March 14, 1895] 



NA TURE 



477 



and islands upon it in a neighbourhood which is becoming 

 nearer and more inlimale every year. We often speak com- 

 placently of the advantage this is to our o«n country in parti- 

 cular — of what it has done in enormously increa.Mng the wealth 

 and prosperity of the rich, and amelioiating and biightening the 

 lives of the poor — in promoting the growth of our manufacturing 

 trades — in enabling food to be imported from abroad in large 

 and regular supplies at much cheaper rates than we could pro- 

 duce it ourselves in these islands, and in the great increase of 

 population that the growing prosperity of the country and the 

 easier conditions of life have thus brought about. All this is 

 true, and it represents an extent of change and of progress dur- 

 ing a short space of lime that we can only look and marvel at, 

 as being due to so large an extent to the results of one man's in- 

 ventions. But there are other feelings » iih which we do well to 

 regard the matter besides those of wonder and admiration, and 

 of self-.satisfaction with the great prosperity and the numerous 

 advantages the country has reaped. We have been favoured 

 above most other peoples by all these great changes, and 

 have been blessed in very bountiful measure. We must 

 not forget, however, that among the privileges we thus enjoy, 

 that of immunity from danger and harm is not included. 

 There are few pleasures or privileges to be had without alloy ; 

 and we now find, as a set-off against the benefits obtained 

 through the improvements in ocean navigation, that we have 

 much grc.-\icr responsibilities and difficulties in protecting our- 

 selves against darger, and in preserving unimpaired for the 

 fature the heritage of power and prosperity that '.las been 

 handed down to us. The same caujes that make ocean navi- 

 gation easy, swift, and certain for u^, make it easier also for any 

 possible enemies to attack us. The great increase of popu- 

 lation, due to the recent growth of wealth and prosperity, 

 requires for its existence constant supplies of raw material to bo 

 kept up fiom abroad, in order that our surplus hands may be 

 profitably employed in manufactures, and it requires also large 

 and continuous food supplies from outside m oider that it 

 may be fed. Hence the great problem of the time for this 

 country — how to protect ourselves against the dangers and 

 drawbacks of the new state of things, while enjoying for the 

 time its advantages and reaping its rewards ; and how to effec- 

 tually shield the vulnerable points in our armour that have 

 arisen out of changes and improvements which brought so much 

 good in other ways. It is upon the sea that any real danger to 

 England would arise ; and upon the sea it would have to be 

 met. Let us hope that the nation which has covered all the 

 seas of the world with its ships will not now fail in energy and 

 enterpiise, or be slow in providing and maintaining adequate 

 defence of what it has produced with such success, and out of 

 which it has reaped such rich reward. If we were to (ail thus 

 in our duties, and so shirk our responsibilities, the improve- 

 ments and benefits we owe so largely to the genius of James 

 Watt might, after all, prove a curse instead of a blessing ; and 

 we should be unworthy of the country and the race which 

 produced thegicat engineerwho taught his contemporaries, more 

 than one hundred years ago, how to manufacture Power. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



O.XFORD.— Mr. Francis Gotch, F.R..S., Holt Professor of 

 Physiology in Univer.-ily College, Liverpool, has been elected 

 to the Waynfleie Professorship of Physiology, vacated by the 

 appointment of Dr. Burdon Sanderson lo be Regius Professor 

 of Medicine. Prof. Gotch is no stranger to Oxford, having 

 been for some years assistant to his predecessor in the Waynflete 

 Chair. 



Ca.mbridge. — Dr. W. S. Lazarus-Barlow, of Downing 

 College, has 1 een appointed Demonstrator of Pathology in the 

 room ol Dr. J. Loriain Smiih, who t as been elected Lecturer 

 in Pat heir gy at Queen's Colle^je, Belfast. 



The Examination in Sanitary Science for the University 

 Diploma in Public Health wdl begin on Apiil 2. 



Hitherto me of the conditions which had to be fulfilled 

 before ihc Science and Art fJcpaitment made payments to the 

 Commiltets i>f schoolsor classes, lor tl e inslruciion of smdtnis, 

 has been thai the farents ol a studenl should not have an 

 income exceeding /^4CO a year from all sources. A Blue- 

 paper now infoims us ihat the Lords of ihe Committee of 



Council of Education have decided to enlarge this limit to 

 £,y>Q per annum. In future, therefore, the student on account 

 of whom a claim is made must belong to the category of 

 " persons in the receipt of not more than .^500 a year Irom all 

 sources, that is, who are .illowed an abatement of the income- 

 lax ; and their children if not gaining their own livelihood." 

