August 13, 1903] 



NATURE 



359 



E. Smith ; McGill University, Montreal, R. K. McClung ; 

 Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Dr. C. W. 

 Dickson. 



The August number of the Fortnightly Review contains 

 the ninth of the series of essays by Mr. H. G. Wells, 

 entitled " Mankind in the Making/' the subject being the 

 organisation of higher education. Among many other im- 

 portant considerations, the suggestions made for " suitable 

 arrangements of studies that can be contrived to supply 

 the essential substantial part of the college course " are of 

 particular interest. The first such course proposed is an 

 expansion of the physics of the school stage, which may be 

 conveniently spoken of as the natural philosophy course. 

 " Its backbone will be an interlocking arrangement of 

 mathematics, physics, and the principles of chemistry, it 

 will take up as illustrative and mind-expanding exercises, 

 astronomy, geography, and geology conceived as a general 

 history of the earth. Holding the whole together will be 

 the theory of the conservation of energy in its countless 

 aspects and a speculative discussion of the constitution of 

 matter." The second course " is what one may speak of 

 as the biological course. Just as the conception of energy 

 will be the central idea of the natural philosophy course, so 

 the conception of organic evolution will be the central idea 

 of the biological course. A general review of ihe whole 

 field of biology — not only of the natural history of the pre- 

 sent but of the geological record — in relation to the known 

 laws and the various main theories of the evolutionary 

 process will be taken, and in addition some special depart- 

 ment, either the comparative anatomy of the vertebrata 

 chiefly, or of the plants chiefly, will be exhaustively worked 

 out in relation to these speculations." The other two 

 college courses proposed are named classical and historical 

 respectively. Of a purely mathematical course Mr. Wells 

 writes, " few people, however, are to be found who will 

 defend the exclusively mathematical ' grind ' as a sound 

 intellectual training, and so it need not be discussed here." 

 Educationists who study the paper will find in it much 

 material for thought. 



The Home Counties Nature-Study Exhibition will be 

 held at the offices of the Civil Service Commission (formerly 

 the buildings of the University of London), Burlington 

 Gardens, London, W., on October 30-November 3. 



Mr. Andrew Carnegie has presented to Dunfermline, his 

 native town, the sum of half a million sterling in Steel 

 Trust bonds, to be employed, among other purposes, for 

 the advancement of technical education in the district, which 

 is the centre of the linen industry in Scotland. 



M. Andover has been appointed professor of physical 

 astronomy, and M. Painlev6 professor of general mathe- 

 matics, at the University of Paris. M. Pad^, of the Uni- 

 versity of Poitiers, has been appointed professor of 

 mechanics at the University of Bordeaux, and M. Leboeuf 

 professor of astronomy at the University of Besan^on. 



The opening address of the Edinburgh summer meeting 

 was delivered on August 4 by Sir John Murray, who re- 

 viewed the history of the meetings, and explained that 

 this year the special subject for study was Edinburgh and 

 its region. The chief object of the course of study arranged 

 was to train teachers of nature-study in accordance with 

 the present requirements of English and Scottish schools. 

 Sir John Murray gave it as his opinion, at the conclusion 

 of his address, that '' the great battles of the future would 

 be not between man and man, but a struggle for possession 

 of the forces of the earth ; and no nation could hope to 

 keep in the forefront if it were not continually making 

 additions to the sum total of human knowledge." 



An Agricultural Education Bill was introduced in the 

 House of Commons by Mr. Collings on August 6. It is 

 similar to the one which passed the second reading in 1895. 

 The object of the Bill is to provide for the teaching in 

 elementary schools of agricultural and horticultural sub- 

 jects, to give facilities for nature-studies, and generally 

 to cultivate habits of observation and inquiry on the part 

 of the pupils. To this end the Bill provides for school 

 gaidens and such collections of objects as may be necessary 

 Sor practical illustration. The education specified in the 



NO. 1763, VOL. 68] 



Bill is to be compulsory in all schools in rural and semi- 

 rura! districts. The Bill cannot be proceeded with this 

 session. 



The prospectus of the Department of Education at Owens 

 College, Manchester, for the session 1903-4, has now been 

 published, and give's full particulars of the courses of train- 

 ing provided for teachers in primary and secondary schools. 

 The instruction received by primary school teachers is for 

 the most part of an undergraduate standard, while that 

 for teachers in secondary schools is of a post-graduate 

 character. Special lectures are provided for those who are 

 already engaged in teaching, and opportunities will be 

 offered of individual study and research in education without 

 reference to any preparation for a diploma or certificate. 

 Among the public lectures arranged in connection with the 

 department are one by the new Sarah Fielden professor — 

 Dr. Findlay — on training for the teaching profession, and 

 one by Prof. M. E. Sadler on the need for scientific investi- 

 gation in education. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, June 18. — "Separation of Solids in the 

 Surface-layers of Solutions and 'Suspensions.'" Pre- 

 liminary Account. By W. Ramsden, M.A., M.D., Oxon., 

 F"ellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. 



In this paper it is shown that the free surfaces of a large 

 number of colloid solutions become coated with solid 

 particles derived from the solutions under conditions ex- 

 cluding evaporation, or chemical change due to the gases 

 in contact with the free surfaces. This is the case not 

 only with proteid solutions of every kind, but also with 

 solutions of certain aniline dyes, soaps, saponin, methyl 

 orange, colloid ferric hydrate, &c. These surface coatings 

 give rise to an intense viscosity confined to the surface 

 layers and absent from the bulk of the solutions. In some 

 cases the solid particles become mutually coherent to form 

 a solid membrane, and then cause an intense superficial 

 resistance to " shear." A magnetised needle floating on 

 the surface of a colloid solution as limpid as water may 

 be in some cases so rigidly fixed that it rotates the vessel 

 containing the solution if this be suspended by a thread 

 and a magnet be brought near. 



By simple mechanical means, adapted to produce heap- 

 ing up of any surface coatings, masses of solid material 

 can be separated from all these solutions — in some cases 

 when they contain only one part of dissolved solid in a 

 million. Various solids can in this way be completely re- 

 moved from solution without filtration, addition of 

 chemicals, or necessary alteration of temperature. The 

 " mechanical coagula " described by the author some years 

 ago are simply heaped-up surface membranes of solid 

 proteid. 



These accumulations at the free surfaces are explained 

 by the observation that the dissolved substances are always 

 such as possess the property of diminishing the surface- 

 tension of the free surface of water. The most stable 

 mechanical arrangement of such solutions must involve a 

 relative concentration of the dissolved substance at any 

 surfaces the surface-tension of which can be thereby 

 diminished, and in some cases the formation of a coating 

 of de-soluted solid completely separating the solution from 

 the adjacent medium. 



Every limpid solution capable of forming unusually per- 

 sistent thin films or bubbles yields solid or highly viscous 

 " mechanical surface aggregates," and is therefore re- 

 garded as having a surface coating of solid or highly viscous 

 matter. On some of these bubbles the presence of a 

 coherent surface membrane can be directly demonstrated by 

 their behaviour on collapse. Unusual persistence of a thin 

 film derived from a limpid solution is invariably associated 

 with the presence of solid or highly viscous particles on its 

 free surfaces. Particles of this nature and in this situ- 

 ation would act partly by serving as points d'appui, partly 

 by offering mechanical resistance to deformation of the 

 surface, and partly, in virtue of their effect upon the 

 " surface energy," by calling out resistance to such deform- 

 ation as would expose a fresh surface of greater " surface- 

 tension." 



