JUNE 10, 1915] 
NATURE 
407 

tion of science in its technical applications, and the 
peril in which some of our staple industries have been 
placed by reason of our lack of dyestuffs and other 
materials which are the product of her great chemical 
manufactories, and which could, if proper encourage- 
ment were given and suitable measures taken, be 
produced in this country. 

THE UNIVERSITIES AND INVESTIGATION. 
Vi OST of us are perhaps a little tired of addresses 
by eminent people explaining that the extension 
rather than the propagation of knowledge should be 
the primary object of a university. But the most 
jaded appetite will find something stimulating in a 
founder’s day address delivered at Clark University 
by Prof. Ralph S$. Lillie (Science, April 16). Nowhere 
has the case been put more simply and directly, with 
greater force and less of the overstatement which is 
apt to defeat its own objects; nowhere has the defence 
of ‘useless knowledge’ been conducted with greater 
cogency and sanity. 
But Dr. Lillie’s main object is not to establish 
principles to which everyone in these days pays at 
least lip-service, but to inquire how best they may be 
put into operation. What exactly should a university 
do to encourage research? Build laboratories, endow 
chairs, and try to attract the best men to fill them— 
such is the answer which would probably be given in 
this country. But American experience seems to show 
that something further is also needed. These things 
have been done on an unprecedented scale, and yet 
the production of work of the highest class is incon- 
siderable compared with that of several European 
countries far less lavishly equipped. Why? asks Dr. 
Lillie. 
His answer is that the right spirit of research is 
lacking. He thinks that it has been too hastily 
assumed that the methods which have proved success- 
ful in the production of goods must be equally success- 
ful in the production of thought. The cult of the 
card-index, the typewriter, and the timekeeper has 
been carried too far; the heads of departments are 
overburdened with executive duties, and the demand 
for an appearance of strenuous activity leaves them 
and their subordinates no time to think. 
And Dr. Lillie has a graver charge to bring. He 
accuses some American universities of being under the 
influence of a mistaken conception of democratic 
equality. He finds it necessary to protest against ‘‘a 
spirit of hostility to distinction.’’ He quotes influential 
speakers to show that there is a tendency to under- 
rate the importance of the exceptional mind and to 
imagine that everything can be achieved by industry 
without genius. He does not doubt the value of 
organised collaboration in the development of an in- 
vestigation, but he fears that the exaggerated import- 
ance attributed to ‘‘team-methods” is apt to smother 
the individual inspiration from which all  investi- 
gation must spring. ‘‘A university should be the 
stronghold of individuality,’’ he protests in a notable 
phrase. 
How far the diagnosis is correct it is not for a 
foreigner to. judge, but the questions he raises have 
an interest beyond any immediate application. Is it 
really possible to do anything actively to encourage 
research? Will not official attempts to encourage the 
highest form of scientific learning have the same 
deadening effect as official attempts to encourage art? 
Can we do anything to produce a genius except avoid 
crushing him when he appears, and is even this nega- 
tive precaution necessary? A genius is one who 
NO. 2380, VOL. 95] 

moulds and is not moulded by his circumstances, and, 
in spite of Dr. Lillie’s fears, the men he wants will 
appear in the fulness of time when they are ready. 
NaI: 
ECONOMIC GEOLOGY OF NAVANAGAR.} 
R. E. HOWARD ADYE, as Director of the 
Geological Survey of Navanagar, has written a 
memoir of 262 pages on the economic geology of the 
State. A coloured lithological map, on the scale of one 
inch to four miles, is bound up in sections with the 
volume, and numerous photographic plates of rock- 
sections and a few landscapes illustrate the text. The 
rock-slices have been selected with the care that might 
be expected from Mr. Adye’s previous work (see 
Nature, vol. Ixxvii., p. 125), and a system of lettering 
indicates the various mineral constituents. The pro- 
duction of this handsome and well-bound memoir by 
the Government of a native State in India renders the 
portrait of the Maharaja, Jam Shri Ranjitsinhji, dis- 
tinctly welcome as a frontispiece. 
One of the most interesting features of the region 
is the wide development_of a foraminiferal limestone, 
which was laid down apparently in  post-Pliocene 
times, and which is now in places 11roo ft. above the 
sea. The name ‘“ Miliolite’’ has been unfortunately 
given to this stone, and is retained, with suitable 
explanations (pp. 133 and 135), by the author. The 
rock becomes hard and durable on exposure, and has 
been used with marked success for building. Great 
masses of ‘‘ hypabyssal”’ acid rocks occur in the south 
of the State, giving rise to the bold features of the 
Alech and Bard Hills. Mr. Adye predicts a commer- 
cial future for the micropegmatitic and other fine- 
grained types (granophyres and felsites), which are 
capable of being highly polished, and are also service- 
able as road-metal (p. 219). This series, with which 
a few rhyolites are associated, was intruded about the 
opening of the Eocene period into the widely-spread 
basalts of the Deccan trap. Pipe-amygdaloids (p. 56) 
and other types of the vesicular basic lavas are de- 
scribed. In dealing (p. 194) with the quality of tough- 
ness which characterises ophitic basalts, the nodular 
crystals of pyroxene in which the felspars are embedded 
are styled ‘‘plates."" This is a very common slip, due 
to the impression given by these objects in rock-slices ; 
but it injures the explanation given of the resisting 
properties of the rock. Perhaps we must not grumble 
at the new names proposed for altered limestones, 
“‘pindaralite’’ (pp. 178 and 181) for a marine rock 
permeated by iron hydroxide, and ‘‘ramwaralite”’ 
(p. 183) for a similar rock in which dolomite has 
developed. Such terms will at any rate attract interest 
within the State, and will thus serve one of the main 
objects of the book. 
Mr. Adye’s style has become curiously assimilated 
to that of certain Indian writers of English. Apart 
from the irregular distribution of commas, there are 
phrases like ‘‘sacerdotal equipments”’ and ‘‘revenons 
a nos moutons,” and the statement (p. 9) that a range 
of hills ‘‘has hitherto remained ‘ without a local habi- 
tation and a name,’"’ which would make a stranger 
doubt the author’s nationality. How did a hill escape 
a local habitation? These things, however, probably 
show the influence of environment on a writer who is 
obviously throwing his energies into the development 
of the country which he serves. 

GoeAS Ty. C- 
1 ‘* Memoir on the Economic Geology of Navanagar State in the Province 
of Kathiawar, India.” By E. H. Adye. (Pombay: Thacker and Co., 
1914.) 
