May 12, 1904] 



NA TURK 



45 



It is announced in Science that at the recent Convocation 

 of the University of Chicago, President Harper acknow- 

 ledged a gift of 1000/. for special investigation in the depart- 

 ment of physics, by the president of the board of trustees, 

 Mr. Martin A. Ryerson, and a gift of 2oooi. by Miss Helen 

 Snow as a memorial to George W. Snow, her father, to 

 rebuild the horizontal telescope at Yerkes Observatory, 

 which was injured by fire. 



Among the many educational enterprises of the Lanca- 

 shire County Council, the system of technical instruction 

 for fishermen, which is being much appreciated by the 

 fishermen along the Lancashire coast, deserves special com- 

 ment. The county council has arranged for batches of 

 fifteen fishermen at a time to attend at the Piel (Barrow) 

 Hatchery and .Marine Laboratory to be instructed in the 

 habits and conditions of breeding of various kinds of fish. 

 The course lasts a fortnight, during which time the fisher- 

 men reside at Piel. The county council allows each man 

 5/. towards his e.\penses. We have received from Prof. 

 W. A. Herdman, F.R.S., a copy of the syllabus of the 

 lessons in marine biology given in these practical classes, 

 and it shows that in addition to an introductory course, 

 time is found for the fishermen to dissect and study the 

 mussel, shrimp, crab, cockle, oyster, and fish parasites, and 

 also to become acquainted with the leading facts about the 

 breeding of these and other forms of life. Such courses of 

 work as these must be of great value to fishermen. 



In his presidential address to the British Association last 

 year. Sir Norman Lockyer used the two-power principle by 

 which our naval expenditure is determined to illustrate and 

 emphasise his appeal for State aid for universities equivalent 

 to any two nations commercially competing with us. Re- 

 cognising that universities are the chief producers of brain- 

 power, and therefore the equivalents of battleships in re- 

 lation to sea-power, examination was made of the provision 

 for university education in Germany and the United States 

 and that existing in this country. The result showed clearly 

 that " instead of having universities equalling in number 

 those of two of our chief competitors together, they are by 

 no means equal to those of either of them singly." In 

 connection with this comparison, it is of interest to notice 

 that in answer to a question asked in the House of Commons 

 last week, the average annual cost of maintaining in com- 

 mission a first-class battleship of about 13,000 tons was 

 stated to be, in round numbers, 94,000/. The State con- 

 tribution to the whole of our universities and colleges 

 amounts to about 156,000/. a year, that is, less than the 

 sum required to keep two battleships in commission. 



In a dedication address at the opening of Palmer Hall, 

 Colorado, Prof. S. Lawrence Bigelow dealt with the growth 

 and function of the modern laboratory. The address is 

 printed in Science of April 22. Eighty years ago, said 

 Prof. Bigelow, there was not, in any country, a single 

 laboratory for the purpose of teaching chemistry, though, 

 of course, the subject had been taught for many years 

 by means of lectures forming a recognised part of a medical 

 course. To Liebig, at Giessen, belongs the credit of 

 establishing the first chemical laboratory ever opened to 

 students in a university. This was soon after 1824, the 

 year in which he began his work at Giessen. So far as 

 the foundation of laboratories in America is concerned, the 

 address states that chemistry was taught in the laboratory 

 in the medical department of Harvard University at an early 

 date, and in 1846 a new medical school was built, the 

 basement of which was devoted to a chemical laboratory 

 capable of accommodating 13S students. At Yale Prof. 

