NA TURE 



[MA^• 



1 90 1 



and fallinc fiom 66 to 44 miles over Merioneth and Cardigan, 

 Wales. Its observed length of path was 55 miles and velocity 

 14 miles per second. It is remarkable that though few, if any, 

 of the smaller class of shooting stars diverge from this radiant 

 near 5 Cassiopeia' in the spring months it yet furnisher, many 

 fireballs. In the Cieneral Catalogue of Radiants, No. xv. 

 p. 228, the radiants of five fireballs appearing in April and May 

 give a mean centre at 20° + 57°, which is almost identical with 

 that of the bolide of April 21 last. W. F. Denning. 



CHEMISTRY IN ITS RELATIONS TO 

 ENGINEERING} 

 "T^IIE engineer of fifty years ago can hardly be said to have 

 received any special educational training ; he forced himself 

 to the front in virtue of his qualities and industry alone. But 

 the youth who to-day intends to become an engineer feels it 

 wise, if not necessary, to decide where he shall receive, not only 

 liis general, but also his engineering education. While he was 

 at school he will have learnt much about the simpler and more 

 gener.il laws and facts of mechanics and natural science, both by 

 descriplion and by practical work in the laboratory and in the 

 workshop ; he will also have attained to some proficiency in 

 maihcmatics, in one or more of the modern languages, in 

 drawing and in other usual school subjects. When he passes on 

 to his college career his knowledge of these subjects will undergo 

 expansion in the class-room and especially in the laboratory and 

 workshop. It is satisfactory to find that many of our leading 

 schools for training engineers exist in connection with institutions 

 in which pure and applied mathematics, natural science and 

 modern languages are efliciently taught even in their higher 

 stages. The engineering student is thus afforded the opportunity 

 of following up the higher study of any one of these subjects, if 

 his taste and energy lead him to wish him to do so. But even 

 his ordinary course of instruction always includes the opportunity 

 of obtaining lecture and laboratory instruction in chemistry. 

 CItcir.istry in Engineering Education. 



It appears to be the general feeling of those who have had 

 experience in teaching chemistry to engineering students that it 

 is useless to attempt very much in the small amount of time 

 which can be allotted to the subject in the regular curriculum ; 

 it is evidently felt, however, that a student who wishes to attain 

 to any considerable proficiency in the subject should be en- 

 couraged to join certain additional courses which are included in 

 ■the ordinary chemical curriculum. 



Probably all that can be expected of the average engineering 

 student is that he shall become generally conversant, during his 

 college course, with chemical language, with chemical principles 

 and laws, and with the chemical nature of the materials with 

 which he has to deal ; and that he should obtain such an insight 

 into chemical analysis as to be able to confer with the trained 

 chemist, and to understand the meaning of a general statement of 

 the results of chemical analyses bearing on metals, alloys, fuel, 

 lubricants, cements and other materials which are frequently 

 used by the engineer. 



It is beyond question that the engineer has too many calls upon 

 his time and energy, both in his training and in his subsequent 

 career, to allow of his becoming a chemist or a chemical analyst ; 

 but he should at least be sufliciently conversant with the science 

 to enable him to appreciate the important bearings of chemistry 

 on his varied requirements, and to enable him to avail himself 

 intelligently of the results of chemical investigation and analysis. 

 He should be able to watch and to appreciate any chemical 

 inquiry and investigation, even if he is not qualified to suggest 

 its methods of procedure or to carry it out himself. 



It has been stated to me by a German manager of large English 

 works, who has frequently occasion to call in the professional 

 advice and assistance of both engineers and chemists, and who is 

 himself well educated in both departments, that he has to lament 

 in this country the "absence of useful engineering knowledge 

 among chemists, and of useful chemical knowledge among 

 engineers." Another informant states that Germany employs 

 many more trained chemists working in conjunction with her 

 engineers than England does. 



