December 22, 1904J 



NATURE 



i8g 



of the world if up to seventeen he received a liberal educa- 

 tion rather than one directed to any special object. IVIost 

 educationists would agree with Lord Alverstone in 

 his objection to specialisation at school ; but in connec- 

 tion with this subject it is pertinent to ask whether the 

 study of Greek is not specialisation to a boy who is taught 

 English and Latin properly. 



.\t the annual speech day of Scarborough Municipal 

 School on Tuesday, the Right Hon. A. H. Dyke Acland, 

 chairman of the governing body of the school, remarked that 

 if he were asked what the secondary schools of the country 

 needed most he would say more money, fewer examinations, 

 and a more effective instruction in English language and 

 literature. They wanted the means which would enable 

 them to try to follow the example of other countries in the 

 matter of secondary education. The culprit in this case 

 was not the Board of Education but the Treasury. If it 

 had to put down ten millions for elementary education it 

 tried to take it out of secondary education, and at this pre- 

 sent moment of our country's history there was nothing 

 which needed more assistance than secondary education. 

 With regard to examinations, Mr. .\cland strongly con- 

 tended that the old system of paper examinations was not 

 a true test of the efficiency of a school, and was often 

 altogether deceptive. The true test was when half a dozen 

 inspectors spent four days and watched the worlc of the 

 pupils, as was done at Scarborough. In .\merica there were 

 almost no examinations, and in Germany the ordinary paper 

 examination of which we thought so much was unknown. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, October 27. — " Some Physical Characters of 

 the Sodium Borates, with a New and Rapid Method for the 

 Determination of Melting Points." By C. H. Burgress 

 and A. Holti jun. 



The glasses obtained by fusing sodium carbonate with 

 boric anhydride can be transformed either wholly or in part 

 on prolonged heating into stable, crystalline varieties, 

 which invariably melt at higher temperatures than the 

 glasses from which they were derived. 



A study of the melting points of the crystalline and 

 vitreous forms of mixtures of different compositions leads 

 to the conclusion that only two sodium borates can be 

 obtained by fusion — Na,0. 46,03 and Na,O.B,Oj. 



The addition of Na,0 to boric anhydride produces in the 

 first place a solution of the borate Na20.4BjOj in boric 

 anhydride. This then becomes supersaturated, and the 

 borate in excess separates on heating for some time. The 

 amount which separates continues to increase until the 

 mixture has the composition of nearly pure Na, 0.46,03, 

 when complete crystallisation occurs. Between this point 

 and the compound Na, 0.6,0,, the crystalline forms appear 

 to be solid solutions of the two above mentioned borates, 

 anhydrous borax itself being almost the eutectic point. 

 In mixtures containing more sodium than Na,0.B,03, the 

 crystals seem to be solid solutions of this compound with 

 sodium carbonate. The glasses appear to be the superfused 

 and metastable forms of the crystals. 



.\nalyses of glasses and crystals of various composition 

 confirm the observations derived from the melting points. 

 The melting point method employed consisted essentially 

 of a platinum wire which was heated electrically, to which 

 a small bead of the substance under investigation was 

 hung. A light weight was attached to the bead. When 

 the wire was heated to the melting point of the substance 

 the bead and weiglit fell off. The resistance of the wire 

 was deteriTiined at this moment, and thence the temperature. 

 The method proved good for substances like glass, which 

 have hitherto not been supposed to melt at any definite 

 temperature. 



November 17. — " On the Group IV. Lines of Silicium." 

 By Sir Norman Lockyer, K.C.B., LL.D., Sc.D., F.R.S., 

 and F. E. Baxandall, ."^.R.C.Sc. 



