April 17, 1902] 



NA TURE 



579 



gift. Harvard University has received three large bequests : 

 450,000 dollars from the late Mr. George Smith, loo.ooo dollars 

 from the late Mr. Robert C. Billings, and 100,000 dollars from 

 the late Mr. Jacob Wheelock. Mr. Wheelock also bequeathed 

 100,000 dollars to Clark University, and Mr. Billings bequeathed 

 100,000 dollars each to the Massachusetts Institute of Techno- 

 logy and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The University of 

 Wooster, Wooster, O. , successfully completed a campaign to 

 raise 140,000 dollars in order to secure two laige conditional 

 gifts, 100,000 dollars by Mr. Andrew Carnegie and 50,000 

 dollars by Mr. L. II. Severance, of Cleveland. By the will of 

 Mrs. Lila Currier, 50,000 dollars will go to Columbia Univer- 

 sity and 100,000 dollars to Yale University upon the death of 

 Mr. Edward W. Currier. 



An address on "The Profession of Teaching, " delivered re- 

 cently at Kendal by the Ven. J. M. Wilson, Archdeacon of 

 Manchester and formerly head-master of Clifton College, has 

 been issued by the Kendal Mcrairy and Times, and it will do 

 a good service by directing attention to desirable objects of 

 education. A school preparation should be of a kind which 

 will foster the desire and develop the power to overcome diffi- 

 culties ; it should give self-reliance and sufticient knowledge of 

 scientific principles to enable the pupil in after life to under- 

 stand changing conditions and see their trend. Above all, 

 school work should encourage the spirit of inquiry which finds 

 delight in making new observations and experiments with what- 

 ever resources are available. The principle upon which 

 Humboldt constructed Prussian education a century ago was : 

 " Whatever we wish to see characteristic of our nation we must 

 first implant in our schools." Remembering this, the teacher's 

 aim should be to give the pupil an observant eye, alert curiosity 

 that inquires into phenomena and their causes, the habit of 

 accurate expression, and varied interests ; for then whatever 

 work is afterwards taken up will be satisfactorily done. Arch- 

 deacon Wilson strikes the fundamental note of true education 

 in the following remarks from his address : — " The soldier may 

 know all the campaigns of great commanders, from Alexander 

 the Great to Lord Kitchener ; but his knowledge avails 

 little unless he has cultivated inventiveness and resource 

 that meets wholly new conditions. The existence of our nation 

 may depend some day on the nerve and originality of the officers 

 of our navy. Every war is a new one ; and the next will be 

 utterly unlike the last or the present. It is the same in com- 

 merce. The new problems, with combines and international 

 unions, with a shrunken world and new modes of transit, ate not 

 like the old. It is the same with agriculture, with mechanical 

 and chemical industries, with engineering. Everything is new, 

 and new every day. It is the same with philosophy and critical 

 studies and theology. It is emphatically the same with states- 

 manship, municipal and imperial. What utterly new problems 

 in international politics, in international economics and in 

 domestic finance does the world present to-day. Assuredly if 

 we would prepare our scholars for life, the supreme intellectual 

 preparation is found in methods which evoke the faculty, the 

 originality, the mental resourcefulness of our pupils." It is for 

 us to see that the subjects and methods of teaching in our 

 schools are such as promote the development of these qualities, 

 for national progress depends upon them. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Physical Society, April 11. — Prof. S. P. Thompson, pre- 

 sident, in the chair. — Dr. R. A. Lehfeldt exhibited an electric 

 heater. The apparatus consisted of a vacuum jacketed glass 

 tube, containing water which was boiled by passing a current 

 through a platinum spiral immersed in the liquid. Tap water 

 is preferable to distilled water, because the small electrolytic 

 action in the former case causes the boiling to proceed quietly. 

 Different temperatures can be obtained by using other liquids. — 

 Mr. Grant exhibited and described an apparatus for vapour 

 pressure measurements. The liquid of which the vapour 

 pressure is required is introduced into the vacuum of a syphon 

 barometer. This is mounted alongside an ordinary syphon 

 barometer, and the upper extremities of both are surrounded 

 by a bath, which can be kept at any desired temperature. The 

 levels of the mercury in the open tubes are then adjusted until 

 the upper mercury surfaces are at the same level. The vapour 

 pressure is then measured by the difierence of level in the open 



NO. 1694, VOL. 65] 



lubes. By a simple modification it is easy to investigate the 

 vapour pressure of a liquid in the presence of air. The two 

 chief advantages of the method are (i) the simplification of the 

 temperature correction and (2) the wide range of temperature 

 over which it can be employed with the use of a small bath. 

