218 
i 
tinued at Portsmouth. My Lords desire by the establish- 
ment of the College, to give to the executive officers of 
the navy generally every possible advantage in respect of 
scientific education ; but no arrangements will be made at 
all prejudicing the all-important practical training in the 
active duties of their profession. The object of securing, 
in the interest of the naval service, the highest possible 
scientific instruction is, in the opinion of my Lords, mo:t 
effectually to be attained by bringing together in one 
establishment all the necessary means for the higher edu- 
cation of naval officers and of others connected with the 
navy... . Complete courses of study suitable for the 
different classes of students admitted will be organised, 
and will be carried out by professors, lecturers, and in- 
structors. Officers and others admitted as students will 
have the advantage of these courses of study, whether 
they reside or not. But officers and others who may not 
become students will, under certain regulations, have free 
access to separate courses of lectures, the benefit of which 
it is desired to extend as far as possible.” 
The following are the proposed courses of study :— 
“ 1, Pure Mathematics, including co-ordinate and higher 
Pure Geometry, Differential Calculus, Finite Ditferences, 
and the Calculus of Variations, 2. Applied Mathematics, 
viz., Pneumatics, Mechanics, Optics, and the Theories of 
Sound, Light, Heat, Electricity, and Magnetism. 3. Ap- 
plied Mechanics, including the Theory of Structures, the 
principles of Mechanism, and the Theory of Machines. 
4. Nautical Astronomy, Surveying, Hydrography, with 
Maritime Geography, Meteorology, and Chart Drawing. 
5. Experimental Sciences :—a. Physics, viz., Sound, Heat, 
Light, Electricity, and Magnetism ; 6. Chemistry ; c. Me- 
tallurgy. 6. Marine Engineering, in all its branches. 
7. Naval Architecture, in all its branches. §8. Forti- 
fication, Military Drawing, and Naval Artillery. 9. In- 
ternational and Maritime Law; Law of Evidence and 
Naval Courts Martial. 10. Naval History and Tactics, 
including Naval Signals and Steam Evolutions, 11. Mo- 
dern Languages. 12. Drawing. 13. Hygiene—Naval 
and Climatic. A certain latitude in selecting such courses 
of study as they may prefer will be allowed to officers 
voluntarily attending the College. Officers and others 
required to attend by the Regulations will follow such 
courses of study as may from time to time be prescribed. 
“The general organisation of the College will be as 
follows :—A flag officer will be president; he will be 
assisted by a captain in the Royal Navy in matters 
affecting discipline, and in the internal arrangements of 
the College unconnected with study. A director of stu- 
dies will, under the president, organise and superintend 
the whole system of instruction, and the various courses of 
study. There will further be—A professor of mathematics, 
a professor of physical science, a professor of chemistry, a 
professor of applied mechanics, a professor of fortification. 
Such instructors in mathematics and the other branches 
specified as may be necessary to assist the professors will 
be added to the staff. Lecturers will be appointed to deliver 
courses of lectures in naval architecture, metallurgy, civil 
and hydraulic engineering, maritime law, naval history 
and tactics, and hygiene. A naval officer will conduct in- 
struction in nautical astronomy and surveying, and there 
will be two instructors in steam. Such provision will be 
made for instruction in French and German and in draw- 
ing, as the number of students desirous of following 
courses in these branches may render necessary. . . . 
“Arrangements have been made for the admission of 
naval engineer officers to the College, which will prevent 
time spent at the College from entailing any pecuniary 
loss upon them. The School of Naval Architecture at 
South Kensington will be absorbed in the Royal Naval 
Coliege, Greenwich. The regulations for the admission 
of engineer students and of dockyard apprentices have 
been so framed as to provide as nearly as possible the 
same aggregate time for their instruction as that which is 
NATURE 
[Zan. 23, 1873 
now afforded at South Kensington. Further regulations 
will be issued by their lordships in regard to the admission 
of private students to the course of study at the College 
on similar conditions to those now existing at South 
Kensington. My Lords have further determined to admit 
a limited number of officers of the Mercantile Marine as 
students of the College, enjoying the full advantages of 
the whole course of instruction and tuition by the educa- 
tional staff, while officers of the Mercantile Marine gene- 
rally will, on application, be allowed to attend courses of 
lectures. 
“The paramount object which my Lords have pursued 
in the organisation of the College has been to provide the 
most efficient means for the higher education of naval 
officers adequate to the constantly increasing require- 
ments of the service ; but my Lords also anticipate great 
advantages from the results likely to accrue from the con- 
nection which will be established through the College 
between men distinguished in the various departments of 
mathematical, physical, and chemical science, and those 
practical problems which so vitally interest the navigator, 
the naval architect, and the naval engineer. My Lords 
expect the College to become, not only an educational 
establishment affording the means of the highest training 
in theoretical subjects to naval officers of all classes, but 
also a nucleus of mathematical and mechanical science 
specially devoted to those branches of scientific investi- 
gation which have most interest for the navy.” 
ELECTROSTATICS AND MAGNETISM 
Reprint of Papers on Electrostatics and Magnetism. 
By Sir W. Thomson, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., F.R.S.E., 
Fellow of St. Peter’s College, Cambridge, and Professor 
of Natural Philosophy in the University of Glasgow. 
(London : Macmillan and Co., 1872.) 
pee obtain any adequate idea of the present state of 
electro-magnetic science we must study these papers 
of Sir W. Thomson’s. It is true that a great deal of 
admirable work has been done, chiefly by the Germans, 
both in analytical calculation and in experimental re- 
searches, by methods which are independent of, or at 
least different from, those developed in these papers, and 
it is the glory of true science that all legitimate methods 
must lead tothe same final results. But if we are to count. 
the gain to science by the number and value of the ideas 
developed in the course of the inquiry, which preserve 
the results of former thought in a form capable of being 
employed in future investigation, we must place Sir W. 
Thomson’s contributions to electro-magnetic science on 
the very highest level. 
One of the most valuable of these truly scientific, or 
Sscience-forming ideas, is that which forms the subject of 
the first paper in this collection. Two scientific pro- 
blems, each of the highest order of difficulty, had hitherto 
been considered from quite different points of view. 
Cavendish and Poisson had investigated the distribution 
of electricity on conductors on the hypothesis that the 
particles of electricity exert on each other forces which 
vary inversely as the square of the distance between them. 
On the other hand Fourier had investigated the laws of 
the steady conduction of heat on the hypothesis that 
the flow of heat from the hotter parts of a body 
to contiguous parts which are colder is proportional to 
the rate at which the temperature varies from point to 
point of the body. The physical ideas involved in these 
two problems are quite different. In the one we have an 
Bt at ee 4 
