October 27, 1910] 



NATURE 



555 



the Hampden Institute will receive about 50,000/. from 

 the estate of Miss Alice Byington. By the death of Mrs. 

 Loomis, the estate of the late Colonel John Mason Loomis, 

 amounting to more than 20o,oooi., will, it is said, go to 

 the establishment of a technical school at Windsor, Conn. 



The College of the City of New York has acquired, says 

 Science, the complete private library of the late Prof. 

 Simon Xewcomb, consisting of about 4000 volumes and 

 7000 pamphlets dealing with astronomy, mathematics, and 

 physics. Both pamphlets and books are being catalogued, 

 and are now accessible to research students, in accordance 

 with the expressed desire of Prof, and Mrs. Newcomb. 



On October 22 Mr. T. Fenwick Harrison laid the 

 foundation-stone of new engineering laboratories lor the 

 University of Liverpool. The cost of the building will be 

 mr-t by a gift of 35,000/. received from Mr. Fenwick 

 Harrison, Mr. J. W. Hughes, and Mr. Heath Harrison. 

 Prof. Watkinson thanked Mr. Harrison for laying the 

 foundation-stone, and in the course of his remarks said it 

 is intended to make special provision for teaching and 

 research work in connection with all branches of engineer- 

 ing, internal-combustion engines, steam turbine engines, 

 refrigeration, and fuel testing, and in this respect the 

 laboratories will be second to none in the kingdom. The 

 donors intend that the subject of heat engines, and par- 

 ticularly of internal-combustion engines, shall be developed 

 on a much more important scale than has been hitherto 

 attempted. As shipowners who use three hundred thousand 

 tons of coal a year they see the advantages to be derived 

 from the successful application of the internal-combustion 

 engine, so far as ships are concerned, for it means the 

 reduction of coal consumption to one-half, and possibly to 

 one-third, of that now required for steam engines. It is 

 humiliating, said Prof. Watkinson, that the names 

 associated with the invention of internal-combustion 

 engines are almost without exception German, and nearh' 

 all the internal-combustion engines being built to-day in 

 this country are being built under licence from Germany, 

 (ireater scientific knowledge is required than in the design 

 of steam engines, and it is reasonable to conclude that 

 the greater success of the Germans is due to their better 

 training in scientific principles. Last year Prof. Watkin- 

 son visited all the principal schools of engineering in the 

 I'nited States and in Canada, and in nearly every one he 

 found that their gigantic laboratories were being greatly 

 extended. Both the Germans and the Americans realise 

 far more than we do in this country the value of a uni- 

 versity training, and they also realise that in this age, 

 when machinery plays such a large part in almost every 

 industry, that this training is the best for those who are 

 to control and direct most of the great industries. That 

 is well illustrated, said Prof. Watkinson, by the fact that 

 there are about 17,000 students taking a four years' 

 course in the .American schools of engineering, which is 

 about eight times the number of students taking the 

 normal three years' course in this country. 



The introductory address at the London School of 

 Tropical Medicine was this year delivered by Dr. Henry 

 A. Miers, F.R.S., principal of the University of London. 

 The subject of the address was scientific observation, and 

 Dr. Miers directed attention to an aspect of scientific re- 

 search and of training in scientific investigation which, he 

 said, seemed in danger of escaping notice. Under present 

 conditions scientific research is seldom pursued save by 

 those whose object is clear and whose minds are con- 

 centrated upon a special line of investigation in which 

 they are alive and alert to the exclusion of any distracting 

 side-issues. Each new discovery is pursued with ever- 

 increasing rapidity and with a system which is fruitful in 

 results ; the searchlight of investigation is turned with 

 mechanical precision upon every new problem, and it 

 would appear unlikely that anything of importance should 

 be overlooked. But teachers and investigators do not 

 sufficiently bear in mind two possible dangers that beset 

 them under modern conditions of work. It is inherent in 

 our senses and our intelligence, first, that those whose 

 attention is too minutely fixed upon one thing will fail to 

 perceive other things which are equally discernible and 

 equally important ; and, secondly, that those who look or 



NO. 2139, VOL. 84] 



listen too intently for a thing may actually see or hear 

 that which they desire, even though it be not there. 

