i a 
Feb. 24, 1870] 
NATURE 
431 
after one trial of this sfectva7 music, to take refuge in the awful 
solitudes described by Dante :— 
“* —— dove #/ Sol tace.” 
Trinity College, Cambridge SEDLEY TAYLOR 
Solar Spots Visible to the Naked Eye 
OWING to the smoke and clouds which generally obscure the 
sky at Glasgow, opportunities to observe the phenomena of the 
heavens are very rare. 
When gazing at the sun this morning (February 16th), I ob- 
served on its disc a dark line on the upper half of the disc. In 
order to convince myself that it was not a delusion, I directed a 
small pocket telescope (magnifying power about six times linear) 
and observed several spots. The principal one, as near as I 
could guess, was 5’ long by 1’ broad. 
I would be glad to hear the extent of it from any one of your 
correspondents, who has measured it, as it must have been of 
enormous dimensions. 
Argyle Street, Glasgow ROBERT M‘CLURE 
[The dimensions of this spot have been taken by M. Tremis- 
chini, who communicated his observations to the French 
Academy of Sciences at the meeting on the 14th inst., as will be 
seen from our report of the proceedings further on.—ED.] 
Flight of Birds 
In reply to J. H.’s query respecting the flight of the albatross 
mentioned in a paper of mine on the flight of birds, read at the 
November meeting of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ 
Society, I beg to assure him that no bird is able to fly without 
flapping its wings. 
The hirds observed by your correspondent’s brother were per- 
forming one of the most beautiful feats of ‘* wingmanship ’’—a 
feat which can only be indulged in, to any extent, by birds pos- 
sessed of a superabundance of wing-power. The albatross is the 
great master of this style of flight. Having by repeated flap- 
pings of the wings raised itself into the air, and acquired a 
certain degree of velocity, it brings its body and outstretched 
wings to such an angle that the pressure of the breeze against its 
surface is sufficient, or nearly so, to neutralise the force of gravity; 
it can then “sail” on as long as the momentum lasts, It has 
been known to sail in this way, with the wings and body perfectly 
motionless, for more than an hour (though this is an unusually 
long time), and when the momentum becomes exhausted, a few 
strokes of the wing are sufficient to restore it. From its frequent 
indulgence in this sailing flight, the albatross may be said 
seldom to flap its wings, but certainly cannot be said ever to 
do so. 
Inserting this explanation may be what J. H. requires. 
Norwich, February 7 T. SOUTHWELL 
Relations of the State to Scientific Research 
As an old worker in science, and as one who, had Nature not 
been unkind, might have been eminent, I desire to say a few 
words on the relations of the State to Scientific Research, a 
matter likely, I understand, to be the subject of a “ Commission.” 
I take it for granted that it is a natural and proper function of 
the State to assist and develop labours, the results of which 
are of national importance, though their market value cannot 
be satisfactorily ascertained at the time they are being carried 
on, and therefore they can seldom be immediately remunerative. 
Of the seed sown to-day, the nation will reap in years to come, 
long after the sower is dead and gone. It is only right that 
the nation should help in the sowing. To continue, as of old, 
merely to reap where others have sown, may seem good in the 
sight of temporising politicians; but it will not seem so when 
there comes to be a scanty harvest by reason of the sowers having 
been feeble and few. It was bad political philosophy when the 
rulers of the great city overlooked the poor wise man. 
But what I wish more particularly to deal with now, is the 
manner in which the State can best perform this acknowledged 
duty. In what way can Government most beneficially interfere 
with the spontaneous energy of original scientific labourers? 
And this I confess is a matter of no little difficulty. Let us suppose 
that a certain large sum of money should be set aside, in order 
to enable a large body of elect men to prosecute original inquiries 
undisturbed by the bark of the wolf at the door ; in other words, 
let us suppose that Government pays directly for simple scientific 
investigation. In that case, such elect men will either have to 
work by the piece, being paid for and by their results when they 
have brought them forward, or they will have to receive a salary, 
—to be paid beforehand for work which they will be expected 
to do. The former plan is, in the first place, impracticable, for 
the simple reason that the value of the work cannot be satisfac- 
torily gauged,—in the second place it would be most pernicious, 
and inevitably bring about a deluge of delusions. It would be a 
gigantic system of prize essays, and we all know that nothing 
but lies and nonsense proceed out of the mouths of prize essays. 
The second plan flies in the face of a fundamental law of 
human nature. Suppose a hundred men to receive each, say, 
seven hundred a year, paid quarterly, in order that they may 
devote themselves to original research. How much of the 
divine afflatus would list to come into the minds of ninety and nine 
of them? The morning after they had received their quarter’s 
salary, they would take up their apparatus and sit down by the 
side of the pool waiting till the waters should be stirred. But 
the stirring would never come. They would always be paulo- 
post-futurists ; they would ever be writing title-pages of books 
that would never be seen. They would become admirable critics, 
keenly sensitive of the follies and errors of the pushing, 
squabbling, busy, outside mob of unpaid workers ; but they, the 
ninety and nine, would not produce. As they grew old they 
would ask permission to retain their salaries while they went to 
live in a land in “which it always seemed afternoon.” And 
when they, the first batch, died, those who succeeded them would 
boldly declare, as I am told the Fellows of the old Universities 
do, that they were paid not for the work of which their 
ability gave promise, but as a reward for having shown themselves 
worthy of filling the posts. The one man who would do any 
work at all would be the man who would find the greatest 
difficulty of getting into the guild, and he, most probably, would 
only get in by accident after all. 
There may be a little exaggeration in the above. As an old 
man I am prone to be garrulous; but of this I feel above all 
things assured, that in all the higher functions of the scientific 
man, in all work that is not mechanical, help from Government or 
from elsewhere must be given—not directly and in exchange for 
actual scientific work, but indirectly for some other tasks that do 
not demand original thought—and given in such a way that active 
private research may comfortably be carried on at the same time. 
In the good old times when the ties which bound together 
State and Church were not such ticklish ties as now, they used 
to reward abstract unremunerative learning indirectly by bestowing 
on it the rich offices of religion. Greek and philosophy took 
the bishoprics which rightly belonged to piety. 
It is possible for science to copy the indirectness and yet to 
avoid the injustice of this old method ; to retain the good while 
rejecting the evil of such a method of payment of by results. 
How such a plan may be carried out, I will venture with your 
permission, Sir, to trace in a succeeding letter. 
In Sicco 
NOTES 
In the last number of the Revue des Cours Scientifiques, M. 
Alglave again announces further subscriptions to the Sars Fund 
amounting to 40/., half this sum being a prize awarded by the 
Zoological Society of Paris in recognition of Sars’s works. 
M. SrAs has been elected director of the Classe des Sciences 
in the Royal Academy of Belgium. 
A DEPUTATION consisting of Earl Fortescue, the Right Hon, 
C, B. Adderley, Dr. Farr, and others, had an interview with 
Mr. Shaw-Lefevre at the Board of Trade on Saturday to recom- 
mend the legalisation of metric weights and measures in the Post 
Office, and the legal substitution of metric weights for the troy 
weight which the Standard Commissioners propose to abolish. 
ALL who are interested in the science of ethnology in this 
country, and their number is daily on the increase, will be glad 
to learn that the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons are 
in treaty with Dr. Nicolucci of Nola di Sora, for the purchase 
of his fine collection of Italian and Greek skulls. This collec- 
tion, comprising 165 specimens of ancient and modern crania, 
upon which the celebrated Italian ethnologist’s well-known 
researches into the history of the races of Southem Europe 
have been mainly founded, will prove a valuable acquisition to 
the already extensive series in the Hunterian Museum. 
