184 
NATURE 
[DecEeMBER 24, 1896 
OPENING OF NEW LABORATORIES AT 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LIVERPOOL. 
‘THE great interest which the manufacturers of Liverpool 
take in the University College of that city was again ex- 
emplified by the opening of the new William Gossage labora- 
tories a few days ago, briefly referred to in our Educational 
Intelligence last week. Since the college was founded, it has 
had the ready and full support of the manufacturers and traders 
of Liverpool and the district around, the result being that to- 
day it is in the front rank of institutions for higher education. 
With well-equipped laboratories, and a strong professoriate, the 
college possesses exceptional opportunities for study and re- 
search; and the work accomplished in it has done much to 
advance the arts as well as the sciences. The teaching course, 
which extends over four years, not only aimsat training students 
for manufacturing pursuits, but also to carry out independent 
investigations. 
The first section of the chemical department of the college 
was opened in May 1886. But the main laboratories, the most 
important of all, were not at that time proceeded with, partly 
owing to lack of funds, and partly because a portion of the site, 
the whole of which was given by the Corporation of Liverpool. 
was not then vacant, and could not be transferred to the college 
until later. In the early years the advanced students were 
necessarily few in number, and there was sufficient accommoda- 
tion for them as well as for much larger junior classes ; but by 
the year 1893 the want of a complete laboratory for the whole 
of the special laboratory students was seriously felt. 
In these circumstances Mr. F. H. Gossage and Mr. T. Sutton 
Timmis generously undertook jointly to build and fit up a 
further section of the building, including the largest of the main 
laboratories and rooms below, at a cost of 7000/,, and to pre- 
sent them to the college as a memorial of the late Mr. William 
Gossage. Other portions of the buildings are being erected 
by public subscription, the list being headed by donations of 
1000/7. each from Sir John T. Brunner, M.P., Mr. E. K. 
Muspratt, and Messrs. Lever Brothers. 
Mr. William Gossage, whose name is enshrined in the new 
laboratories, was one of the most fertile inventors of this century. 
His work was mainly chemical, and before his death in 1877 he 
possessed no less than sixty-three patented processes. In the 
early days of the soda industry, the hydrochloric acid gas, which 
is evolved from common salt for the production of sulphate of 
soda, was poured into the air in enormous volumes, to the 
destruction of vegetable and injury of animal life. In 1863 the 
Earl of Derby was instrumental in passing into law the Alkali 
Act which compels manufacturers to condense all except a very 
small fraction of the hydrochloric acid gas which they produce. 
It was William Gossage who rendered this legislation practicable 
by inventing the tall stone condensing towers which are so pro- 
minent a feature of the landscape in every Leblanc alkali works’ 
district, and by means of which what was before worse than 
wasted is turned into a source of considerable profit to the 
manufacturers. 
In 1838 he was engaged in experiments for the recovery of 
sulphur lost in the alkali waste of the Leblanc process, and also 
for the manufacture of soda from sodium sulphide. It was at 
this time that he demonstrated that calcium sulphide, and also 
sodium sulphide in solution, are decomposed by the action of 
dilute carbonic acid produced in lime kilns. In 1854 he pro- 
duced silicate of soda or soluble glass by fusing sand with soda. 
He also utilised the red liquors from carbonate of soda manu- 
facture, which were at that time an almost waste product, 
producing from them caustic soda, which was for years the only 
-caustic soda made, and was employed to facilitate the manu- 
facture of soap. He thus introduced what has now become a 
large and important industry in caustic alkali. In many other 
directions his inventive mind found occasional diversion, and of 
him it may be truly said that, although he was a successful 
manufacturer, he spent his mental energy and his means seeking 
out many inventions which benefited others rather than himself. 
The new buildings, opened on December 12, include a large 
laboratory 60 feet by 32 feet, with benches fitted up for forty-four 
advanced students, an adjacent room provided with a new form 
of heated sand bath and other appliances for the service of the 
main laboratory, and, in the basement, an additional lecture 
room to seat seventy or eighty, a preparation room, and a gas 
analysis room. These five rooms, which are lined with ivory 
glazed bricks, constitute the ‘‘ William Gossage” laboratories. 