 Later in his address Dr. Miers gave it as his opinion that, 

 taken as a whole, scientific men are not better general 

 observers than other people, though some, among them 

 undoubtedly are. It has been too often assumed that 

 scientific training has a special value as developing the 

 general powers of observation, and that because students 

 have been exercised in special observations they have be- 

 come practised observers of things in general, whereas the 

 reverse may be nearer the truth, and in many instances 

 certainly is so. Some practice in all-round observation 

 should be incorporated in the training of the specialist if 

 we are to have our students quick to observe details that 

 do not form part of their conscious exercises ; neither 

 should they be led to suppose that, because they have been 

 practised in observing one thing, they are therefore good 

 observers of everything else. To him who has eyes to 

 see, the most trivial detail may be the germ of an 

 important discovery. Our laboratory training gives the 

 student his eyes, but does not always teach him to use 

 them widely or wisely. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, October 10. — M. Emile Picard in 

 the chair. — The president announced the death of M. 

 Treub, correspondant in the section of botany, and of 

 Ernst von Leyden, correspondant in the section of medicine 

 and surgery. — Henri Douville : The formation of the 

 loam of the plateaux. This loam, consisting of a very 

 intimate mixture of clay and fine sand, is well developed 

 in the neighbourhood of Paris and in the north of France. 

 Two hypotheses have been put forward to explain its 

 formation, deposition from water and transport by wind. 

 The former hypothesis is shown to be in better accord 

 with the observed facts ; to explain the height above 

 the sea at which these deposits are found, the floods carry- 

 ing the deposits are supposed to have been caused by the 

 sudden melting of snows, the lower portion of the valley 

 being blocked by glacier. ^Serge Bernstein : A generalisa- 

 tion of the theorems of Liouville and Picard. — F. Robin : 

 The law of resistance to crushing of cylindrical bodies as 

 a function of their dimensions. The general law of 

 resistance to crushing as a function of the dimensions 

 of the test-pieces is expressed geometrically by a 

 hyperbolic paraboloid. — H. Peiabon : Batteries with 

 antimony and antimony selenides. An element ^ formed 

 of antimony and antimony selenide, with an acid solu- 

 tion of antimony trichloride as the electrolyte, shows 

 varying electromotive force under the action of light. 

 If sulphur or tellurium is substituted for the selenium the 

 phenomena described are not produced. The effect is 

 strongest when the element is exposed to the yellow and 

 red rays. — G. Charpy and S. Bonnerot : The reduction 

 of oxide of iron by solid carbon. Ferric oxide and 

 graphite, intimately mi.xed, were heated in a vacuum at 

 temperatures up to 950° C., and the reaction studied by 

 measuring the amount of gas evolved per hour. ^ The^ speed 

 of reaction diminished as the pressure maintained in the 

 apparatus was reduced, and became practically zero when 

 the pressure in the tube was of the order of o-ooi mm. of 

 mercury. Hence it is concluded that solid carbon does 

 not reduce oxide of iron at 950° C. — P. Mahler and 

 J. Denet : The presence of a small quantity of carbon 

 monoxide in the air of coal mines. The amounts _ found 

 varied between o and 40 volumes per million, with an 

 average of 19. The maximum amount of carbon monoxide 

 corresponded with the minimum of methane, and the maxi- 

 mum methane was found in the sample containing no 

 carbon monoxide.— Paul Vuillemin : A natural preventa- 

 tive to the oak-tree disease. The disease of the oak, 

 caused- by an Oidium, is kept in check by a Cicinnobolus, 

 a parasite preventing the multiplication of the Oidium by 

 conidia, and its preservation by the mycelium. — E. L. 

 Trouessart : The mammalian fauna of Europe. — Ch. 

 Gravier : The coral reefs of the Gulf of Aden and their 

 madrepores.— Paul Marchai : Contributions to the bio- 

 logical studv of Chermes.— Edouard Chatton : The exist- 



