September 12, 191 2j 



NATURE 



49 



science. To me it contains a lesson, in point, of 

 great importance. The opportunity offered tlicm was 

 beset with difficulties. No bribes such as scholars 

 or students expect to-day were offered them ; Ihey 

 knew no examinations, and their available apparatus 

 and laboratory equipment were of the smallest and 

 crudest description; but they were eager students 

 with whom the master was in sympathy, and it is 

 common knowledge that they completed the founda- 

 tions of our science. Now I ask, considering the 

 thousands of students whom we teach and examine 

 to-day, are we doing as well in the interest of the 

 couniry as our predecessors a century ago? Who can 

 confidently answer in the affirmative? No; whatever 

 else is done, the country needs the provision of men 

 whose untrammelled energy should be devoted to 

 original chemical research. Even as intellectual 

 discipline the value of research is of the highest 

 importance. In his address to the British Association 

 at Winnipeg, Prof. Sir J. J. Thomson bears testimony 

 to this. He says : " I have had considerable expe- 

 rience with students beginning research in experi- 

 mental physics, and I have always been struck by the 

 quite remarkable improvement in judgment, inde- 

 pendence of thought, and maturity produced by a 

 year's research. Research develops qualities that are 

 apt to atrophy when the student is preparing for 

 examinations, and, quite apart from the addition of 

 new knowledge to our store, is of the greatest 

 importance as a means of education." 

 ' And the object and ideal are wrong also in our 

 system of technical training. We aim too much at 

 giving elementary instruction to artisans, which, 

 though important in itself, can never take the place 

 of the higher education of leaders or managers of 

 industrial works. This is different in Germany, 

 where, "although the training of artisans is by no 

 means neglected, the chief enerey is directed to the 

 training and teaching of the smaller class of 

 managers. There is, too, in Germany a far more 

 intimate relation between academic and industrial 

 work, and the leaders in each often interchange posts. 

 In one respect we have an advantage over Germany ; 

 it is important that this should be understood. The 

 higher technical instruction across the Rhine has not 

 been undertaken by the universities, but is carried 

 out in separate institutions. With us the universities 

 have gradually undertaken, in addition to the older 

 technical subjects, theology, medicine, and law, the 

 various branches of engineering and agriculture, and 

 even commerce. This, it is to be hoped, will be 

 extended so that the highly trained technologist may 

 have the advantage of the undoubted humanising 

 influence of the university. 



Conclusion. 

 I have not attempted in this address any complete 

 survey of chemistry, either its growth in the past or 

 its present condition, but I have endeavoured to give 

 some account of the sort of thing chemistry is — of 

 its method — and to maintain three theses : (i) That 

 the logical method by which chemistry advances is 

 not a simple one, and requires as one essential 

 element the use of a highly developed imagination. 

 To render this more efficient I have advocated special 

 training. (2) Without violating, I hope, the canons 

 of the "proper use of hypothesis, I have proposed, in 

 order to account for certain isomeric and other 

 phenomena, the conception of solid molecular aggre- 

 gates, although I am not able at present to indicate 

 precise methods for its further investigation. These 

 molecular aggregates are supposed to be formed by 

 the combination of gaseous molecules just as the 

 latter are formed by the combination of atoms. 

 (3') As a matter of vital interest to the continued 

 NO. 2237, VOL. 90] 



well-being of this country I have insisted strongly 

 that our educational resources devoted to chemistry 

 should be directed, in the first place and chiefly, to 

 the highest possible training of promising students 

 in the prosecution of research, and that the giving to 

 the many of elementary instruction should be at 

 least a secondary consideration. 



Now I do not wish to dictate how this last pro- 

 position could be best carried into effect. I think we 

 should distinguish tliree classes of chemists, or tech- 

 nical chemists, whose domains would more or less 

 overlap. Occasionallv there will be a man, like the 

 late Sir William Perkin, who would combine all 

 three. The three classes are : first, the pure chemist, 

 devoted to scientific discovery only ; second, the tech- 

 nical chemist, who prepares the discoveries of the 

 pure chemist for the technologist, and has to deter- 

 mine such questions as economical production and, 

 for example, the conversion of colours into dyes ; 

 third, the technologist or works manager. These 

 three classes should be in close relation to one 

 another. By such a scheme we should probably 

 overcome by education one of our most serious present 

 difficulties — the ignorance of owners of works of the 

 value of science. 



It is a matter deserving most earnest consideration 

 whether, under the propitious influence of our own 

 time-spirit, it would be possible to organise research 

 and develop it without interfering with its essential 

 freedom and initiative, and this in each of the three 

 classes I have mentioned, either by means of some 

 of our existing institutions, or by the inauguration 

 here of such an organisation as the Kaiser Wilhelm 

 Institut in Berlin. 



SECTION C. 



GEOLOGY. 



Opening Address by B. N. Peach, LL.D., F.R.S., 

 President of the Section. 



The Relation between the Cambrian Faunas of 

 Scotland and North America. 



IntroAx^cilon. 



Ever since the announcement made by Salter in 

 1859 that the biological affinities of the fossils found 

 in the Durness Limestone are more closely linked 

 with American than with European forms, the rela- 

 tion between the older palaeozoic faunas of Scotland 

 and North America has been a subject of special 

 interest to geologists. The subsequent discovery of 

 the Olenellus fauna in the north-west Highlands 

 furnished striking confirmation of Salter's opinion. 

 This intimate relationship raises questions of prime 

 importance bearing upon the sequence and distribu- 

 tion of life in Cambrian time in North America and 

 north-west Europe, on the probable migration of 

 forms from one life-province to another, and on the 

 palcEOgeographical conditions which doubtless affected 

 these migrations. 



On this occasion, when the British Association 

 revisits the border of the Scottish Highlands, it seems 

 appropriate to refer to some of these problems. With 

 this object in view 1 shall try to recapitulate briefly 

 the leading features of the life-history of Cambrian 

 time in Scotland and North America, to indicate the 

 relation which these life-provinces bear to each other, 

 and, from these data, to draw some inferences 

 regarding the probable distribution of land and sea 

 which then obtained in those regions. 



The two great rock groups in Scotland that are 

 universallv admitted to be older than Cambrian time 

 are the Lewisian Gneiss and the Torridon Sandstone. 

 The Lewisian Gneiss, as mapped by the Geological 



