Aug. 21, 1873] 
tion of a laboratory in which advanced students were to 
be trained in the methods of scientific research, would be 
very far from holding a sinecure office, and would be ren- 
dering the highest, as well as the most direct, service to 
scientific education. 
“We have no doubt that for a professor the duty of 
teaching is indispensable, but we agree with the witnesses 
whom we have examined that original research is a no 
less important part of his functions. The object of an 
university is to promote and to maintain learning and 
science, and scientific teaching of the highest kind can 
only be successfully carried on by persons who are them- 
selves engaged in original research. If once a teacher 
ceases to be a learner it is difficult for him to maintain 
any freshness of interest in the subject which he has to 
‘teach ; and nothing is so likely to awaken the love of 
scientific inquiry in the mind of the student as the 
example of a teacher who shows his value for knowledge 
by making the advancement of it the principal business 
of his life. 
“Tt has been, to a certain extent, a complaint against 
the School of Natural Science in Oxford that hitherto it 
has produced but very few original workers. The com- 
plaint (if well founded) may, perhaps, be accounted for 
by the circumstance that the school has not been long in 
existence ; but there can be no question that it is of the 
utmost importance to impress upon teachers and learners 
alike that one, and perhaps the chief criterion of success 
in the teaching of Science is its leading to new disco- 
veries, To promote this end the Universities probably 
can do nothing more useful than to increase the number 
of persons employed, under whatever name, in the teach- 
ing of Science, taking care at the same time that while 
such duties are assigned to them as may prevent their 
offices from being sinecures, they shall be left with time 
and energy enough to carry on original work. We con- 
sider this to be a point of great importance, and we should 
regret to see any scientific office whatever established in 
either of the Universities without its being understood 
that it is expected from the holder that he shall do what 
is within his power, not only for the diffusion, but also for 
the increase of scientific knowledge. 
“Tt has been stated in some parts of the evidence 
which we have taken, that the duties of lecturing and 
teaching which are required from the professors are such 
as seriously to interfere with their leisure for original in- 
vestigation, and a wish has therefore been expressed that 
the provisions of the Professorial Statutes as to the 
number of lectures to be given should be relaxed. We 
cannot concur with this suggestion. In estimating the 
amount of teaching and lecturing which can properly be 
required from a professor, we do not forget that he is ex- 
pected to keep himself well acquainted with all the latest 
advances in some very wide department of knowledge, a 
task which, at the present rate of scientific productive- 
ness, is no light one. But, on the other hand, we cannot 
leave out of sight that the University duties of a professor 
last for only six months, and that he has thus the invalu- 
able privilege of being master of his own time for fully 
one half of the year. It is, therefore, only reasonable that 
during the University Terms he should devote a fair pro- 
portion of his time to the work of teaching. And we fee] 
it to be our duty to say that, in recommending, as we | 
NATUR 
319 
Se ee 
have done, the foundation of a considerable number of 
new Scientific Professorships, our intention is that duties 
of a very substantial kind should be attached to each of 
these offices, with a view to the establishment of an effi- 
cient and complete course of instruction.” 
From the limited scope of the functions of the various 
existing administrative bodies, as well as from the consti- 
tution of one of them, the Commissioners consider that 
they cannot be regarded as representing, in any adequate 
manner, the Scientific Faculty of the University. They 
then add, “ We are of opinion that the best mode of pro- 
viding for this important object would be to replace them 
by a Single Administrative Body, representing every 
department of Science, and having wider but still definite 
powers entrusted to it. Without attaching any import- 
ance to the name, we shall, for the purposes of the present 
Report, designate this proposed administrative body as 
“the University Council of Science,’ 
“The duties of the Council would, we conceive, be two- 
fold—educational and financial.” 
(To be continued.) 
HARMONIC ECHOES 
Ay SOS GING to Dr. Brewer * “ The harmonic echo 
repeats in a different tone or key the direct sound. 
The harmonic is generally either the third, fifth, or tenth 
of the tonic. ... On the river Nahe, near Bergen, and not 
far from Coblentz, is an echo thus described by Barthius :— 
It makes seventeen repetitions at unequal intervals, Some- 
times the echo seemis to approach the listener, sometimes 
to be retreating from him; sometimes it is very distinct, 
at others extremely feeble ; at one time it is heard at 
the right, and the next at the left ; now in unison with 
the direct sound, and presently a third, fifth, or tenth of 
the fundamental. Occasionally it seems to combine two 
or more voices in harmony, but more frequently it re- 
sembles the voice of a single mimic. 
“At Paisley, in Scotland, there is a somewhat similar 
echo in the burying-place of Lord Paisley, Marquis of 
Abercorn. Musical notes rise softly, swell till the several 
echoes have reverberated the sound either in unison or 
harmony, and then die away in gentle cadence. 
“At the Lake of Killarney, in Ireland, is a very cele- 
brated harmonic echo, which renders an excellent second 
to any simple air played on a bugle, + 
“There was formerly, according to the authority of Dr, 
Birch, an harmonic echo no less remarkable, seventeen 
miles above Glasgow, near a mansion called Rosneath. 
If a trumpeter played eight or ten notes, the echo would 
repeat them correctly a third lower. After a short silence 
another repetition was heard, still lower than the former ; 
and after a similar pause the same notes were repeated a 
third time, in a lower key and feebler tone, but neverthe- 
less, with the same undeviating fidelity. This echo no 
longer exists.” 
It is difficult to believe that these descriptions are 
accurate, but that they have a basis of truth there can be 
little doubt. My attention was first drawn to the subject 
* “Brewer on Sound and its Phenomena.” (1864.) P. 305. 
+ This must be a near connection of the equally celebrated Irish echo, 
which in reply to “‘ How do you do?” answers, “* Very well, thank you.”—R. 
Or of that celebrated echo at Shoreditch Station, illustrated by poor Leech 
in Punch, where, to the old gentleman’s call of “ Porter,” is replied *! Don’t 
you wish you may get him,”—Ep, 
