178 
NATURE 
[NovEMBER 2, 1916 
many cases the comparison would undoubtedly prove 
interesting. But fortunately the descriptions are so 
good that the student loses less than might be ex- 
pected, and the results are very valuable, not only 
to the farmers for whom they were intended, but also 
to the student of soil problems all over the world. 
1a 
THE SCIENTIFIC WORK OF A SCHOOL OF 
TECHNOLOGY. : 
Jee eighth volume of the Record of Investigations 
undertaken by members of the Manchester Muni- 
cipal School of Technology, covering technological re- 
searches carried out during the year 1914, has just 
been issued. It is a highly interesting record of work 
accomplished, and is comprised in 258 quarto pages 
replete with explanatory diagrams and photographs 
illustrative of the text. This attempt to put upon 
permanent record the investigations conducted by 
members of the staff and by advanced students was 
begun in 1905, and has now extended to 2346 pages, 
and in its eight volumes covers researches carried out 
since the year 1900 in all departments of the school, 
including pure and applied mathematics, mechanical 
engineering, physics and electrical engineering, pure 
and applied chemistry and metallurgy, the science and 
practice of sanitation and building, textile manufac- 
ture, and the photographic and printing industries. 
For investigations in all these important departments 
of industrial enterprise the school is exceptionally well 
equipped, and it has, moreover, had the assistance of 
many enlightened manufacturers, and in this connec- 
tion many considerable extensions are in contempla- 
tion, only awaiting the conclusion of the war to give 
them full effect. Meanwhile new laboratories for ad- 
vanced training and research in the subject of coal-tar 
chemistry in its bearing upon the dye-stuff industry 
have been opened under the charge of Prof. A. G. 
Green, of the University of Leeds, with the help and 
advice of Dr. E. Knecht, the professor of chemical 
technology, thus giving full opportunity, not only for 
the efficient training of chemists for the growing de- 
mands of the organic chemical industries, but for the 
establishment of a school of research for the chemistry 
of dyes and allied substances employed in industrial 
chemistry. 
Many of the articles and researches published in 
these journals have also appeared in the scientific and ~ 
technical Press. Lists are also given of important 
papers read in connection with the various technical 
societies connected with the school, including the 
Engineering Society, the Day Students’ Chemical 
Society, the Textile Society, which itself publishes an 
important journal, the Printing Crafts Guild, and the 
Bakery and Brewing Students’ Societies, together with 
the titles of fifty-four theses prepared by graduate 
students in technology for the degree of M.Sc.Tech. 
in the University of Manchester. Lists also appear 
of the titles of nearly fifty volumes of technical works 
issued by- members of the staff since rgoo. 
The eighth volume of the journal under review con- 
tains, among other articles of value, interesting papers 
concerned with the applications of chemical science, 
such as those on vulcanising, industrial gas-burning, 
the action of strong nitric acid upon cotton 
cellulose and of sulphuretted hydrogen upon 
sodium hydrosulphite, together with papers on 
the dilution limit of inflammability of gaseous 
mixtures and on the ignition of gaseous mix- 
tures by the electric discharge. Not the least valuable 
paper. is one entitled ‘‘A Contribution to the History 
of Dyeing in Scotland,” being a sequel to one in vol. vii, 
NO. 2453, VOL. 98] 
of the journal on the history of dyeing suggested: by 
a remark of the late Prof. Meldola in his presidential 
address of 1910 to the Society of Dyers and Colourists 
on “The Antiquity of Tinctorial Art’’: “I have in 
mind the desirability of techfiical societies such as. 
ours including in their work the antiquarian side of 
their subject. This is, as a rule, neglected. Neverthe- 
less, it is desirable to secure records of the past with 
respect to ancient industries, and the experts in any 
particular subject are assuredly the right people to 
undertake such work.’’ Other important articles in 
the current number deal with researches on the ulti- 
mate endurance of steel and of the results of experi- 
ments with lathe-finishing tools, a continuation of 
valuable experiments and investigations begun in the 
school so far back as 1903 on high-speed tool steels 
and cutting tools, which are even now under investiga- 
tion; on modern boiler-room practice and the preven- 
tion or abatement of smoke; on the effect of structure 
on the strength and wearing qualities of cloth, © 
copiously illustrated; on a null method of testing 
vibration galvanometers; and on’the commutation of 
large continuous-current generators and rotary con- 
verters under heavy-load conditions. 
The school is thus ‘“‘an excellent example of the 
kind of work which the engineering colleges and the 
higher technical schools in this country ought to 
undertake, and must be prepared to perform, if they 
are to occupy the place of similar institutions abroad 
in the very important matter of practical research, not 
merely as teaching young men the elements of tech- 
nical science, but also as establishments where indus- 
trial experiments can be carried out on a practical 
scale.” It only remains to say, as exhibiting the great 
resources of this school, that the journal has been 
admirably printed and its illustrations prepared at the 
school press. . e seks 
PHYSIOLOGY AT THE BRITISH 
ASSOCIATION. 
HE attendance of physiologists at the Newcastle 
meeting was comparatively small, but there was 
a good programme, and several of the papers elicited 
considerable discussion. Prof. Cushny, the president 
of the section, took a pharmacological subject for his 
address. Reports of research committees were then 
presented, and Prof. Waller exhibited a simple appa- 
ratus for the administration of known percentages of 
chloroform. The recent modifications suggested by — 
the extensive use of the instrument were described. 
A series of lantern-slides illustrating the action of 
pituitary extract on the secretion of cerebro-spinal fluid 
was shown by Prof. Halliburton. The increased secre- 
tion is claimed by him to be an indirect result of the 
extract, the immediate cause being ascribed to stimu- 
lation of the cells of the choroid plexus by an increased 
quantity of CO, in the blood. 
Prof. W. H. Thompson detailed the results of fur- 
ther investigations into the formation of arginine and 
creatine. An interesting paper by Prof. Cushny on the 
secretion of urea and sugar by the kidney was the 
outcome of a repetition of Heidenhain’s experiments, 
with this difference, that urea in some experiments, 
and sugar in others, were injected instead of a dye 
into the blood of an animal after transection of its 
spinal cord. Analysis of the kidneys after a suitable 
interval showed no increase of urea or sugar in them 
above the normal, and there was therefore no accumu- 
lation of these substances in the cells of the convoluted 
tubules. 
’ Prof. Herring gave the results of several series of 
experiments in which white rats had been fed on small 
