gi 



NA TURE 



[November 23, 189; 



only to show how closely that question is connected v\ith the 

 jioiiUs we have been discussing. 1 have here a gas flame to 

 which I feed air until its yellow luminosity has disappeared. If 

 1 add to the air supply the fine spray of a dissolved copper salt, 

 the flame assumes a green tint characterisiic of the metal. This 

 j,:een tint seems to belong to the whole flame, but if we dissect 

 it by the apparatus already so often used, we find that the green 

 tint is developed only in the outei cone. It is due, in fact, to 

 oxide of copper, which can only exist on the outside of the flame. 

 Similar peculiarities are noticed with some other coloured flames, 

 and it is hoped that their study, which leads us into the domain 

 of spectrum analysis, will yield some interesting information on 

 points which are at present very obscure. 



I have directed your attention thisevening to terrestrial flames 

 of small dimensions, but in conclusion I should like to remind 

 you that at one time there were probably quite other flames upon 

 this earth. The globe we inhabit is in the process of cooling and 

 of oxidation ; at one time we believe, in fact we know, that it 

 was incandescent. If we lake a chemical retrospect and 

 imagine as we recede in time our present cool earth becoming 

 hotter, we may follow out some interesting changes. We should 

 ^oon reach a temperature too high for the persistence of liquid 

 water ; our oceans would be evaporated and surround the globe as 

 an envelope of steam. In remoter times and at higher tempera- 

 tures this steam could not exist even as steam, but would be 

 dissociated into hydrogen and oxygen. At that time, too, many 

 ol the elements now existing as oxides in the solid crust of the 

 earth would be floating in a gaseous state in the vast atmosphere. 

 J-et us stop our retrospect at this |ioint, and look towards the 

 inesent with a cooling earth. At a certain point chemical com- 

 bination must have begun in the fringe of the ancient atmo- 

 sphere, and it must have been the scene of colossal chemical 

 activities, the hydrogen and vaporous metals flashing into their 

 oxides. On gravitating to hotter regions, these coubinations 

 may have been again undone, the elements sent again into circu- 

 lation. How long such a period may have lasted we need 

 scarcely stop to ask. If the retrospect is reasonable, it is enough. 

 It is interesting to think how such an earth as we have pictured 

 mast have resiiubled the sun as we know it at the present day. 



There was formerly a chemical theory of the sun, which 

 ascribed both its heat and light to the act of chemical 

 combination. That theory has long .Mnce been refuted and 

 discarded, and v\ith it ordinary laboratory chemistry banished 

 from, that luminary as altogether unsuited to its high tempera- 

 ture. There is cause, I think, to ask if this is quite warrantable. 

 We know extremely little of chemistty at high temperatures, 

 bat if the sun could be shown to have its reasonable share of 

 oxygen, we might well ask if its surface phenomena were not 

 lar^^ely ascribable to ordinary chemical activities and of the 

 nature of flames. It is certainly remarkable, when we consider 

 the unity of plan i:i which heavenly bodies are seen more and 

 more to move and have their being, that the sun should not 

 exhibit the possession of its fair share of that element — oxygen— 

 which has ruled tbe chemistry of the earth throughout all geo- 

 logical time and long precedent ages of its evolution. But this 

 is ground which the terrestrial chemist must tread with care. He 

 still has many unsolved problems lurking in the flame of a 

 common candle, and flame, wherever we find it, is still a 

 mystery. 



•'The power o\ Fire ox Flame" says Carlyle, "which we 

 designate by some trivial chemical name, thereby hiding 

 from ourselves the es-ential character of wonder that dwells in it 

 as in all things was with the old northmen Loke, a most swift 

 subtle /^^wt7« of the brood of the J otuns. The savages of the 

 Landrones Islands loo (say some Spanish voyagers) thought 

 Fire, which they never had seen before, was a devil or god, that 

 bit you sharply when you touched it, and that lived upon dry 

 wood. From us, too," adds Carlyle, " no Chemistry, if it had 

 not stupidity to help it, would hide that Flame is a wonder." 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Oxi-ORi).— On Monday, the 20th insl.. Prof. E. B. Poulton, 

 the President of the Ashinolean Society, gave a conversazione 

 in the University Museum, which was numerously attended by 

 members of the city and University, who were specially invited 

 to meet the Local Executive Committee of the British Associa- 

 tion. The features of the entertainment were : an interesting 



NO. 1256, VOL. 49] 



lecture on features in the past history of science in Oxford, by 

 Mr. Falconer Madan ; physical experiments, by Prof. Clifton 

 and Mr. J. Walker ; exhibits of various entomological speci- 

 mens from the Hope Collection ; glass-blowing, by Herr Zitz- 

 mann ; living animals and museum prfparalions, by Dr. Ben- 

 ham and Mr. Goodrich ; physiological exhibits, by Messrs. 