 This example could be followed with advantage by the Tech- 

 nical Education Committees of those County Councils that 

 restrict their Scholarships to competitors whose parenis are in 

 receipt of less than ;if I20 a year. 



NO. 1324, VOL. 51] 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



Bulletin de VAcadhnie Royale de Bel^ique, No. i. — Is the 

 declination indicated by a compass independent of its magnetic 

 njoment ? by Ch. Lagrange. According to Gauss's theory it 

 may be assumed that the magnetic axis of a magnet lies in the 

 direction of the lines of force of the field, whatever its magnetic 

 moment may be. But in practice it is found that the orienta- 

 tion of a magnet depends upon the strength of its magnetisation. 

 Since these systematic differences are not due to magnetic force, 

 they must be due to some other force, probably a force hitherto 

 unknown. Hence the magnetic chart of the earth calculated 

 by Gauss's theory cannot be considered rigidly correct. A new 

 constant must be introduced, depending upon the declinometer. 

 The author foreshadows an explanation of these facts, based 

 upon the " circulation of the ether,'' and intimately associated 

 with the physics of the globe. — Double decompositions of 

 vapours, by Henryk .\rctowsky. It is not necessary that two 

 substances should be dissolved in water to bring about their 

 mutual decomposition ; or their " ionisation,'' in terms of the 

 electrolytic theory, is not altogether dependent upon water. 

 Freshly sublimated mercuric chloride and flowers of sulphur 

 were placed in small vessels inside a Bohemian glass tube over 

 an organic combustion furnace. .\ current of pure dry hydrogen 

 was introduced, which on heating formed sulphuretted hydrogen 

 with the sulphur. This gas and the vapour of HgCl., gave a 

 precipitate of mercuric sulphide on the walls of the tube. This 

 reaction, which is contrary to Berthelot's principle of maximum 

 work, does not take moie time than the corresponding reaction 

 in water. To prove that it was a true double decomposition, 

 CO, was substituted for the hydrogen, when it was found that 

 the sulphur vapour alone was unable to attack the mercuric 

 chloride. 



BiilUlin de l'.4iadc'mie des Sciences de St. Pclersbourg, fifth 

 series, vol. /, No. 4, 1S94. — Minutes of proceedings for 

 October last. — On derived lunctions of superior orders, by 

 N. Sonin (in Russian). — Crustacea Caspia : contributions to 

 the know ledge of ihe Carcinologlcal fauna of the Caspian Sea, 

 by G. O. Sars (in English, with eight plates). The Gammaridea: 

 are continued, and the following species, mostly new, are 

 described and figured : Gammarus Warpachtnvskyi^ mintiius, 

 macriiriis, comfrisiiis, siiiiilis, robustoides, crassus, ai'/imdalus, 

 and obesns, and .Vi/'liar^vides caspiits, Grimm. — On the trans- 

 formation of Periodical .\ggregates, mathematical paper by H. 

 Gylden (in German). — On Free Energy, by B. Galitzine (in 

 Russian). 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London 



Royal Society, January 24. — "Notes of an Inquiry into 

 the Nature and Physiological .\ction of Black-damp, as met 

 with in Podmore Colliery, Staffordshire, and Lilleshall Colliery, 

 Shropshire." By Dr. John Haldane. 



Black-damp, sometimes also called choke-damp, or "stythe," 

 is one of the gases frequently found in the workings of coal 

 mines. It is distinguished from fire-damp by the fact that it is 

 not explosive when mixed with air, but extinguishes flame ; and 

 from alterdamp by the fact that it is not the product of an ex- 

 plosion, but collects m the workings under ordinary conditions. 

 Like aiter-damp and fire-damp, it produces fatal effects when 

 inhaled in sufficient concentration. .\ further distinction has 

 been drawn between black-damp and white-damp, which latter 

 is described as capable of supporting combustion, while at the 

 same time acting as a jioison when inhaled. 



The author has made a number of observations on con- 

 centrated black-damp from two pits, the first being in a fiery 



