE IN THE MAGAZINES. 

 ^R. HERBERT SPENCER'S second article on "Pro- 

 fessional Institutions" appears in the Contemporary. 

 The article deals with the intimate relation between the priest 

 and the medicineman of early societies, and shows how the 

 physician was originated from the priest. Many proofs are 



NO. 1337. VOL. 52] 



given that medical treatment was long associated with priestly 

 functions, and that the uncultured mind still believes in some of 

 the methods of the jirimitive medicine-man. Mr. Spencer has 

 also an article in the Forlnighl !y , in which he exhibits the in- 

 secure base upon which Mr. Balfour has laid his " Foundations 

 of Belief," and describes that distinguished author's dialectic 

 efforts, as well as Lord Salisburys address to the British As- 

 sociation at Oxford, as sacrificial offerings of effigies to an 

 apotheosised public. Neither one nor the other have produced 

 the faintest impression in the world of science. Another article 

 which may interest our readers, deals with University degrees for 

 women, the writer comparing the action of Gottingen, in recently 

 granting a degree to Miss Chisholm, with the policy of Oxford 

 and Cambridge Universities as to women students. 



In a superbly illustrated paper, entitled " The Discover)- of 

 Glacier Bay,' that veteran explorer Mr. John Muir gives, in the 

 Century^ an account of his journey to the now famous Glacier 

 Bay of Alaska, in 1S79. The great public library in Boston is 

 described in the same magazine : its artistic aspects by Mrs. S. 

 Van Rensselaer, and its ideals and working conditions by Mr. 

 Lindsay Swift. 



That fluent writer Eha, the author of " S. Naturalist on the 

 Prowl " and other equally attractive works, contributes a short 

 paper, entitled " Voices of the Indian Night," to the Sunday 

 Magazine. Ethnologists may be interested in an article by Miss 

 A. Spinner in the A'ational, on beliefs concerning " Duppies" 

 prevalent in the West Indies. A "Duppy" is not simply the 

 negro equivalent for a ghost, but is regarded as the shadow of 

 the departed. 



There are two popularly-written papers in Longman's, one, of a 

 Selbornian character, by Mr. H. G. Hutchinson, and another 

 concerned with the natural jjrocesses involved in the evolution 

 of soil in general, and golf-links in particular, by Dr. Edward 

 Blake. 



Science Gossip has among its articles one on explosions in 

 electric light mains, by Mr. J. A. Wanklj-n and Mr. W. J. 

 Cooper, and some suggestions with reference to the work of a 

 scientific society, by the Rev. H. N. Hutchinson. Chambers' s 

 Journal contains short papers on soluble paper, Scottish gold- 

 fields, forest dwarfs of the Congo, and the habits and tastes of 

 Lepidoptera. Scrihner has some common-sense remarks, by 

 Dr. J. W. Roosevelt, on cycling from a physiological point of 

 view. 



We have received, in addition to the magazines named in the 

 foregoing. Humanitarian and Good Words, but no articles in them 

 call for comment here. 



I 



ARGON} 



T is some three or four years since I had the honour of 

 lecturing here one Friday evening upon the densities of 

 oxygen and hydrogen gases, and upon the conclusions that 

 might be lirawn from the results. It is not necessary, therefore, 

 that I should trouble ytiu to-night with any detail as to the method 

 by which gases can be accurately weighed. I must take that as 

 known, merely mentioning that it is substantially the same as is 

 used by all investigators nowadays, and introduced more than 

 fifty years ago by Regnault. It was not until after that lecture 

 that I turned my attention to nitrogen ; and in the first instance 

 I employed a method of preparing the gas which originated with 

 Mr. \'ernon Harcourt, of Oxford. In this method the oxygen 

 of ordinary atmospheric air is got rid of with the aid of ammonia. 

 Air is bubbled through liquid antmonia, and then pasised through 

 a red-hot tube. In its passage the oxygen of the air combines 

 with the hydrogen of the ammonia, all the oxygen being in that 

 way burnt up and converted into water. l"he excess of ammonia 

 is subse(|Uently absorbed with acid, and the water by ordinary 

 desiccating agents. That melhoil is very convenient ; and, when 

 I had obtained a few concordant results by means of it, I 

 thought that the work was complete, and that the weight of 

 nitrogen was satisfactorily determined. But then I reflected 

 that it is always advisable to employ more than one method, and 

 that the method that I had used — Mr. \ernon Harcourt's 

 method - was not thai w hich had been used by any of those w ho 

 had preceded me in weighing nitrogen. The usual method 

 consists in absorbing the oxygen of air by means of red-hot 

 copper ; and I thought that I ought at least to give th.at method 



^ A discourse delivered nl the R0y.1l Institution un Friday, .^pril 5, by 

 ihe Right Hon. Lord R.tyleigh, F.R.S. 