 Pembrey, Gordon, and Howard ; and many other exhibitions 

 which cannot be noticed for want of space. 



The Junior Scientific Club, whose proceedings have been 

 hitherto published in a somewhat haphazard manner, have 

 decided to i?sue a series of fortnightly numbers, each of 

 which contains an account of the papers read at the previous 

 meeting. The first of these was published on the 17th inst., 

 and is in all respects a credit 10 its editor. It contains, besides 

 abstracts of papers read by Mesrs. M. H. Gordon, S. A. 

 Simon, and W. T. Waterhouse, a syllabus of all the papers read 

 before the club during the past year, an obituary, and notes 

 on the distinctions gained during the past year, by present and 

 former members of the club. 



At a meeting of Convocation held on Tuesday last, Dr. 

 Arthur Thomson, University Reader in Human Anatomy, was 

 appointed Professor of Human Anatomy. 



Cambridge. — Mr. M. R. James, of King's College, has 

 been appointed Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in succes- 

 sion to Prof. Middleton. 



An election to an Isaac Newton studentship in astronomy, 

 astronomical physics, and physical optics, will be held in the 

 Lent Term 1894. The candidates must be B.A.s and under 

 the age of twenty-five. The studentship is worth ,^200 a year 

 for three years. Applications to be sent to the Vice-Chancellor 

 by January 26, 1894. 



A syndicate has been appointed for the purpose of obtaining 

 specifications and tenders for the erection of the Sedgwick 

 Memorial Museum of Geology, in accordance with the plan of 

 Mr. T. G. Jackson. 



An influential deputation waited upon the Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer on Tuesday in order to place before him the neces- 

 sity for continuing, and, if possible, increasing, the Pailiament- 

 ary grant of ^'15,000, which was conceded to the Univer.sity 

 Colleges in 1889. Sir W. Harcourt said that though he was 

 prepared to recommend the renewal of the grant, the present 

 condition of public finances would not permit him to propose 

 its increase. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



American J ournal of Science, November. — On New England 

 and the Upper Mississippi basin in the glacial period, by James 

 D. Dana. During the recent discussions concerning the unity 

 or otherwise of the glacial epoch in North America, it has ap- 

 peared that workers in the central and western portions have 

 mostly advocated two glacial epochs, while New England 

 geologists have been the chief advocates of unity. The author 

 has not found any facts in New England geology that require 

 for their explanation an appeal to two glacial epochs, but has 

 found an explanation of the appearances which have led western 

 geologists to that opinion. The cause of this sectional diver- 

 gence is mainly meteorological. Even at the present time, the 

 precipitation in the east is far above that of the west, and in 

 the glacial epoch the difference must have been still greater, 

 owing to the greater elevation of the east. The conditions of 

 the ice-sheet in the interior being near the critical point, a small 

 meteorological change, if long continued, might carry off the 

 ice for scores or hundreds of miles from a southern limit, while 

 the eastern border was all the time gaining in ice, or was making 

 only a short retreat. — On the use of the name " Catskill," by 

 John J. Stevenson. Mr. Darton's suggestion that the term 

 Catskill should be applied to the whole ul the Upper Devonian 

 period is inappropriate, since Catskill has been shown to belong 

 to an epoch only, whereas " Chemung " carries with it the con- 

 ception of those physical and biological characteristics which 

 mark the great closing period of ihe Devonian. — The finite 

 elastic stress-strain function, by G. F. Becker. This is an in- 

 vestigation of finite stress and strain from a kinematical point 

 of view, and of the function which satisfies the kinematical 

 conditions consistent with the definition of an isotropic solid. 

 The bearing of the theory upon finite sonorous vibrations is 

 compared with the corresponding deductions from Hooke's in- 

 complete law. — A larval form of Trianhrus, by C. E. Beecher. 

 Since the discovery of antenna and other appendages of this 