 Prof. Callendar referred to the advantages of the apparatus, and 

 said that it appeared specially suitable for elementary laboratory 

 measurements. — Mr. J- T. Morris showed an experiment 

 illustrating the use of kathode rays in alternate current work. 

 The usual form of Braun tube was used, the rays falling upon 

 a luminescent screen and forming a blue spot. A solenoid con- 

 veying an alternating current was fixed near the tube. The 

 varying magnetic field caused the spot to oscillate about 

 its mean position. To determine the maximum value of an 

 alternating current, a switch should be arranged to rapidly 

 replace the alternating current by a continuous one. The con- 

 tinuous current is then adjusted until the maximum excursion of 

 the spot is the same as before and the value of the current read 

 off irom an ammeter in the circuit. For accurate work, the fre- 

 quency of the discharge from the induction coil exciting the tube 

 should be adjusted until it is almost exactly in synchronism with 

 the alternating current. The unsteadiness of the spot of light in 

 the zero position limits the accuracy of the measurements. 

 Mr. Morris has tried to reduce this unsteadiness by using an 

 earthed aluminium diaphragm instead of a glass one. — 

 Mr. Morris then showed an experiment on the growth of 

 electric currents in an inductive circuit. An E. M. F. of 

 O'S volt was applied to a coil wound on a ring-shaped laminated 

 iron core. When the current had attained its steady value, the 

 E. M.F. was reversed and the variations of the current strength 

 shown by an ammeter. About twenty seconds were required 

 for the current to attain its maximum value in the opposite 

 direction. A secondary coil was also wound upon the same 

 core, and the effect produced upon the growing current by the 

 closing of this secondary circuit was shown. Mr. Morris has 

 determined curves of growth for difterent currents, and he 

 showed how similar curves could be used to determine experi- 

 mentally the hysteresis loss in transformers. — Mr. Croft showed 

 some apparatus and devices useful in teaching. The method of 

 determining graphically the focal length of a lens from the 

 distances of conjugate foci from the centre was illustrated. The 

 graphical solution of a quadratic equation was also shown. An 

 apparatus for producing and demonstrating the properties of 

 three-phase currents was exhibited and described. Mr. Croft 

 then showed crystals illustrating the five regular solids, and an 

 electric lamp with the filament in one plane useful for optical 

 work. The flatness of a piece of plate glass can be tested with 

 a scribing block. The point is adjusted to touch the glass in 

 one position. By breathing on the glass and moving the block 

 about it is easily seen if the point leaves the surface. 



P.\RIS. 



Academy of Sciences, April 7. — M. Bouquet de la Grye 

 in the chair. — Note by M. de Freycinet accompanying the pre- 

 sentation of a work on the principles of rational mechanics. — 

 On the differentiation of Fourier's series, by M. Leopold Fejer. 

 In general the trigonometrical series, which is obtained by 

 differentiating term by term the Fourier's series of a function 

 f(x), is divergent in the cases which occur most frequently in its 

 applications. A special case of Fourier's series is considered in 

 the present paper, which, when differentiated term by term, is 

 always simply indeterminate, and with the exception of the 

 limits o and 2?r has for its sum /''(.r). — On the conditions of 

 stability of automobiles on curves, by M. A. Petot. Formulae 

 are developed showing the amount of time necessary to pass 

 from one curvature to another. A study of the fundamental 

 conditions arrived at in this paper leads to the conclusion 

 that it is the neglect of these which is the true cause of a 

 number of serious accidents which have been attributed 

 to a faulty steering gear. — Oscillations peculiar to 

 networks of distribution, by M. Brillouin. The theorem 

 deduced by M. Pomey in a recent number of the Comptes 

 niidus was announced and demonstrated fifty-one years ago by 

 Helmholtz. — On the relation L + S/T = Q/T=K, by M. de 

 Forcrand. The molecular latent heat of volatilisation of 

 ammonia is calculated by the formula of Clapeyron from the 

 data of Regnault, and this is applied to the proof of a theorem 

 that in all physical and chemical phenomena the heat of 

 solidification of a molecule of a gas is proportional to the 

 absolute temperature of volatilisation under a pressure of 760 

 mm. of mercury. — On the classification of the atomic weights 



