Marcu 10, 1904] 
NATURE 
to the scheme. for the promotion of the better training of 
technical chemists, now under the consideration 
council. 
commented on the work of the council during the past year, 
on the present position of the institute, and on the work the 
council at present has in hand. 
Ir is reported by the Scientific American that the U.S. 
Navy Department will estabiish a branch naval observatory 
in Samoa, and that 1600l. has been allotted for this purpose. 
Tue British Medical Journal announces that a congress of 
experimental psychology is to be held at Giessen on April 
18-20. Among the organisers of the congress are Profs. 
Exner (Vienna), Hering (Leipzig), von Kries (Freiburg), 
Stumpf (Berlin), and Ziehen (Halle). 
On Tuesday next, March 15, Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge will 
deliver the first of two lectures at the Royal Institution on 
““The Doctrine of Heaven and Hell in Ancient Egypt and 
the Books of the Underworld.’’ The Friday evening dis- 
course on March 25 will be delivered by Prof. Dewar on 
“Liquid Hydrogen Calorimetry.” 
Avr the thanksgiving service at St. Paul’s Cathedral for 
the centenary of the British and Foreign Bible Society on 
March 6, the Archbishop of Canterbury referred in his 
sermon to the relation of science and religion. His Grace 
said, *‘It was on the strength of Biblical texts that the 
scheme of Christopher Columbus was condemned by the 
Spanish junta in 1490 as vain and indefensible. In 1616 
Galileo’s teaching that the earth moves round the sun was 
formally censured by the consulting theologians of the holy 
office, ‘ because expressly contrary to Holy Scripture.’ A 
generation or two afterwards English students were warned 
by high authority against the investigations of so true and 
profound a Christian thinker as Sir Isaac Newton as being 
“built on fallible phenomena and advanced by many 
arbitrary presumptions against evident testimonies of 
Scripture.’ And the lives of Roger Bacon, of Copernicus, 
of Kepler, and of many more, down even to our own day, 
and incidents fresh in the recollection of many here, 
suggest to the thoughtful student of Holy Scripture the 
imperative need of a reverent and humble-minded caution 
in our attitude towards every controversy of the kind. We 
have been oftentimes reminded that it is only the foundation 
of God that remaineth sure, and on that foundation have 
been built also the irrefragable conclusions of science. We 
are not, indeed, required to accept at once every unproven 
hypothesis, or to mistake for absolute science mere assertions 
about that which is unknowable. True science and true 
religion are twin sisters, each studying her own sacred Book 
of God, and nothing but disaster can arise from the petulant 
scorn of the one, or from the timidity or the tyrannies of 
the other.” 
[ue view of an empire as an organism, presented by Sir | 
John Cockburn in a paper on the biology of federation read 
before the Society of Arts on February 9, shows that scien- 
tific principles may with advantage be borne in mind in the 
consideration of problems in politics and practical sociology. 
There is a suggestive analogy between biological develop- 
ment and the life processes of political, organisations and 
institutions. Comte thought that a study of the laws of 
biology was necessary for the proper comprehension of 
sociology ; Herbert Spencer elaborated the numerous points 
of agreement between the two sciences, and Sir Leslie 
Stephen referred to the community as a social tissue. 
Primitive societies may be regarded as analogous to the 
simple cell; they are full of vitality, but fall an easy prey | 
NO. 1793. VOL. 69] 
of the | 
The president delivered his address, in which he | 
443 
43 
to more complex and effective organisations. When an off- 
shoot takes place, the daughter organism completely 
separates itself from the mother, and there is no coordin- 
ation between the two bodies. On the other hand, remarked 
Sir John Cockburn, in the many-celled entities the various 
groups of differentiated, but not wholly detached, cells under- 
take different duties, enter into definite relations, and be- 
come regularly coordinated in the performance of the func- 
tions necessary for the common life. The process of evolution 
is the same, whether it deals with the primordial cell, which 
by subdivision forms the various tissues and organs which, 
grouped together, constitute a complex organism, or 
whether it deals with a primitive homogeneous society, 
which by division of labour and coordination of effort be- 
comes a civilised community, and by combination with other 
communities a nation; or whether, on the highest plane of 
all, it deals with a race which, by colonisation and subse- 
quent cooperation of its several parts, becomes an empire. 
Sir John Cockburn’s paper contains many other instructive 
instances of natural law in the political world, and provides 
a strong case for the cultivation of the scientific spirit in 
all who are concerned with the progress of the State. 
Ix the February number of the American Journal of 
Science Messrs. Bumstead and Wheeler give the results of 
an investigation of the radio-active gas found in the soil 
and in the tap-water at Newhaven, Conn. They establish 
its identity with the radium emanation by a careful com- 
parison of the rate of decay of its activity and of its rate 
of diffusion. Mr. E. P. Adams has recently shown that 
the radio-active gas discovered by Prof. J. J. Thomson has 
the general characteristics of the radium emanation, and it 
seems likely that the gas obtained from the soil in various 
parts of Germany by Messrs. Elster and Geitel owes its 
activity to the same source. The authors conclude that 
radium is probably widely diffused in the earth’s crust. 
They were unable to confirm the existence of a radio-active 
gas obtainable from mercury. 
In the American Journal of Science Dr. C. Barus de- 
scribes a direct micrometric method for the measurement 
of the diameter of fog particles. A thin plate of glass is 
ccvered with a film of oil and held for a certain time hori- 
zontally in the fog, and then rotated back into the field 
of the microscope, where it is screened from further de- 
position. ‘The particles caught on the oiled surface appear 
as brilliant round globules, and persist in a saturated atmo- 
sphere for many minutes. Some preliminary results of the 
number of particles per cubic centimetre and of their dia- 
meter are given. The former varies from 4X10" to 2 5X 10", 
and the latter from 4x10-* to 8x1o-* cm. In certain 
cases the diameters of the drops varied between 10~* and 
5x10-* cm., all the intermediate sizes being present. The 
experiments are being proceeded with by means of a photo- 
graphic method. 
Tue chief differences observed between the salts of 
radium and those of actinium can be explained by means 
of the view that the emanation from actinium disappears 
in a few seconds, whilst that from radium decays to one- 
half in four days. In the Comptes rendus of February 15 
M. Debierne describes a series of experiments made in order 
to determine the rate of decay of the emanation from 
actinium. When the ionisation produced by the emanation 
was used as a criterion of its activity, a uniform rate of 
decay was observed, the activity diminishing to one-half in 
3-9 seconds. On the other hand, the power of exciting in- 
duced radio-activity was found to rise (apparently from 
zero) to a maximum value, but ultimately to decay accord- 