In previous communications to the Royal Society an 

 account has been given of the behaviour of the lines of 



NO. 1834, VOL. 71] 



sihcium under varymg experimental conditions, and as a 

 result of the mquiry the lines were divided into four dis- 

 tmctive groups. The genuineness of the lines of group iv. 

 as sihcium Imes, has recently been questioned by M.' 

 de Oramont, of Pans. He concludes that, as the lines of 

 group IV. always disappear from his spectra with the air 

 Imes, they are really due to oxvgen or nitrogen. This is 

 so much at variance with the Kensington conclusions that 

 It has been considered necessary to give, in the present 

 paper, the photographic evidence on which those conclusions 

 were based. Reproductions of photographs of silicium 

 spectra under various electrical conditions are given and 

 from the behaviour of the Si iv. lines in the different photo- 

 graphs It IS claimed that thev cannot be due to anvthins 

 other than silicium. ^ 



In the vacuum-tube spectrum of SiF^ the Si iv. lines are 

 seen to be stronger than even the strongest of Neovius's 

 air lines, which appear in the same spectrum. 



In one of the reproductions, the spark spectrum of 

 sodium-silico-fluoride, volatilised between platinum poles 

 is compared with the spark spectrum of air, also made inl 

 candescent between platinum poles. In each spectrum the 

 ordinary lines of nitrogen and oxygen are well seen. The 

 sihcium lines in question are shown in the former spectrum, 

 but have no corresponding lines in the air spectrum. It is 

 also mentioned that these lines do not occur in the Kensing- 

 ton spark spectrum of any element other than silicium. 



There are, according to Neovius, very weak lines of 

 oxygen or nitrogen near the positions of the silicium lines 

 (4089. 1 and 41164). These faint air lines are possibly the 

 lines which Gramont gets in his spectra, but from the' 

 evidence adduced in the present paper thev are not the lines 

 which appear so strongly in the Kensington silicium spectra. 

 _ In another reproduction the SiF^ spectrum is given along- 

 side that of 6 Orionis, and the identity cf position of the 

 Si iv. lines and strong lines in the stellar spectrum is shown. 

 Linnean Society, December i.— Prof. W. A. Ilerdman, 

 F.R.S., president, in the chair. — Proteid digestion in animals 

 and plants : Prof. S. H. Vines, F.R.S. In this discourse 

 Prof. Vines first remarked that the foundation of our know- 

 ledge of gastric digestion in animals was laid by van Hel- 

 mont so long ago as early in the seventeenth century 

 (" Ortus Medicinae," 1648), who held that it was effected 

 by an " acid ferment." But in spite of continued research 

 by Reaumur, Stevens, Spallanzani and others, it was not 

 until two hundred years later that the ferment was actually 

 detected. This important discovery was made in 1836 by 

 the celebrated Schwann, who gave to the ferment the name 

 "pepsin." In the course of subsequent investigation, it 

 came to be recognised that the digestion of the food is not 

 by any means completed in the stomach, but that the greater 

 part of the digestive process is carried on in the small 

 intestine (duodenum) by the pancreatic secretion. Claude 

 Bernard ascertained in 1856 that the pancreatic juice con- 

 tains a ferment that digests proteids ; to this ferment the 

 name " trypsin " was given by Kiihne in 1876. These two 

 were the only proteases known until quite recently (1901) a 

 new protease, termed " erepsin " by Cohnheim, its dis- 

 coverer, was added to the list. Like' trypsin, this protease 

 peptolyses peptones, and is active in alkaline liquids ; but 

 its peptonising power is much less marked, as it is without 

 action on albumin and fibrin, though it can peptonise casein. 

 The discovery of erepsin suggested the possibility that 

 trypsin might be, not a single enzyme, as had hitherto been 

 thought, but a mixture of enzymes, possibly of peptonising 

 with peptolysing enzymes. Research in this direction has, 

 in the hands of Dr. Vernon, already (1903) shown that 

 what is generally known as trypsin is a mixture of erepsin 

 (pancreato-erepsin) with what may be termed trypsin 

 proper. It is not inconceivable that analysis may be carried 

 still further, and that trypsin proper may itself be found 

 to be a mixture of a peptonising with a peptolysing enzyme. 

 Prof. Vines next turned to proteid-digestion in plants. His 

 own contribution, made within the last three years, consists 

 of a number of observations on many different plants or 

 parts of plants, showing that a protease of some kind is 

 probably to be found in all parts of all plants at one stage 

 or other of their development. It appears that whilst all 

 plants that have been investigated can effect peptolysis, 



