164 
NATURE 
[ DECEMBER 17, 1896 
introduction of a new word. Hitherto we have spoken of 
plate-cultivating a given water, but this expression we find cut 
down to ‘‘ plating” a water ; as, however, the general practice is 
now to substitute dishes for plates, we shall probably be reduced 
to the ugly phraseology of ‘‘ dishing” a water. 
G, C. FRANKLAND. 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
Oxrorp.—At the Junior Scientific Club, on December 9, Mr. 
E. S. Goodrich read a paper on the ‘‘ Evolution of the Ungu- 
lata,” and Mr. E. C. Atkinson gave an account of some further 
experiments on rowing, exhibiting and describing also the 
improved form of his rowing indicator. 
CAMBRIDGE.—AIl the graces which were non-placeted on 
December 10, were carried by considerable majorities. The 
professorship of Surgery has accordingly been suspended for one 
year, the professorship of Logic and Mental Philosophy is 
established, and the Sedgwick Memorial Museum of Geology 
will be built on the ground lately belonging to Downing College. 
At the same Congregation it was agreed to present to the Lord 
President of the Privy Council a memorial urging the necessity 
of legislation bearing upon secondary education. 
Mr. Ernest Clarke, Hon. M.A., of St. John’s College, Secre- 
tary of the Royal Agricultural Society, has been appointed the 
first Gilbey Lecturer in the History and Economics of Agri- 
culture. 
Mr. J. J. H. Teall, of St. John’s, has been appointed an 
elector to the Professorship of Geology ; and Dr. A. S. Lea an 
elector to the Professorship of Physiology. 
THE Hamilton Court Building Company, consisting of friends 
of Columbia University, have purchased land in New York City, 
at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars, and will erect upon 
it, at a cost of one million dollars, a-dormitory to accommodate 
goo students of the University. 
Tue following are among recent announcements :—Dr. W. 
Valentiner, associate professor of astronomy at Heidelberg, to 
be full professor, and Dr. Knévenagel to be associate professor ; 
Dr. P. Freiherr von Lichtenfels to be professor of mathematics 
in the Technical High School at Graz; Dr. W. Rothert to be 
associate professor of botany in the University of Kasan ; Dr. 
Seitaro Goto to be professor of botany in the First High School 
at Tokyo, Japan; Dr. Kepinsky to be associate professor of 
mathematics at the University of Krakau. 
THE William Gossage Laboratories, just added to the Chemical 
Section of Liverpool University College, were formally opened 
on Saturday by Lord Derby, President of the College, in the 
presence of a large and representative gathering. The labora- 
tories have been built and equipped at a cost of 7000/. by Mr. 
F. H. Gossage and his partner Mr. T. Sutton Timmis, as a 
memorial of the father of the former, the late Mr. Wm. 
Gossage, distinguished as a chemical investigator and inventor 
of chemical processes. An address was delivered by Prof. 
Ramsay on chemical education and the equipment of labora- 
tories. A full report of the address and other speeches made 
upon the same occasion is given in the Liverpool Courter of 
Monday, December 14. 
Str P. MaGnus, in the course of some remarks at the 
Norwood Technical Institute, on Wednesday of last week, 
reviewed the history of the polytechnic institutes in London 
and the provinces. He estimated the amount spent on evening 
teaching, exclusive of interest on capital outlay for buildings, at 
over 175,000/. a year. It was pointed out that the London 
institutes give facilities not only for technical but also for 
literary and general education, which are not obtainable on 
the same scale and on similar lines in any other capital in the 
world. The reason why in some other countries, especially in 
Germany and Switzerland, lads are better able to profit by the 
technical instruction of evening classes than they are in this 
country, is because the lads leave school at a later age and 
more generally attend continuation classes. 
Iv is very satisfactory to note that our political leaders have 
lately devoted themselves to expounding the connection of science 
with industry. Mr. A. J. Mundella, M.P., speaking at the 
Birmingham Municipal Technical School, on Friday last, on the 
NO. 1416, VOL. 55] 
subject of German competition, said he quite admitted that we 
had suffered loss from our past neglect, particularly in regard to 
the development of the new sciences and new discoveries, which 
Germany had adopted and developed in a marvellous manner. 
He instanced the growth of the colour trade in Germany. That 
industry was an English discovery, founded by a Birmingham 
man, and worked in Manchester. Yet English manufacturers, 
not for the want of money or want of enterprise, but from the 
want of knowledge, had allowed it to be exploited by Germany, 
and the trade, amounting to many millions a year, had almost 
entirely left this country. 
In the course of an address at the Battersea Polytechnic, on 
Wednesday in last week, the occasion being the distribution of 
prizes and certificates to evening students, Mr. John Morley, 
M.P., referred to a few points of importance to science and 
education. He remarked that those who had studied the 
education question seriously were aware that a London poly- 
technic was not the same thing as a German polytechnic. In 
German polytechnic institutions the students learned the highest, 
most important, and profoundest principles in connection with 
the scientific subject which they there studied. The main object 
in the London polytechnic institutes was a different one ; it was 
that the craftsman, the man who made things and did things 
with the labour and skill of his hand, should have opportunities 
brought within his reach of training not merely in the mechanical 
details but in the principles and the basis of his work. It was 
difficult, however, it was impossible, to put scientific methods 
and spirit into the habits of people who had not already under- 
gone a preliminary training. There was a direct connection 
between technical education and an improvement in their 
national system of secondary education which did not yet exist. 
He hoped that the Government before many weeks were over 
would lay before the House of Commons a scheme for the 
improvement of secondary education. Every one saw that a 
higher appreciation of science, of the technical arts, of the 
improvement of scientific.research and investigation on the part 
of the great English manufacturers was of the very utmost 
importance. One very often heard of the workmen being 
complained of ; but it was now being seen that the leaders and 
captains of industry, especially the employers and the heads of 
great manufacturing enterprises, must open their minds to the 
improving of scientific investigation and research and training, 
both for the heads of the enterprises as well as for those who 
had the actual conduct and the carrying of them out. When 
the sources of the successful competition against this country in 
certain branches of industry were investigated, he believed that 
competent men in trade who had examined the matter would 
say that one great source of the success of foreign competition, 
and especially of German competition, had been the existence 
in Germany for some years of an organised and systematic plan 
for technical education, technical education connected with the 
other branches of education; and he hoped that this country 
would speedily amend and reform its system. . . . A scheme 
was being framed for a Teaching University for London—a 
most important scheme. It was most desirable that this body, 
when it was established, should not be so constituted as to dis- 
courage the evening teaching and evening learning of such places 
as the Battersea Polytechnic. They should allow students from 
such institutions as this to be admitted by their examinations. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
LONDON. 
Physical Society, December 11.—Prof. Ayrton, Vice- 
President, in the chair.—A paper on the applications of physics 
and mathematics to seismology was read by Dr. C. Chree. 
Prof. J. Milne has attempted to account for certain changes in 
the indications of spirit-levels and delicately suspended pendu- 
lums by the supposition that they are due to meteorological 
agencies, such as rainfall or evaporation. Thus he considers 
that a relative excess of moisture—say, on the west of an ob- 
servatory—is equivalent to a surface load on that side tending 
to make the ground, on which the observatory rests, slope down- 
wards from east to west. The author, by making the assump- 
tions as to the physical state of the substance of the earth that 
it is a homogeneous, isotropic, elastic solid, has examined in as 
general a manner as possible the amounts of flexure which 
would be produced by different systems of loading. He points 
out that the alteration in the reading of such an instrument as 