 B. Silliman and his son established a laboratory of analytical 

 chemistry, and it became of sufficient importance to be 

 incorporated as part of the university in 1847. The Uni- 

 versity of .Michigan is generally recognised as being the 

 first to introduce the laboratory method in teaching. A 

 building exclusively for the teaching of chemistry was 

 finished in this university at a cost of 1200/., including the 

 equipment, and was in use in 1856. But, as Prof. Bigelow 

 remarked, it would be harder to find a university without 

 moderately good laboratories to-day than it was to find 

 one with them in 1S50. The concluding sentences of the 

 address will appeal to all men of science : — " Our labor- 

 atories have overwhelmingly justified their cost by their 



NO. 1802, VOL. 70] 



past history, and are justified in making greater demands 

 than ever, by the importance of the functions which they 

 fulfil. It is to be hoped that philanthropists will be still 

 more liberal than they have been, and that the people will 

 tax themselves more than they ever have, through their 

 legislatures, to give to all schools, colleges and universi- 

 ties. Such money is the fire insurance and the life 

 insurance of society as a whole, guaranteeing the main- 

 tenance of law and order, and the ability of the next gener- 

 ation to support the burden of advancing civilisation, when 

 its turn comes." 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, February 25. — "On the Compressibility 

 of Solids." By J. Y. Buchanan, F.R.S. 



The solids dealt with in this research are the metals 

 platinum, gold, copper, aluminium, and magnesium. Their 

 absolute linear compressibilities were directly determined at 

 pressures of from 200-300 atmospheres at temperatures 

 between 7° and 11° C. The determinations were made by 

 the same method, and with the same instrument which 

 the author used for the determination of the compressibility 

 of glass in i88o (Roy. Soc. Edin. Trans., vol. xxxix. p. 

 589)- 



The instrument consists essentially of a powerful force 

 pump and a tubular receiver to take the samples of metals 

 to be experimented on. These must have the form of rod 

 or wire. The steel tube which forms the receiver has a 

 length of 75 inches and an internal diameter of 5/16 inch. 

 It is closed at each end by thick glass tubes having a bore 

 of between one and two millimetres. In the present investi- 

 gation the metals were all used in the form of wire (No. 22 

 S.W.G.). Inside the steel tube they are supported in an 

 axial position by an internal concentric tube, and their ends 

 project into, and are visible through, the glass terminals. 

 Each glass terminal is commanded by a microscope with 

 micrometer eye-piece and standing on a substantial plat- 

 form, altogether independent of the rest of the apparatus. 

 When the wire is properly placed in the receiver and the 

 microscopes are in position, the pressure is raised to the 

 desired height, as indicated by the manometer, and the 

 ends of the wire are observed and their positions with refer- 

 ence to the micrometers noted. The pressure is then care- 

 fully relieved, and a displacement of both ends is seen to 

 take place and its amplitude is measured. The sum of the 

 displacements of the ends, regard being had to their signs, 

 gives the absolute expansion of the wire in the direction 

 of its length, when the pressure on its surface is reduced 

 by the observed amount, and consequently also the com- 

 pression when the process is reversed. From this the linear 

 compressibility is at once obtained. If the mass of the 

 wire be isotropic, then its cubic compressibility is obtained 

 by multiplying the linear compressibility by three. The 

 wires used were all well annealed before the experiment, 

 with the exception of the magnesium. 



In order to bring the ends into a suitable position for 

 observation with the microscopes, the length of the wire 

 had to be between 75 and 755 inches. The actual length 

 was measured exactly in each case, and it averaged 75-32 

 inches (1-913 metres). 



The manometer which indicates the pressure in the in- 

 strument is simply a mercurial thermometer with a very 

 thick bulb. The scale on it is an arbitrary one, and its 

 value as a measure of pressure is fixed by observing its 

 reading in comparison with the principal piezometer which 

 was used by the author during the voyage of the Challenger. 

 The standard of pressure is therefore an open-air column 

 of sea-water of known properties. The micrometers in the 

 eye-pieces of the microscopes were standardised by refer- 

 ence to a stage micrometer which was verified at the 

 National Physical Laboratory. Their values were very 

 nearly equal, with the powers used. One division in the 

 eye-piece corresponded to 0000422 and 0-000417 inch re- 

 spectively on the stage, or to about 1/ 180000 of the length 

 of the wire. 



In the paper the results for each metal are given in a 

 separate table. It will be sufficient to reproduce the 

 summary. Table I. In it the compressibilities of English 



