rae 
Aas 
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OcTozer 5, 1916]. 
Organisation of Expert Knowledge. 
We are reminded by the report of a Royal 
‘Commission—that on Coast Erosion in 1911—that. 
systematic observations and the collation and organisa- 
tion of geological and engineering knowledge are 
urgently needed in connection with the protection of 
our coasts and the reclamation of new lands. For it 
- will be remembered that the Commission found that 
during the last thirty-five years the gain of land, as 
_ shown by Ordnance Survey maps, has been more than 
seven times the loss by erosion. 
Here, again, the British Association may reflect with 
pride that it paved the way for this national inquiry. 
For many years its Committee on Coast Erosion 
gathered and collated evidence on erosion, and induced 
the Admiralty to instruct the coastguard to observe 
and report upon changes that take place from time 
to time. 
After recommending ‘“‘that the Board of Trade 
should be constituted the Central Sea-Defence Author- 
ity for the United Kingdom for the purpose of the 
administration of the coast-line in the interest of sea 
defence,’ the Commissioners go on to urge that ‘‘ that 
Department should have the assistance of scientific 
experts to collate information and to secure systematic 
observations with regard to questions such as the 
changes taking place below the level of low water, the 
travel of materials in deep water, the movements of 
_ outlying sandbanks, etc., which are continually happen- 
ing on the coasts of the kingdom, and with regard to 
which the information at present is scanty and 
vague.'’® : 
In economic geology, as in the case of other applied 
sciences, we must rely in the future less upon chance 
individual effort and initiative. We must concentrate, 
centralise, and organise; and at every stage we shall 
need expert control and advice as regards those larger 
scientific issues of national importance which have a 
direct practical bearing. aaa 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
; INTELLIGENCE. 
Leeps.—The annual report of the Department of 
Coal, Gas, and Fuel Industries, of which Prof. J. W. 
Cobb occupies the chair as Livesey professor, has just 
been issued by the University. It begins with a refer- 
ence to the number of students who have entered the 
Army or are connected with the war work of the 
department, and also to the election of candidates to 
the recently founded Corbet-Woodall scholarship and 
Arthur Walker exhibition. Courses of lectures, which 
have been given in the past by specialists connected 
with the gas and fuel industries, have had to be re- 
stricted owing to the demands made by the war upon 
the lecturers. The research work of the department 
during the year includes two important publications. 
The Ventilation Research Committee, representing 
the Institution of Gas Engineers, has issued its third 
report. The work has been carried out, as before, by 
Mr. W. Harrison, who has made a careful and in- 
teresting study of causes of down-draughts, the 
effect of ventilating burners, etc. The second research, 
by Prof. Cobb and Mr. H. Hollings, on ‘Thermal 
Phenomena in Carbonisation,’’ was read before the 
_ Institution of Gas Engineers in June last. The other 
work of the department has been mainly on behalf of 
the Ministry of Munitions and the Royal Society War 
Committee. : : 
Tue chemical courses of the Finsbury Technical Col- 
lege, which commenced on Tuesday, October 3, are 
8 Royal Commission on Coast Erosion, ete., rgrr. Third (and Final) 
Report, pp. 160-6r.. 
NO. 2449, VOL. 98] 
NATURE 
103 
undergoing modification and extension in order to cope 
with the increased demand for chemists trained to take 
up industrial posts. Commencing at first with a two- 
year curriculum, the courses have in recent years been 
extended over a period of three years, and in many 
instances students have, with profit to themselves, con- 
tinued their advanced studies into a fourth year and 
even longer. If the renascence of British chemical 
industry is to be fruitful, there will not only be a 
demand for more chemists, but it will be essential that 
these newcomers should be better trained than their 
predecessors. The Executive Committee of the City and 
Guilds of London Institute has placed at the disposal 
of the chemical department of the Finsbury college a 
new suite of rooms, to be fitted as advanced labora- 
tories of applied chemistry. The work of adaptation 
is in full progress, and the laboratories will be suffi- ” 
ciently ready for advanced students early in the new 
year. The installation of technical appliances is being 
extended, partly by purchase and partly by construc- 
tion in the chemical department. Factory methods of 
conducting filtration, evaporation, distillation, desic- 
cation, heating under pressure, and other generalised 
processes will be studied, and the possession of this 
plant and apparatus will render possible the execution 
of industrial researches in many branches of inorganic 
and organic chemistry, as, for example, the extraction 
of metals, preparation of alloys, cements, glazés, porce- 
lains, glass, enamels, pigments, synthetic dyes, artificial 
perfumes, and pharmaceutical products. One gratify- 
ing feature of this development is the fact that the 
effort to develop along industrial lines is so far appre- 
ciated by certain firms that they have assisted by gifts 
of plant and chemicals. 
In a pamphlet of thirty-six pages, entitled ‘t Scien- 
tific Method in Schools”’ (Cambridge University Press, 
price 1s.) Mr. W. H. S. Jones, senior classical master 
at the Perse School, has put forward some well-timed 
suggestions upon a subject now universally admitted 
to be of first-rate importance. Starting from the 
assumptions (1) that all subjects, in different ways and 
to different degrees, can be made to give a training 
in scientific method, and (2) that the scientific training 
even of the future researcher in physics or chemistry 
will be more effective if it is not confined to his special 
subject, but rests on a broad foundation, he puts for- 
ward the thesis that ‘‘ whatever subjects are included 
in the curriculum, each one should contribute its quota 
to a comprehensive scheme of scientific method.” He 
does not demand a strict ‘‘heuristic’’ treatment of 
every subject, but maintains that in lessons occurring 
regularly ‘‘once a week or once a fortnisht in each 
subject,” the pupil should be confronted with problems 
to be attacked bv strict application of the methods of 
deduction and induction—particularly the latter—and 
should be taught to be constantly conscious of the 
necessity of working according to fixed laws. Mr. 
Jones introduces his proposals by quotations from 
Cicero and Charles Lamb, but does not show whether 
he is aware how entirely they are congruent with the 
results of the best relevant psychological researches of 
the present day. Re that as it mav. the practical 
teacher will be more directly interésted in the eleven 
detailed examples, drawn from courses in languages, 
historv, geography. biolosv. ard mechanics, which the 
author gives in illustration of his thes‘s. Of these, 
some represent the joint work of master and class, 
some the unaided work of schoolboys or under- 
graduates. It would be unreasonable to expect them 
to be proof against criticism (indeed, Mr. Jones dis- 
claims any intention of offering them as models), but 
all will be found interesting and instructive as ex- 
emplifving a method of procedure of the general sound- 
ness and importance of which there can be no doubt. 
