;56 



NATURE 



[September 15, 1910 



several years are provided for those engaged in chemical, 

 electrical, and metallurgical industries. In addition, 

 several special courses of instruction are to be given ; in 

 the chemistry department there is to be a course of work 

 for those engaged in the fermentation industries, which 

 includes lectures and laboratory instruction in brewing and 

 malting and on the micro-biology of the fermentation 

 industries, as well as a series of courses on liquid, gaseous, 

 and solid fuels. In the metallurgical department special 

 courses of an advanced character are provided on gold, 

 silver, and allied metals, on iron and steel, and on metallo- 

 graphy. The winter session at the Merchant Venturers' 

 Technical College, which has just commenced, is the fifty- 

 first held in connection with this institution. It will be 

 remembered that the faculty of engineering of the Uni- 

 versity of Bristol is provided and maintained in the college. 

 The new calendar, in addition to necessary general in- 

 formation, supplies full particulars of the day classes of 

 the Bristol School of Commerce, the faculty of engineer- 

 ing of the University of Bristol, the extensive evening 

 classes, and the school of art. The calendar also contains 

 a list of gifts and loans to various departments of the 

 college made by numerous manufacturing firms and 

 learned societies, which shows that the college authorities 

 are successful in securing the cooperation of employers of 

 labour and others in the useful work they are doing in 

 providing suitable technical instruction for the workers of 

 the district. 



The first congress of the newly established Textile 

 Institute, the objects of which are to promote the interests 

 of the textile trades, was opened on Thursday last at 

 Bradford by Lord Rotherham, who, in his inaugural 

 address, said he looked for the institute to do its part in 

 establishing cordial relations between men of science and 

 practical spinners and manufacturers. The delivery of the 

 address was followed by the reading of a paper by Mr. 

 F. Warner on technical education in relation to the 

 textile industries, in the course of which the author said 

 that the existing system of education is overcrowding the 

 office and starving the factory and workshop. Great 

 Britain cannot afford to scrap from S to 7 per cent, of the 

 working population, and the remedy for the present evil 

 is more technical instruction and the practical training of 

 the rising generation in industry and trade. The old 

 apprenticeship system had manifest advantages, and its 

 revival was suggested ; but modern technical instruction, 

 properly applied, offers advantages to the student for 

 advancement which were impossible to the apprentice. 

 Day classes should, by the cooperation of employers, be 

 arranged to a far greater extent than was now the case, 

 and in this respect England is far behind modern practice 

 in the textile trades abroad. An essential requirement is 

 proficient art teaching, for though in the perfection of 

 cloth structure British goods are unsurpassed, in the class 

 of fabric in which design and colour are required the repu- 

 tation of our manufacturers is on a lower plane. Mr. 

 Warner advocated the formation of a national department 

 which, controlled by a council composed of captains of 

 industry in all branches of manufacture and commerce, 

 and of artists, designers, and educationists, could deal 

 directly with art and technical schools. A similar system 

 should also be put in operation in local centres. The 

 financial difficulty should be met both by local and Govern- 

 ment aid. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, September 5. — M. Bouchard in the 

 chair. — Madame P. Curie and A. Oebierne : Metallic 

 radium. Starting with 0-106 gram of the purest radium 

 chloride (atomic weight 2265), the method of Guntz for 

 the preparation of metallic barium was followed. The 

 radium chloride in aqueous solution was electrolysed with 

 a mercury kathode and a platino-iridium anode. After the 

 electrolysis the .solution contained 000S5 gram of the salt. 

