4Q4 



NA TURE 



[February 26, 1903 



are as fully aware of the importance of this subject as our 

 German competitors. 



Truly, as Prof. Dewar said the other evening, there will 

 soon be another " lost industry " if our practical men do not 

 wake up. Silica glass making as an industry no doubt is 

 still in earliest infancy, but though so young, it already 

 shows signs of growth. But, alas! whilst two years ago 

 England was first in this matter and the rest of the world, 

 almost, nowhere, already England is only second, and is 

 standing still, whilst Germany is first, and is going forward. 



Everyone who has worked with silica, and knows its 

 properties and how comparatively easy it is to work with, 

 foresees that soon silica glass will replace ordinary glass 

 in many of its most important applications, and yet though 

 the foundations of the coming new industry were laid in 

 this country, none of our manufacturers has been willing 

 to take the small risks and trouble involved in an attempt 

 to carry out in the workshop, and with electric furnaces, 

 the new processes, or modifications of them, which have 

 been worked out in the laboratories and placed at their dis- 

 posal by the experimenters. It is true that owing to the 

 initiative of one firm — Messrs. Baird and Tatlock — silica 

 glass made by Mr. Shenstone's oxyhydrogen Same — or 

 laboratory — process has for some time been available in this 

 country. But can it be supposed that this essentially labor- 

 atory process is the last word of science, or of workshop 

 practice, on this subject, or is likely to hold the field per- 

 manently, except for work on the small scale. 



It is still fresh in our memories how the makers of optical 

 glass waited until German manufacturers, aided by German 

 men of science, had revolutionised and captured their in- 

 dustry. Unless something is done at once by the combined 

 action of our men of science and manufacturers, history 

 will repeat itself in the case of this new material. 



SIR WILLIAM HOOKER'S SCIENTIFIC WORK. 

 CIR JOSEPH HOOKER contributes to the January 

 *-' number of the Annals of Botany a sketch of the life and 

 labours of his father, Sir William Jackson Hooker, accom- 

 panied by a portrait. Sir William Hooker was born at Nor- 

 wich on July i', 17S5, and in due course attended the Norwich 

 < Iramraar School, but little is known of the progress he made 

 there, though his son tells us that at home he devoted him- 

 self to entomology, drawing, and reading books of travel 

 and natural history. Early in life he became interested in 

 ornithology. That his entomological pursuits were, when 

 still in his teens, appreciated by the veteran Kirby is 

 evidenced by the latter having, in 1805, dedicated to him 

 and his brother a species of Apion. The first evidence of his 

 having taken up botany is the fact that he was the dis- 

 coverer .in Britain, in 1805, of Buxbaumia aphylla. His 

 first published paper, entitled " Musci Nepalenses," was read 

 before the Linnean Society in June, 1807. In 1809, following 

 the suggestion of Sir Joseph Banks, Hooker visited Iceland, 

 and in iSij his " Journal of a Tour in Iceland " was pub- 

 lished, though it had been privately circulated in 1S11. In 

 1816 he produced the first part of a work entitled " Planta: 

 Cryptogam icae, quae in plaga orbis novi Aequinoctialis 

 colligerunl Alex" von Humboldt et Aimat Bonpland." 

 I he first volume of " Musci Exotici " appeared in 1818 

 and the second in 1S20. Hooker was in 1820 appointed pro- 

 fessor of botany at Glasgow University, and remained there 

 until 1 84 1, when he was appointed director of the Botanic 

 Gardens at Kew. At Glasgow he met with the greatest 

 success, and his herbarium and library before he had been 

 thereten years were reckoned as amongst the richest private 

 ones in Europe, and botanists of every nationality repeatedly 

 visited them. 'Hie scientific works published during the 

 Glasgow period were very numerous, and Sir J. D. Hooker 

 gives a list of them in an appendix. The directorship at 

 Kew Gardens was held by Sir William for twenty-four 

 , until his death on August 12, 1S65. From 18 hi 

 was assisted by his son, Sir Joseph Hooker, who was in that 

 ippointed assistant director. Such are a few ol the 

 many incidents in an exceedingly busy life. Sir Joseph 

 Hooker has conferred a favour upon men of scien. e l>\ 

 bringing together, in convenient compass, the leading facts 

 of an illustrious career. 



