NATURE 
181 

THURSDAY, JANUARY 5, 1871 

PROGRESS OF SCIENCE IN 1870 
HE year which has just come to a close has neither 
been characterised by many new and striking scien- 
tific discoveries, nor have any novel applications of Science 
to ordinary industry and manufacture attracted special | 
The work done has been more a strengthen- | 
attention. 
ing of that of past years, and a confirming or a disproving 
of theories and experiments, than the inventing of new 
ones. In one branch of Science only has any great ad- 
vance been made, and that, as we shall presently show, 
we believe to have taken place in Geology. But this ad- 
vance is one somewhat overlooked at present; but still 
of so important a character that, when once fully re- 
cognised in all its bearings, it may tend to disprove much 
of the geological teaching of the present day. 
Taking the various Sciences as much as possible sep- 
arately, we will begin with ASTRONOMY. Here attention 
has been chiefly directed, as has been the case for so | 
many years past, to the Sun. Since it is now generally 
understood that when once the nature of this vast self- 
luminous body is accurately made out, much light will be 
thrown on many now perplexing and strange phenomena, 
the Eclipse of the 22nd of December last was anxiously 
watched for, and all possible observations were taken here 
by those who were unable to take part in the Government 
Expedition to Spain and Sicily. 
the labours of this Expedition, in spite of accident both 
on land and sea, and the unsatisfactory state of the 
weather at the time of observation, will yet yield results 
of great importance. At any rate we may fairly con- 
gratulate ourselves that at last we have a Government 
which has shown itself in other instances besides this 
special one, not unmindful of the claims of Science and 
of the value of accurate scientific investigation. 
Mr. Lockyer and Mr. Huggins have continued their 
spectroscopic observations of the Sun, and Prof. Zollner 
has published a very valuable paper on the solar promi- 
nences, theorising very boldly as to the temperature and 
pressure at the Sun’s surface;* while in America Prof, 
Young has worked with good results at the same subject. 
Beforeleaving this branch of our subject, we would mention 
that Mr. Proctor has published some novel views as to 
the constitution of the stellar systems, which, under the 
somewhat fanciful titles of “star-drift” and “star-mist ” 
must be familiar to most of our readers. 
Whilst the vast domain of ORGANIC CHEMISTRY has 
been still further widened by the innumerable workers 
who plunge into this branch of the subject and neglect the 
many untrodden paths in Inorganic Chemistry, never- 
theless no special or important discoveries are to be chro- 
nicled, unless we may mention the beautiful process by 
which Indigo has been synthetically constructed by M.M. 
Emmerling and Engler, following closely on the artificial 
manufacture of Alizarine by M.M. Liebermann and 
Graebe. 
MOLECULAR Puysics has occupied a large share of | 
attention, and the discussion before the Chemical Society 
on the existence, or non-existence, of Atoms and Mole- 
cules, has only too clearly shown how doctors differ 
* Translation in full, Nature, vol. ‘i. | p 522-526. 
It is to be hoped that | 
amongst themselves, and that the very foundations of a 
| Science, considered so essential by some, are utterly re- 
pudiated by others. A very remarkable paper on the Size 
of Atoms, originally published in these columns (NATURE, 
voli. p. §51) by Sir William Thomson, in which he gives 
four distinct trains of reasoning by which he arrives at 
a proof of their absolute magnitude, has attracted much 
attention, and has been translated and copied into most 
of the continental and American scientific journals. Dr. 
Thomas Andrews has also pursued his remarkable inves- 
tigations on the Continuity of the liquid and gaseous states 
of matter. The death of Prof. Wm. Allen Miller, F.R.S., 
and Dr. Matthiessen, F.R.S., have left sad voids in the 
ranks of our English experimental chemists. 
In BroLocy, the investigations of Prof. Tyndall, “On 
Atmospheric Germs, and the Germ Theory of Disease,” * 
have contributed to a clearer knowledge of the nature 
of some of the most virulent of our infectious diseases, 
and have caused those diseases to be studied in a much 
| more scientific manner than before. 
The theory of Spontaneous Generation, which has been 
very prominently before the scientific world for the last 
ten years, has, during the past year, been very strongly 
attacked on the one hand by Prof. Huxley, and defended 
on the other by Dr. Bastian and Dr. Child. In his In- 
augural Address to the British Association meeting at 
Liverpool, Prof. Huxley gave a long review of all the 
researches on the subject, from the time of Spallanzani 
and Needham to the present day, and declared his belief, 
after carefully weighing the evidence on both sides, that 
all life has its origin in some pre-existing life, and that 
Spontaneous Generation, or, as he termed it, Abiogenesis, 
is not now proved to take place. The investigations of Dr. 
Bastian, originally intended to have been read before the 
Royal Society, were published instead in these columns, 
in a series of three long articles (NATURE, vol. ii. pp. 170, 
193, 219), in which he gave the reasons for his belief that 
Spontaneous Generation certainly does occur. Feeling 
himself attacked and his experiments somewhat under- 
rated by Prof. Huxley in his Address, he criticised it at 
considerable length, and detailed the results of some 
new experiments (NATURE, vol. ii. pp. 410, 431, and 492) 
which confirmed his previous deductions. 
The Darwinian theory of Natural Selection has been 
attacked by Mr, A. W. Bennett and Mr. Murray,t and 
defended by Mr. A. R. Wallace and others; Mr. Wallace 
having also vindicated his claims to priority in this ques- 
tion, since he published many of the now-recognised the- 
ories and speculations on the subject of Natural Selection, 
at atime when he was resident in the East Indies, and 
entirely unacquainted with what Mr. Darwin had written 
on the same subject. 
As respects GEOLOGY, during the past year the Goy- 
ernment has continued its grants of money for the 
purpose of Deep Sea Dredgings, and at present the 
| report of the most recent Expedition is anxiously looked 
| forward to. The results of the Expedition in the 
| autumn of 1869, as given to the public by Dr. Carpenter, 
Prof. Wyville Thomson, and Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys during the 
| past year, have been of the greatest possible interest and 
importance. They found that on the same level, at the 
*See NATuRE, vol. i. pp. 327, 35% 499, &c. 
+ Natune, Vol iii. pp. 30, 49,65, and 154. 

