62 
NATURE 
[ov. 24, 1870 

sense of knowledge of the more precise, exact, and 
exquisite order, has claims to public recognition and sup- 
port on the ground of benefits conferred on the nation in 
the shape both of honour and profit ; that it shares with 
righteousness the prerogative of exalting a nation (for the 
love of truth, which causes men to seek after knowledge 
and the patient industry and self-denial which are the first 
conditions of the search, are among the manly virtues 
that give strength and solidity to a people) ; that it must 
be preferred before learning, as being more practical, and 
coming into more direct contact with the realities of life ; 
before art, as less apt to be turned to unworthy uses, more 
sure not to become an agent of effeminacy and luxury. 
Of the good gifts which Science showers upon man- 
kind, we may find grand and convincing examples in 
the works of the hygienic heroes of the last cen- 
tury—Sir George Baker and his masterly demonstra- 
tion of the cause of the Devonshire colic, Captain Cook 
and his successful prevention of scurvy, John Howard 
and his prison work, ending in the destruction of the Jail 
Fever, and Jenner, with his discovery of vaccination. 
We fully sympathise with the concluding words of this 
part of our author’s paper :— By what figures of arith- 
metic shall I attempt to measure the greatness of these 
four gifts of science, freely bestowed upon us, and upon 
all men everywhere, in the short space of a single genera- 
tion? I believe it to be no exaggeration to affirm that the 
great war of the French Revolution was brought to a 
successful issue as much through the lives thus saved 
as by the valour of our soldiers and sailors. Such 
have been the triumphs, such the precious gifts, of this 
one science of hygiéne.” Other illustrations of the 
same class, that is to say, showing direct profit to the 
nation, may be drawn from the Science of Chemistry, of 
which the whole history, from first to last, is one un- 
broken series of purely scientific discoveries made 
for love of truth, without thought or hope of reward, but, 
sooner or later, turning to profit in the hands of our 
manufacturers. 
We might cite examples from the discoveries of Davy 
and Daniell, and the arts of electrotyping and photo- 
graphy, discoveries appealing to universal experience of 
the manifold obligations under which science and scientific 
men have Jaid mankind for all the arts which make our 
civilised existence to differ from the rude life of the savage. 
The Penny Post, with its world-wide benefits, is the result 
of a scientific demonstration belonging to the methods and 
domain of Social Science. 
We conclude with the following statement of the 
special claims of the Statistical Society and its asso- 
ciates in the culture of Social Science :—‘‘ The scien- 
tific labours of our members, inspired by a mere love 
of truth, looking to no pecuniary reward, and bear- 
ing directly on the very questions which come under 
discussion in the Legislature, are in many cases a 
direct saving of expense to the nation. An impor- 
tant (perhaps a very costly) return is made to Parlia- 
ment. Itabounds in tables and columns of figures. The 
work of analysis, which must be undertaken if the return 
is not to become so much waste paper, if Parliament and 
the public are to profit by the expense incurred—this 
work of analysis is done by some member of the society 
seized with a wholesome curiosity to know the truth. He 



bestows upon it time, and thought, and the skill acquired 
by practice ; he submits his work to the criticism of the 
Society, his paper is published in its Fournal, at its 
proper cost; and thus the public and the Government 
save money and become possessed of wholesome and 
fruitful truths.” These are claims which, we think, the 
Government will feel bound to recognise, and we wish the 
cultivators of the Social Societies every success when 
they come to represent them in the proper quarter. 

THE SOURCES OF PHOSPHATIC MANURES 
r RACTICE with Science” is the title of a volume of 
essays (the second of a series), issuing from the 
Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, and containing 
contributions from the members of the staff of that institu- 
tion. Amongst other papers is an interesting account 
by Prof. Thiselton Dyer of the geological distribution of 
Tricalcic Phosphate ; that is to say, a sketch of the chief 
sources of mineral phosphate of lime, whether as apatite, 
osteolite, phosphatite, coprolite, or guano. Mr, Dyer 
points out the abundance of phosphate of lime in igneous 
rocks, but hesitates about tracing its origin in such beds 
either to direct chemical combination, or to the inclusion 
of organically-formed phosphate in the rocks in question. 
He does not, in short, discuss the possibility of the com- 
bination of phosphoric acid and lime in the primeval 
state of the globe without the intervention of life, which 
one distinguished geologist at least denies. Mr. Dyer 
traces the occurrence of tricalcic phosphate in the 
various sedimentary deposits with great care, having 
obviously taken much trouble to render his statement 
an exhaustive one. He considers the many struc- 
tureless masses of phosphatic deposits which occur “as 
residuary evidence of formerly existing life, of which they 
are. to some extent the measure,” as graphite is in other 
cases. A greater influence in the production of these 
masses is attributed to animal than to vegetal life, though 
marine plants are stated to be especially rich in phosphate 
of lime, and have undoubtedly played their part in its in- 
troduction into sedimentary strata. Mr. Dyer mentions 
that the recent Brachiopod Lingula has 86 per cent. of 
phosphate of lime in the mineral ingredients of its shell ; 
and the occurrence of large quantities of phosphate of lime 
in the great Laurentian and Silurian formations is noticed 
by him in detail, as well as its occurrence in Devonian 
and Carboniferous limestones. In emerging to the group of 
mesozoic strata, we leave behind almost entirely those veins 
and beds of “phosphate” which occur in the older and more 
changed rocks, where the segregation of the phosphate of 
lime has been more completely effected, owing to the 
greater age of the beds. In mesozoic and tertiary strata 
we find those nodules which have so erroneously been 
confused with “coprolites”—the droppings of fish, which 
are not unfrequently preserved in the fine sediment of 
the Liassic and the Rheetic beds of the chalk—though 
beds of flaggy phosphate also occur in some deposits of 
this age. 
Mr. Dyer accepts the history of the origin of these nodules 
which I have advocated (Geol. Magazine, vol. v.), in de- 
scribing those which occur below the Suffolk Crags. Clay 
has a remarkable power of detaching phosphate of lime 
from its solution in carbonated water; and the phosphatic 
er 
V 