 The amalgam decomposed water and was readily attacked 

 by the air. The dry amalgam was rapidly trans- 

 ferred to a clean iron boat, the latter placed in 

 a quartz tube, and was rapidly evacuated. The 

 distillation of the mercurv from the amalgam offered 



NO. 2133, VOL. 84] 



some difficulties ; to prevent visible ebullition, which 

 resulted in loss by projection, the tube was filled 

 with carefully purified hydrogen, the pressure of which 

 was kept slightly above the pressure of the mercury vapour 

 at the temperature of the boat. At the close of the opera- 

 lion the metal was left in the boat, brilliantly white, and 

 melting sharply at 700° C. The authors regard this as 

 sensibly pure radium. The metal alters very rapidly in 

 air, blackening immediately, probably owing to the forma- 

 tion of a nitride. Some particles detached from the boat, 

 falling on white paper, produced a blackening similar to 

 a burn. Radium energetically decomposes water going 

 into solution, indicating that the hydro.xide is soluble. 

 Radio-active measurements showed that the increase of 

 activity followed the usual law for the production of the 

 emanation, the limiting activity of the metal becoming 

 normal. Since it was found that the metallic radium was 

 much more volatile than metallic barium, it is proposed to 

 purify the metal by sublimation in a vacuum. — L^on 

 Kolowrat : The $ rays of radium at its minimum activity. 

 The author has repeated the experiments of O. Hahn and 

 Mile. Meitner, and has arrived at conclusions confirming 

 the existence of a very absorbable /3 radiation. — Georges 

 Baume and F. Louis Perrot : The fusibility curves of 

 gaseous mi.xtures : compounds of methyl oxide and methyl 

 alcohol with ammonia gas. The results of these cryoscopic 

 researches are given in graphical form. — J. B. Senderens : 

 The preparation of acrolein. It has been found that 

 potassium bisulphate reacts catalytically with glycerol, so 

 that, instead of adding the bisulphate in the proportion of 

 twice the weight of glycerol, as is customary, one-fiftieth 

 of this amount of the bisulphide is sufficient. — Paul 

 Gaubert : Soft crystals and the measurement of their 

 indices of refraction. Figures are given for the refractive 

 indices of crystals of beeswax, ammonium oleate, ozokerite, 

 paraffin, "and lecithine. — R. Robinson : The vessels of the 

 fork of the median nerve. A contribution to the study of 

 the manual dexterity of man. 



CONTENTS. PAGE 



Bibliography of Atlases 325 



Lead and Zinc Pigments. By Dr. A. P. Laurie . . 325 



Meteorological Tables. By E. Gold 326 



Plants and Gardens 326 



Our Book Shelf 327 



Letters to the Editor : — 



Lord Morton's <^)uagga Hybrid and Origin of Dun 

 Horses. — Prof. James Wilson ; Prof. J. C. 



Ewart, F.R.S 328 



An Undescribed Feather Element. [Illustrated.) — 



Fredk. J. Stubbs 329 



An Interesting Donkey Hybrid. — R. I. Pocock . . 329 

 British Marine Zoology. — Prof. W. A. Herdman, 



F.R.S. ; Prof. E. W. MacBride, F.R.S. . . 329 

 The Origin of the Domestic " Blotched " Tabby Cat. 



— H. M. Vickers 331 



The Reform of Oxford University. By F. A. D. . 331 

 Medical Education in the United States and 



Canada 332 



The Sheffield Meeting of the British Association 333 

 Section C— Geology. — Opening Address by Prof. 

 A. P. Coleman, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S , Presi- 

 dent of the Section 33; 



Notes 339 



Our Astronomical Column : — 



Melcalf'.* Comet, igio/; 344 



A Suspected New Planet 344 



Definitive Elemenls for Comet 1852 IV 344 



A Suggested Volcanic Origin of Martian Features . . 344 

 The Passage of the Earth through the Tail of the 1861 



Comet 344 



The Spectrum of Cyanogen 344 



Researches on the Colours of Stars 344 



" Mock Suns" 345 



The Relation of Science to Industry and Com- 

 merce. By R. Blair 345 



Royal Sanitary Institute 353 



International Congress of Pharmacy 354 



University and Educational Intelligence 355 



Societies and Academies 356 