NO. 1739, VOL. 67] 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — Dr. E. J. Routh, F.R.S., has been appointed 

 a governor of Dulwich College, and Dr. E. W. Hobson, 

 F.R.S., a governor of Derby School. 



The special board for moral science propose that, in view 

 of the progress of the department of experimental psycho- 

 logy under Dr. Rivers, an annual grant of 50!. shall be 

 made towards the expenses of the department, and a special 

 grant of 50/. for apparatus. 



Mr. W. L. Mollison, Clare, has been appointed an elector 

 to the Plumian professorship of astronomy ; Dr. J. Larmor, 

 F.R.S., has been appointed an elector to the same professor- 

 ship, and to the Isaac Xewton studentship; Prof. H. B. 

 Dixon, F.R.S., of Manchester, an elector to the Jacksonian 

 professorship of natural philosophy ; Prof. H. A. Miers, 

 F.R.S., of Oxford, an elector to the chair of mineralogy; 

 and Dr. R. T. Glazebrook, F.R.S., an elector to the Caven- 

 dish professorship of experimental physics. 



It is announced in the Globe of February 21 that a com- 

 mission has been appointed in Pretoria to inquire what steps 

 can be taken for the creation of an institution to form part 

 of a teaching university to provide the highest training in 

 the arts and sciences connected with mining and other in- 

 dustries. 



Two Pfeiffer scholarships in science, each of the annual 

 value of 4S/., and tenable for three years at Bedford College 

 for Women, will be offered for competition in June, 1903. 

 Two Deccan scholarships, offered by Mrs. Thomson, of 

 Poona, Bombay, of the value of 50/. each per annum for 

 three years, will also be awarded. 



The principal of the Northampton Institute, London, Dr. 

 R. Mullineux Walmsley, is being sent on a three months' 

 tour to the United States and Canada for the purpose of 

 investigating the present position of technical education in 

 those countries and its bearings upon industrial production 

 in the subjects covered by the technological work of the Insti- 

 tute, but more especially in the engineering industries. 



A statute enacting that persons who have passed the 

 Abiturienten examination at a gymnasium in Germany, 

 Austro-Hungary or Switzerland shall be exempt from Re- 

 sponsions and from the examination in an additional subject 

 at Responsions at the University of Oxford was presented 

 to a congregation of the University on February 17. The 

 preamble of «the statute was approved by congregation on 

 February 3, and as no amendment had been proposed, the 

 statute was submitted and approved. 



Sir William Abney, K.C.B., F.R.S., has accepted the 

 post of adviser to the Board of Education in matters con- 

 nected with science, upon his retirement from the post of 

 principal assistant secretary to the South Kensington 

 branch of the Board on April 1 next. It has been decided 

 from that date to organise a division of the staff of the Board 

 for matters connected with technology and higher education 

 in science and art. The President has appointed Mr. Grant 

 Ogilvie (at present the director of the Edinburgh Museum 

 of Science and Art under the Scottish Education Depart- 

 ment) to be a principal assistant secretary of the Board in 

 charge of this division as from April 1 next. The Hon. 

 W. X. Bruce, assistant secretary of the Board, is to be pro- 

 moted on that date to be principal assistant secretary in 

 charge of another division of the Board, which will be 

 organised to deal with secondary schools. 



The council of the Association of Technical Institutions, 

 after consultation with the London Members of Parliament, 

 has adopted resolutions urging that it is of importance that 

 an Education Bill for London should be passed into law 

 during the present session; that there should be but one 

 <lu- 1 1 ion authority for London for all grades of education, 

 and such authority should be the London County Council, 

 acting through an education committee constituted by 

 statute ; that a majority of this committee should be 

 appointed by and out of the Council, and be so chosen that 

 there shall be at least one County Council member from the 

 City of London and from each metropolitan borough ; and 

 the committee should also include one person nominated by 



