ApriL 28, 1904] 
Glasgow. Black was made professor in 1756, when 
he was twenty-eight, and remained here until he was 
translated to Edinburgh ten years later. Prof. R. 
Dundas Thomson wrote fifty years ago of Black, 
““ These two capital discoveries ’’—of the loss of weight 
when limestone is converted into quicklime, and of the 
disappearance of an amount of heat which does not 
affect the thermometer when water is converted into 
steam—*‘ have been of greater service to science than 
perhaps any equal number of data ever pointed out 
by philosophers. Dr. Black was a man of elegance, 
modesty, and indolence. His active life in science 
terminated in his thirty-eighth year, for after his re- 
moval to Edinburgh, he engaged in no inquiries, and 
contented himself with teaching the science.’’ Some 
scientific men may look back with regretful eyes to 
the far-off Arcadia of their great predecessor—who 
had two epoch-making discoveries to his credit before 
he was thirty-eight, and nothing but quiet though 
admirable teaching to do for the balance of his days. 
Mendeléeff at seventy, and Lord Kelvin at eighty, are 
still incessantly at work on the most abstruse and far- 
reaching problems of the intimate constitution of the 
world. Dr. Black’s incisive critic might have remem- 
bered that it has been given to very few men of science 
to take an unchallenged place both among the first 
investigators and the most accomplished and success- | 
ful teachers of his time. 
Wandering, after the lecture, about the university, 
which our predecessors in 1870 thought to have been 
housed so splendidly, one finds Sir Gilbert Scott’s great 
central building surrounded by masses of modern addi- 
INGA TOTO 
tions. There is a huge engineering building which cost | 
about 30,000l., a botany building costing about 18,oool., 
an additional anatomy building costing about 13,o00l., 
an additional surgery building costing about 10,oo0l. 
All these were built within the last ten years, but 
before the days when Dr. Carnegie stepped in like a 
special providence to help the Scottish universities. 
His benefactions are of two kinds. The first provides 
50,0001. a year towards the payment of the fees of all 
students in any of the universities who ask for it 
and who have shown themselves qualified to profit. 
It was no doubt hoped that this would largely 
increase the number of the students, and so greatly 
add to the resources of the universities. The 
hope has hardly been realised. The number of 
students has not materially increased, and the uni- 
versities merely receive the fees of a very large number 
of their students through Mr. Carnegie’s trustees 
instead of from the parents. Many students, of 
course, do not ask for this benefit, but, as a very 
great number do, the fee money which Mr. Carnegie 
has provided goes, and no doubt it was to a great extent 
meant to go, to the relief of parents who used to pay, 
often, certainly, with difficulty, and it has made very | 
little addition to the resources of the universities. It 
is by the second 50,000/. a year, destined for equip- 
ments and extensions, including buildings, that the 
universities have chiefly benefited. The trustees 
require that the 
money, in which case they will supply the other 
half. For some reason or other they have not so far 
helped the extensive addition—costing probably 12,000l. 
—which has just been made to the chemical depart- 
ment. But they are defraying half the cost of the 
new buildings for natural philosophy, for physiology, 
for medical jurisprudence and public health, and for 
materia medica, which are all in a state of consider- 
able forwardness, and which will cost some 8o0,ooo0l. 
The scientific world must have laboratories for practical 
teaching, and modern laboratories are expensive to 
build, and very expensive to maintain and to keep up 
NO. 1800, VOL. 69| 
I university wanting new  build- | 
ings for scientific teaching shall raise half the requisite 
613 
to date. There is no more finality in scientific equip- 
ment and apparatus than in ironclads, and many 
things which are imperious necessities of to-day will 
be historic scrap iron after a dozen years. These vast 
laboratory extensions will be useless without great 
additions to the staff, and the universities will have 
to look not merely to the Carnegie trustees, but to the 
general public for further advances towards mainten- 
ance and renewal of equipment. Scientific students in 
Glasgow and elsewhere ought in the future to be 
taught more practically, but it is by no means certain 
that their numbers will be greatly increased. It is 
certain that there are many non-scientific departments 
which will need extensions, and cannot look to the 
Carnegie trustees. 
I have perhaps wandered a little from the commem- 
oration, but it is in these visible extensions actually or 
prospectively completed within ten years through the 
benevolence of Glasgow donors and the generous help 
of the Carnegie trustees that scientific graduates and 
visitors have taken the greatest interest. After their 
look round, they betook themselves to the Hunterian 
Museum, where a medallion bust of the late 
Prof. John Young, who was its genius loci for thirty- 
six years, was unveiled. No archzologist, numis- 
matist, zoologist or geologist can be ignorant of 
his name and work. ‘‘ Those who knew him best,”’ 
says his life-long friend and comrade, Dr. Yellowlees, 
‘* know that they will never see another John Young.”’ 
The commemoration day is now over. It included 
the ceremony of conferring honorary degrees, six 
D.D.’s and eight LL.D.’s, including Mr. Choate, 
the American Ambassador, and—in absentia—Prof. 
Mendeléeff, the great Russian chemist, perhaps the 
foremost man in modern chemistry, and the fittest to 
connect the chemists of this generation with the 
brilliant young Glasgow professor of a century and a 
half ago. whom the great Lavoisier was proud to 
acknowledge as his teacher. Mention must, however, 
be made of the banquet in honour of Sir William 
Ramsay, whose Glasgow degree is not of yesterday, 
and of the honorary graduates of to-day. But ban- 
quets are, after all, very much alike. Werle 
THE CELEBRATION OF SIR HENRY 
ROSCOE’S GRADUATION JUBILEE. 
HE half-century which has elapsed since Sir Henry 
Roscoe graduated as doctor of philosophy at 
Heidelberg has been devoted by him uninterruptedly 
to the furtherance of science and education. 
As professor of chemistry for thirty years at Owens 
College, he succeeded by his teaching, writings and 
researches in establishing a great school of chemistry, 
besides earning a world-wide reputation as a scientific 
man; as member of Parliament he assisted to lay the 
foundations of a scientific system of technical educa- 
tion; and as Vice-Chancellor of the University of 
London and a member of the Carnegie trust and 
other bodies, he has spent his later years in the organ- 
isation of scientific teaching. It was therefore fitting 
that at the celebration of his graduation jubilee he 
should be greeted by addresses from his old students 
and from universities, colleges, and learned societies, 
both at home and abroad, which bore eloquent testi- 
mony to the intense appreciation which is felt for his 
services to the cause of scientific and educational 
progress. : 
The ceremony took place on Friday last, April at 
Manchester, in the Whitworth Hall of the Owens 
College, which, by its great architectural beauty, sets a 
fitting seal on the splendid group of buildings which 
Sir Henry Roscoe has seen grow up to replace the old 
house in Quay Street in which his first classes were held. 
22 
22, 