Applications of Cliemistyy to Engineering, 

 In order to illustrate some of the advantages which engineers 



have derived from chemical coadjutors, one or two instances may 

 ' Abstr.ict of ihe '• J.->mes Korresl ' lecture delivered at the Institution of 



Civil Engineers on .\pril 25 by Prof. Frank Clowes. 



NO. 1644, VOL. 64] 



be selected from different fields of engineering activity and 

 enterprise. 



In the matter of supplying the engineer with .suitable con- 

 structive materials, the most striking case is that of the intro- 

 duction of cheap steel of varying qualities in substitution for 

 costly steel and other less suitable forms of iron. 



The Bessemer process owed its original suggestion, as well as 

 its salvation from failure, to the chemical knowledge which was 

 supplied to those who were interested in the procedure. It 

 further owed the extension of its application to all the com- 

 monest, cheapest and most abundant kinds of impure English 

 cast iron to the further utilisation of chemical knowledge and 

 suggestion. 



At the present time the metallurgical chemist and the chemical 

 metallurgist are engaged in furnishing metals and alloys, new 

 to commerce, which can rank in importance with cheap steel, 

 only in a somewhat minor degree ; and the engineer in every 

 department of his activity is now continually having placed at 

 his disposal alloys which are more suitable for his various designs 

 than any which he has hitherto employed. 



It is scarcely necessary to point out the absolute necessity of. 

 chemical knowledge and chemical advice to the gas engineer. 

 In the matter of water supply, also, both the engineer and the 

 chemist find their respective but closely connected spheres of 

 duty. 



There is another direction in which the constant relation of 

 chemistry to engineering, and in which the association of the 

 chemist with the engineer must be maintained, if success is to 

 be secured and expensive failures are to be avoided. 



In no application of chemical and engineering principles is 

 the co-operation of chemist and engineer more necessary for the 

 attainment of success than in securing the suitable purification 

 of our town sewage. Such co-operation has enabled London, 

 Manchester and other large centres of population in recent 

 years to carry out on an experimental scale most important trials 

 of the natural or bacterial treatment of sewage, and has led to 

 reports on this method being published which will probably 

 become classical. This experimental work has led to con- 

 siderable and valuable development and improvement of the 

 bacterial method. There is now no doubt that this process can 

 inexpensively dispose of a large proportion of the putrescible 

 sediment or sewage-sludge, and can render the effluent, not only 

 non-putrescible and suitable for maintaining the life of fish, but 

 even pure if necessary. The process is therefore destined to 

 effect great reforms in our sewage-disposal problem and con- 

 siderable improvements in the condition of our watercourses. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Camhriix.e. — The Rede Lecturer for the present year is 

 Dr. F. W. Maitland, Downing professor of law. Dr. Iladdon, 

 F. R.S. , gives this term a course of lectures on studies in Papuan 

 ethnology and the races of Oceania, on Mondays and Fridays 

 at 2.30 p.m. 



The Medical School Buildings Syndicate recommend the 

 acceptance of tenders for the erection of the Downing Street wing 

 and the Humphry Museum, amounting to more than 26,000/. 



The Frank Smart studentship in botany at Caius College, of 

 the annual value of too/., will be vacant at Michaelmas. Can- 

 didates must have taken honours in Part i. of the N.iiural Sciences 

 Tripos. Further information may be had from the senior tutor 

 of the College. 



A meeting was held in St. John's College on April 27 for 

 the purpose of procuring a portrait of Prof. Liveing, F. R.S., as 

 a memorial of his lifelong services to the University. The 

 meeting was largely attended by members of the Senate, and a 

 warm tribute was paid to the professor, who began his teaching 

 of chemistry fifty years ago, and who during that time has in 

 many ways, public and private, benefited the University, town, 

 and county of Cambridge. A strong committee was formed to 

 carry out the purpose ot the meeting. 



Prof. Newton announces that there are vacancies for workers 

 at the University tables in the Plymouth and the Naples 

 zoological stations. Applications are to be sent to him by 

 May 23. 



Twenty-one candidates have passed the half-yearly examina- 

 tion in sanitary science for the diploma in Public Health, held 

 in April. 



