6 
2 
providing teaching in banking and finance affords 
evidence that the commercial side of modern university 
education has not been overlooked, and a further gift 
from the trustees of the late Sir Henry Tate has been 
announced, 
The last item in the Royal visit to Bangor was the visit 
of the Princess of Wales to thé University Hall, where 
an enthusiastic reception from the women students, 
assembled in cap and gown under Miss Fowle, was 
awaiting the Royal party. 
If there is one function on which the University of 
Wales, in common with other universities, will have to 
lay ever-increasing stress, that function is the dissemina- 
tion in the less accessible parts of the Principality of 
those internationalising influences which are now bring- 
ing all parts of the civilised globe into closer touch with 
each other. The deliberations of English-, French- and 
German-speaking science workers are daily becoming 
more and more international in character, and _ this 
influence is spreading gradually down the educational 
ladder. The late Mr. Cecil Rhodes’s scheme for fostering 
the international spirit in Oxford is still in our minds, and 
it may be confidently hoped that modern and well- 
equipped University College buildings both in North and 
South Wales will do much to promote that educational 
influence which may sO W ell be summed up in the word 
“jnternationalisation.” . H. BRYAN. 
THE IRON AND STEEL INSTITUTE. 
algae annual meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute 
was held on May 7-and 8, and a short report of the 
proceedings is subjoined. At the annual dinner of the 
Institute, on Wednesday of Jast week, Mr. Arnold- 
Forster made a few remarks upon the duties of the 
State towards science, and the necessity for the intro- 
duction of scientific organisation and method in all 
departments and works of a progressive character. We 
give his speech as reported by the Zznes :— 
Mr. Arnold-Forster said that however little he might con- 
tribute to the Government in ‘any other matter, he did contribute 
in full measure great respect, great admiration and great 
reverence for science and scientific organisation. By scientific 
organisation he meant the application to the ordinary work of 
everyday life, the work which had been thought out and co- 
ordinated by students of science. In this country we were 
probably behind almost every other great country in the recog- 
nition of the great truth that science had a lesson for everyone 
in producing economy and efficiency by the application of a 
scientific method. There was a time when the duty of the State 
to take its part in ordering the work of the nation was more 
clearly recognised and acted upon than it was now. The 
enormous attention which was given to regulating our coinage 
and to giving us a system of weights and measures formed a 
considerable part of the earlier economic history of this country. 
But when we had accomplished those one or two rudimentary 
duties, the State appeared to think that nothing more could be 
accomplished or was to be expected from it as the administrator 
and as the instrument to apply in the teaching of science. But 
the time had gone by when we could afford any longer to fail to 
recognise the direct duty of the State to the country in the ma'- 
ter of organising on some scientific principle many of the most 
important departments of our scientific life. Governments were 
now so enlightened that they could interfere in scientific 
matters with certainiy of producing the results which they 
desired. It should be insisted upon that in every department 
which came within the purview of the Government there should 
be scientific courdination and organisation. He would not 
speak of weights and measures—though there, indeed, a wise 
Government might step in—but there was the kindred bianch 
of scientific application about which he would say a word— 
namely, standardisation and the uniformity of tests. In 
that regard we were behind the Continental nations. He 
had been studying the publications of the great Con- 
tinental nations for 
NO. 1698, VOL, 66 | 
NATURE 
[May 15, 1902 
the coordination of tests of materials 
| 
and the institution of standard dimensions, and the conviction 
had been forced upon him that we had already allowed 
opportunities of cooperation to go by which we ought to have 
seized. He was glad that at the eleventh hour the Iron and 
' Steel Institute, the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Insti- 
tute of Naval Architects had taken up the work. He wished 
every success to it. The French Government were standard- 
ising their railway material, but nothing corresponding to that 
existed in the records of our Governmental arrangements. In 
inspecting a steel works recently he found that in the matter of 
tensile strength for steel there was one test for the Admiralty, 
another for the War Office, another for the Board of Trade, 
another for one set of railway companies, and another for 
another set (the Board of Trade recognising neither), another 
for the Egyptian Government, another for the Indian Govern- 
ment, and another for the whole of the Continent of Europe. 
That was absolutely crazy. It was like measuring pints by 
fourteen different kinds of pint pots. They were all sinners in 
that respect—all the departments—because it ought not to be 
allowed. He urged that scientific societies should forward the 
work of standardisation as forcibly as possible. Already in the 
Admiralty great strides were being made, thanks to Sir William 
White, and already they had succeeded to some extent in the 
standardisation of electricalappliances. They had also standard- 
ised in the whole of the gunnery branch, and were now 
endeavouring to do so to a much larger extent in the 
whole of the fittings of the ships. When the Iron and 
Steel Institute and kindred associations had made up 
their minds as to what was the true method of standardisation 
they should go boldly to the Government and ask them to 
undertake that within a definite time all Government specifica- 
uons should be within the terms of that standardisation. He 
was not unaware that there was a danger in standardisation, 
that one must not stereotype too closely, and raust not interfere 
with improvement by solidifying all patterns; and therefore 
he trusted that they would insist upon it that the Government 
should be the cooperators in the work in which the Iron and 
Steel Institute and kindred societies must be the kindred spirits. 
In conclusion, he said that we had been too modest in this 
country of advancing the claims of science. What was done 
for applied science in every other civilised country should make 
us ashamed of the pittances doled out in England, which were 
supplemented to the extent of 99 per cent. by private charity, 
for the purpose of performing those elementary duties of co- 
ordinating the scientific part of this country’s life. He believed 
that if the scientific associations took a high Jine in the matter 
the country would support them right through, 
Other speakers at the dinner were Sir Alfred Hick- 
man, Admiral Sir N. Bowden-Smith, Sir Bernhard 
Samuelson, Lord Raglan, Lord Blythswood, Sir Chris- 
topher Furness, Sir W. C. Roberts-Austen, General 
Sir John Maurice, Sir Norman Lockyer and the 
president. 
At the annual meeting of the Institute the chair was 
occupied by the president, Mr. W. Whitwell. The 
Bessemer gold medal was presented to His Excellency 
F. A. Krupp, of Essen. The Andrew Carnegie medal 
was awarded to Dr. J. A. Mathews. for the research 
described in his report ; and Andrew Carnegie research 
scholarships, each of 100/., were awarded to Messrs. 
©. Boudouard (Paris), W. Campbell (New York), 
A, Campion (Coopers Hill), P. Longmuir (Manchester), 
E. Schott (Berlin) and F. H. Wigham (Wakefield). The 
following are the chief points of the papers read :— 
J. H. Darby embodied the results 
of experiments made with the object of improving the quality of 
coke by compressing the fuel before coking. The net gain in 
production of coke per oven was found to be between 10 and 12 
per cent. in favour of the compressed charge. 
Mr. J. Thiry read a paper on the recovery of by-products in 
coke-making. He gave some striking figures showing the profit 
and economy derived from this method of coke manufacture, 
and described the most recent form of the Otto-Hilgenstock 
coke oven. These two papers gave rise to an interesting dis- 
cussion, in which Sir Lowthian Bell, Sir Bernhard Samuelson, 
Dr. Ludwig Mond and other members took part. 
In the first paper, Mr. J. 
