390 



NATURE 



[February 23, 1899 



LETTKRS 10 THE EDITOR. 

 [The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 

 presset by his correspondents. Neither <an he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond tvHh the ivriters of, rejectet 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other fart of NATURE. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications. ] 



A Stream of Alluvium. 

 In a private letter, Captain Roberts, Medical Officer at 

 Gilgit, sends me the following information, which may interest 

 some of your readers. He says that near Owir, which is near 

 Drasan in the Turikho valley of Chitral, there is a curious 

 object which he describes as a "glacier of alluvium." It fdls 

 the bed of a nullah which comes down from a ridge of Tirich 

 Mir, and is free of snow. It appears to consist entirely of a 

 moving mass of earth, &c. The top of the nullah is at about 

 1 2,000 feet and the foot of it at about 5000 feet above sea- 

 level, and it is about five miles long. There is neither ice nor 

 snow above or within this moving mass. It has an undulating, 

 broken surface, and looks like a moraine-covered glacier, ex- 

 cept that grass grows upon it in places, and even a few culti- 

 vation-terraces have been made upon it by the neighbouring 

 villagers. Its breadth is about 200 yards. There is a stream 

 in a depression on each flank of it, between it and the hillside. 

 The villagers state that it is no new phenomenon. They say 

 that it is always on the move. There are some trees upon it, 

 and by the change in their position, as reported by the natives, 

 it is concluded that the rate of movement is about 200 yards a 

 year. The thing, therefore, is not any sort of mud avalanche. 

 .As above stated, parts of the surface are cultivated ; but the 

 natives have given up attempting to build houses upon it, be- 

 cause they always tumble down. Captain Roberts is attempting 

 to get a photograph taken of this curious locality. 



M.ARTiN Conway. 



Chemists and Chemical Industries. 



I SEE with pleasure that the notice of Dr. Fischer's pam- 

 phlet on technological education has been written by Prof. 

 Meldola, one of the few men who by experience has a competent 

 knowledge of the real needs of this country. 



Dr. Fischer, of course, confines himself to one side of the 

 question, and leaves out of sight the clever finance, the in- 

 genious and somewhat Bismarckian trading methods which have 

 combined with sound technical knowledge to place Germany in 

 a position of superiority. 



These equally demand the serious attention of our commercial 

 men. 



On the question of education — its character and extent when 

 required to furnish skilled chemical manufacturers — Dr. F'ischer 

 has the support of a distinguished master of chemical manufac- 

 turing and trading, as practised by German firms, in the person 

 of Dr. Bottinger ; and there can be no doubt that the German 

 (Jovernment will listen to their advice, and endeavour to provide 

 the education for which they ask. 



But while Germany — thus awake to the necessity of main- 

 taining her position — is preparing to act, what are we in this 

 country doing ? 



Our so-called technical instructors will perhaps pride them- 

 selves that their efforts have fluttered the German dovecots. 

 Nothing can be further from the truth. The real cause is almost 

 entirely a financial alarm, caused by energetic commercial attacks 

 upon the chemical trade now coming from three quarters — 

 England, France, and America. Germany considers that this 

 can best be met by im]irovement in technical knowledge on the 

 part of the officers of the industrial army. 



Meanwhile we are establishing technical schools, institutes, 

 polytechnics, and so on, and teaching smatterings of science to 

 workmen. 



What is the result ? Our well-equipped technical schools 

 confine themselves to producing not technologists, but teachers. 



Germany turns out 95 per cent, technologists, 5 per cent, 

 teachers. Here things are reversed. The reason is plain. Here 

 Ihe per.sons consulted in such matters have been almost without 

 exception academical chemists, chemical pedagogues. What 

 the manufacturers want has not been asked ; the professors know 

 what is -good for them, and will provide it. The national 

 attitude so often denounced in the rejjorts of our consuls on the 



NO. 1530, VOL. 59I 



failures of Brili.sh traders in foreign markets. The London 

 County Council appoints a technical instruciiim committee — all 

 educationists; the committee does inquire as 10 the needs' if 

 chemical manufacturers, but selects as typical the trades of 

 sulphuric acid and alkali making, in which the problems have 

 been reduced to almost purely engineering ones, where magnitude 

 of output and vast financial interests have reduce<l price until 

 the margin for chemical movement has been contracted to 

 almost nil. (Jn the other hand, no representative of the 

 organic chemical manufactures, in which these conditions are 

 absolutely reversed, w,as deemed worthy of consultation. 



