564 
NATURE 
[APRIL 14, 1904 
energy being transferred, but cheerfully introduces this 
new idea of a peripatetic entropy. 
The fact is, so soon as a man departs from the 
mathematical definition of a quantity like entropy, he 
‘is in danger of all sorts of inconsistency. Conduction 
of heat implies that temperature is not constant in the 
thinnest slice of a bar or portion of fluid, and we have 
no right to speak of the entropy of a portion of stuff or 
of its pressure or of its temperature unless it is in the 
same state throughout. It is obvious that under- 
lying Mr. Swinburne’s statements throughout this 
book it is not always the entropy of a quantity 
of stuff that he thinks of; it is often the entropy 
of a quantity of heat, just as if we said :— 
Heat H in the furnace at a high temperature 6, has 
entropy H/é,; in the water of the boiler 6, is the 
much lower temperature, and the entropy H/#@, is 
much greater than in the furnace, and so on. 
Wherever there is conduction or any kind of 
irreversible operation there is a growth of entropy. 
This sort of representation is familiar to all users of 
the #¢ diagram, but they know how to put the matter 
quite clearly (see Nature, April 30, 1903) without 
using terms in a wrong sense, without confusion of 
ideas, without condemning wholesale what other men 
have written, without contradicting the fundamental 
laws of thermodynamics. 
This notice may seem to be unduly long; I may 
seem to waste valuable space in Nature and give un- 
due importance to an unscientific book. But unhappily 
it is necessary. Mr. Swinburne’s vague denunciations 
of writers on thermodynamics in letters and articles 
to the engineering papers have done a great deal of 
harm to young engineers, and I am peculiarly bound 
to the very ungrateful task of pointing out his mis- 
takes. A writer who proves that the earth is flat de- 
serves no notice, for he can do no harm, but although 
Mr. Swinburne’s heresies are just as unscientific, just 
as absurd, they must be noticed and condemned. He 
uses a Jargon which sounds quite scientific to a young 
engineer; he involves a reader in his mistakes so 
persuasively that if this reader is an earnest young 
engineer I feel sure that he must get utterly dis- 
couraged with the idea that the study of thermo- 
dynamics can be of any use to him. Probably the 
best of antidotes to this poison are the two articles in 
Nature referred to at the beginning of this notice. 
Joun Perry. 
ee ee ae 
AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION AND 
RESEARCH IN INDIA, 
HE last mail brings an issue of the Allahabad 
Pioneer, containing the resolution of the Govern- 
ment of India regarding the establishment of an agri- 
cultural college and research station at Pusa, in Bengal. 
It will be remembered that Mr. Henry Phipps gave a 
sum of 20,000!. to be devoted to whatever object of 
public utility (if possible in the direction of scientific 
research) the Viceroy might prefer, and on the decision 
to create with this sum an imperial centre for agri- 
cultural investigation Mr. Phipps increased his 
donation by another 10,o00l. It was at first proposed 
to make the existing laboratory at Dehra Dun the 
nucleus of the new work, but the superior advantages 
offered by the estate at Pusa have resulted in ‘the 
decision ‘‘to make Pusa_ the headquarters of the 
Imperial Agricultural Department, and to establish 
there the laboratories required by the experts, com- 
bining with them farms which will offer every con- 
venience for practical work, and an agricultural 
college.’’ For this purpose the estate has been trans- 
ferred from the Government of Bengal to the Govern- 
NO. 1798, VOL. 69] 
’ 
ment of India, and the existing staff at Dehra Dun 
will move to Pusa when the laboratories are ready, 
which is expected to be in September, 1905. 
The agricultural college is intended to serve not 
only Bengal, but the whole of India, and to provide 
a supply of trained men, who ‘“ will be required to 
fill posts in the Department of Agriculture itself, such 
as those of assistant directors, research experts, super- 
intendents of farms, professors, teachers, and 
managers of court of wards and encumbered estates.’’ 
At the research institute it appears that the staff 
is to consist of two chemists, one being specially 
concerned with bacteriology, two botanists, one crypto- 
gamic, the other ‘ biological,’’ and an entomologist. 
This scheme ought to grow into an institution of 
the utmost value to India, a country which is full of 
agricultural industries, involving great interests, yet 
proceeding wholly by rule of thumb tempered by 
occasional analyses performed in London. Systematic 
investigations of the conditions of the industry on the 
spot have been wanting except latterly among the 
tea-planters of Ceylon and Assam. Indigo growing 
affords a case in point; for years it was obvious 
that the natural product was going to meet with 
severe if not ruinous competition, yet nothing was 
done until the artificial indigo had reached the position 
of being able to undersell the Indian article, then at 
last a chemist and a bacteriologist were hurried out 
to try to save the failing industry. But how can the 
most eminent scientific man be expected to descend 
from Europe like the god from the car and revolu- 
tionise an old and complicated business at sight? 
The new institute at Pusa will be well situated 
among some of the best agricultural developments in 
India, so that the scientific staff will have an oppor- 
tunity of learning where their skill can be of service 
to the cultivator, and of trying to keep this or that 
industry in a healthy condition instead of being called 
upon to resuscitate it when in extremis. There may 
be even now a chance for the grower of indigo if 
only he is given some of the systematic scientific effort 
which has hitherto been the monopoly of his 
competitor. 
NOTES. 
Press messages from New York contain an account of 
the discovery, by Prof. Baskerville, of the University of 
North Carolina, of two new elements possessing somewhat 
remarkable properties. By distilling thorium oxide in a 
quartz tube with carbon and chlorine there are produced 
a greenish condensable vapour to which the name 
berzilium is given, and a crystalline, pinkish substance 
which adheres to the quartz tube and is named carolinium, 
whilst a certain quantity of thoria remains unchanged in 
the tube. Prof. Baskerville has at his disposal 5 grams of 
carolinium and 2-5 grams of berzilium, presumably in the 
form of volatile chlorides. In a lecture before the Chemists” 
Club Prof. Baskerville exhibited the two elements in a 
darkened room, and showed that each of them is capable of 
shedding an illumination through tubes of copper, brass, 
iron and glass, all with cloth. Further investi- 
gations are in progress, in which Prof. Zerban, of Berlin, 
will cooperate. 
covered 
Pror. R. W. Boyce, F.R.S., has been appointed a special 
advisory member of the committee of the African trade 
section of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce on matters 
relating to health and sanitation. 
Reuter’s Agency is informed that the British Antarctic 
vessel Discovery, with Captain Scott and his staff, is not 