NO. 1417, VOL. 55] . 
The other new buildings are a metallurgical laboratory, with 
furnaces and other equipment, an important addition to the 
research laboratory, a store for apparatus and chemicals, a 
dynamo room, electric-accumulator room anda heating chamber. 
Beyond a number of minor improvements in the main labora- 
tory, the benches do not essentially differ from those in some 
other similar laboratories except in one important respect, that 
the half-closed chambers placed in the middle of each bench 
have a really efficient draught which carries away all fumes from 
small operations without allowing any to escape into the room. 
This result is attained by carrying the whole ventilation of the 
room, which normally amounts to 125,000 cubic feet per hour, 
through these students’ fume chambers and the larger chambers 
on either wall; the foul air passes from these hoods down toa 
wide subterranean channel ending at the base of a tall up-cast 
shaft, where acoke fire maintains a strong draught ; by no other 
way can air escape from the laboratory, while a fan forces washed 
and warmed fresh air through flues and gratings in the walls 
into the room, So as to maintain a constant pressure during the 
working day. 
The laboratories will be opened to students on January 7, 
1897, and the committee will be glad to receive further dona- 
tions to enable them to finish the buildings, and furnish the 
necessary equipment. 
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL HISTORY OF 
SOUTHERN RUSSIA. 
[NX continuing his ethnographic history of the region between 
the Dniester and the Caspian in the Bzdletins de la Socdété 
@ Anthropologze, vii. (4 sér.), 1896, M. Zaborowski commences by 
criticising Sergi’s assertion that ‘the first colonists of Southern 
Russia came from the Mediterranean.” The enthusiastic Italian 
anthropologist recognised skulls of the type of his Mediterranean 
race from ancient graves in several parts of Russia, but 
Zaborowski contends that he has not paid sufficient attention to 
the dates of the finds, and that he has neglected the culture 
evidence. The author reserves the term Aryan to the tall blond 
dolichocephalic race, that is solely of European origin, which 
is not the case for the brown dolichocephalic Mediterranean 
race or the Celto-slavic type. Aryan languages are spoken in 
Europe where the brown brachycephals and dolichocephals 
have never penetrated, at least until our epoch; but there are 
no people with an Aryan language who have not come into con- 
tact with the fair race. 
In the most ancient graves of the bronze age, Neolithic 
dolichocephals are still generally to be found, but before the 
Scythian epoch there was a mingling of brachycephals, perhaps 
partly through commercial relations and partly from women 
captured in war. The original home of the Scythians was to 
the east of the Caspian. The finds in the Scythian tombs exactly 
correspond to the description given by Herodotus of their neigh- 
bours, the allied Massagetes, except that iron is not quite un- 
known. The Thyssagetes, Tyregetes, Getes and Dacians, arose 
from the Scythians and Massagetes, descendants from the Getes 
and Dacians, still exist among the Roumanians, having harsh 
black hair and a yellow-brown complexion. In Scythia, 
Herodotus mentions the large nation of the indigenous, 
nomadic Budins, who ‘‘have remarkably blue eyes and red 
hair.” These may be the ancestors of the Finns, at all events 
they formed a contrast to the Scythians, to whom Hippocrates 
attributed a short stature and a brown skin. 
The Scythian period was terminated by the arrival of .the 
Goths in the second century A.D. Strabo does not know of 
them, Tacitus mentions their occupying the shores of the Baltic 
between the Elbe and the Vistula. Later they came down the 
latter river to the Black Sea, and reached the lower Danube ; 
at the commencement of the third century this enterprising and 
warlike nation touched the eastern borders of the Roman 
empire. The Goths were described as very large, of fine 
appearance, fair hair, milk-white skin, with great moral energy, 
modest, and very strong. They spoke a German dialect, and 
Were even in possession of the primitive runic alphabet. The 
arrival of the Goths at the Black Sea is a return of the European 
blonds to a region where the brown Asiatic Scythians had 
reigned as masters for centuries. 
M. Zaborowski evidently believes that the Aryan language 
arose about the Black Sea. He, with Broca and others, accepts 
the tradition that the Cymbri of Jutland were the descendants of 