.\nd so we go on, and waste our energies on schoolboy work, 

 and our money on i)olytechnic smattering, and the daily addition 

 to those who must teach because no factory wants them. 



Meantime every word that Fischer and Biitiinger, Lunge and 

 Meldola urge is true. 



A technological faculty is wanted, and could be readily 

 organised. Hut as long as the teaching of technical chemistry 

 is controlled by those without any factory experience we shall 

 flounder on. Chemical schoolmasters will abound. Our technolo- 

 gists must come from ( Germany, or go there to be " made," and 

 the advertisement for "a chemist to act under the orders of the 

 engineer of .so and so, salary two guineas a week, one month's 

 notice required and given," cSic, will be the criterion by 

 which we understand what is the British appreciation of the 

 chemist. 



115 Darenth Road, N., February 20. R. J. F'risweli.. 



Tiit; perusal of I'rof. Meldola's interesting review (Nature, 

 vol. lix. p. 361) of Fischer's pamphlet on German chemical 

 technology tempts me to recount an experience which befel me 

 a year or so ago, and which in a way accentuates the contrast 

 drawn by Prof Meldola between chemical trade methods in 

 F^ngland and Germany. 



Finding that the collection of specimens of raw mater'al.s, 

 bye-products and commercial products available for illustrating 

 my lectures on applied chemistry at Ihe institution at which I 

 have the honour to teach was woefully inadequate, I very 

 naturally made attempts to remedy the deficiency. 



In the first place, I addressed nearly a hundred letters to 

 various Englisli manufacturing firms, asking for specimens of 

 the kind descrilied. Most of my letters were received with an 

 expressive silence, and some elicited replies in which the 

 writer's indignation at the impudence of my request was ex- 

 pressed with some vigour ; in response to about half a dozen of 

 my begging letters, however, I was jjresented with the desired 

 specimens, and in some of these ca.ses I am bound to say con- 

 siderable pains had been taken to provide a really instructive 

 series of specimens. F"or these I am truly grateful, and can 

 respect the .spirit in which the specimens were presented ; but 

 half a dozen sets of specimens are quite insulticient to illustrate 

 the magnitude and scope of modern chemical technology. It 

 should he re marked that some of the more churlish of my cor- 

 respondentsi suggested that if the specimens were needed we 

 should buy hem ; the well-known liberality of my governing 

 body in educational matters is sufficient guarantee that the 

 articles required would have been purchased long ago if they 

 were on the market. 



In my need I therefore addressed a second and similar series 

 of letters, this time to German manufacturing firms ; in almost 

 all cases I received a notification that sets of specimens were 

 being prepared. .•\nd very shortly I was inumlaled with pack- 

 ing-cases bearing the stamp "Made in Germany,' and filled 

 with comprehensive and admirably designe<l collections of 

 specimens and patterns illustrating the particular branch of 

 technology concerned. .My lecture table is now daily well- 

 stocked with specimens of CJerman manufacture. 



The explanation of the difference appears to be that the 

 foreigner was quick to recognise that the young men who are 

 my students to-day will to-morrow be in charge of works using 

 large quantities of chemical products, and was (juick to realise 

 that the presence of his specimens on the lecturer's table is a 

 better advertisement than cosily notices of his goods in English, 

 trade journals : the English manufacturers, with a few note- 

 worthy exceptions, did not accept this view of the matter. 



W11.I.1 AM I \' K^i>\ I'orK. 



DeparlnienI of Chemistry, Goldsmiths' 

 Inslitule, New Cross. 



