July 19, 1906J 



NATURE 



287 



bationers of the London Hospital and Medical College. 

 During the course of an address he delivered subsequently, 

 he said the surgeon, the physician, the nurse, require 

 science to-day in a way in which they never required it 

 before, and science has influenced and affected profoundly 

 their whole teaching. That is why the standards of a 

 generation ago are no good to us, and why any dealing, 

 not merely with the physical organism, but with the great 

 organism of the community, is so much more difficult 

 and far-reaching than used to be (he case. Those who 

 are responsible for dealing with the organisation of society 

 know, or ought to know, that unless they have clear prin- 

 ciples and plain ends before their minds they can make 

 no advance, and they require economic science, and legis- 

 lative science, and science of different kinds before ihey 

 can get those views in a definite fashion. They would do 

 well, Mr. Haldane continued, to take a lesson from the 

 science of medicine, which has taught that the healing 

 of the body is absolutely dependent on the underslanding 

 of the principles upon which life is governed. There are 

 new ideas which pi'nelrate deeper and deeper as year 

 succeeds year. To-day we know that science is the guiding 

 star of work. It is in such men and women as those 

 studying in medical colleges that we have the hope of Ihe 

 future, the security that the story of our race may yet 

 be a story of progress, and that in the generation to come 

 we may see yet a higher state of things realised than 

 even that which we have realised at the beginning of the 

 twentieth century. 



The new buildings of .\rmstrong College, Newcastle-on- 

 Tyne, described in N.ature of July 5 (p. 232), were opened 

 by the King, who was accompanied by Queen .Alexandra, 

 on July II, in the presence of a large and representative 

 assembly, .\ddresses to the King were presented by the 

 governors and council of the college, the professors, and 

 the students. In Ihe first-named the president referred to 

 the electrical engineering laboratories, and stated that it 

 is desired to bring this department to as high a level as 

 that of the mechanical engineering of which the college 

 is so justly proud. The liberality of the shipbuilders of 

 the district, it was added, is now being exercised in the 

 establishment of a school of naval architecture befitting 

 the north-east coast as one of the chief seats in the world 

 of the shipbuilding industry. In the course of his replies, 

 the King expressed his admiration of the magnificent build- 

 ings ; he commended the wisdom of adapting the teaching 

 of the college to the practical needs of the students, and, 

 in mentioning the name of Armstrong as identified with 

 scientific discovery and industrial success, stated that 

 scientific principles are now more than ever necessary for 

 the mental training of all who hope for success in the 

 great engineering works for which Newcastle is famous 

 all the world over. The Earl of Carlisle presented the 

 Queen with a casket made on the premises by the New- 

 castle Handicrafts Company, a practical offshoot of the 

 art department of the college. Afterwards the Dean of 

 Durham and Mrs. Kitchin, Sir Isambard and Lady Owen, 

 attended their Majesties in a visit to the electrical engineer- 

 ing laboratory, where Prof. Thornton had arranged several 

 interesting demonstrations. 



The summer meeting of the .Association of Technical 

 Institutions was opened at Oxford on July 13, with Sir 

 William .Anson, president, in the chair. In his presidential 

 address. Sir William .\nson said technical associations are 

 comparatively new in our educational svslem, and an in- 

 creasing endeavour should be made to accommodate the 

 old to the new, and to find a place for that which is new 

 without dispossessing the old, where that which is old 

 is not worn out. where it combines, as the ancient uni- 

 versities combine, vitality and the promise of the future 

 with the stability which comes of great traditions drawn 

 from the past. The two elder universities are sometimes 

 thought. Sir William Anson continued, to be aloof from 

 the activities of modern life, and Oxford perhaps more 

 so than Cambridge, because of the devotion which Cam- 

 bridge has always shown to mathematics. Though a 

 university may legitimately specialise in the direction of 

 certain studies, where it can develop those studies in close 

 contact with the operation to which scientific investigation 



NO. I916, VOL. 74] 



is applied, it ought never to forgo the general scientific 

 teaching which is an essential feature of a university 

 course. What is the relation of the universities to the 

 work of the technical institutes, which, in one form or 

 another, form such a prominent feature in the educational 

 system of municipalities? Sir William Anson thinks it is 

 twofold. In the lower stages the schools of science and 

 technical institutes attended by boys may give such a 

 training as will qualify for scholarships at the universities, 

 and the universities, being thus the goal of the technical 

 institute in its more rudimentary form, should be the start- 

 ing-point for technology in its more advanced form. The 

 man of science may make discoveries which others may 

 utilise, but the student, if not a man of action himself, 

 helps and befriends the man of action, and technology, if 

 it is to go on advancing, must go hand in hand with those 

 siudies which every university, however situated, is able 

 to promote. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, July 2.— M. H. Poincare in the 

 chair. — An addition to the notes of May 21 and June 11 

 relating to the discontinuity of the specific heats of fluids : 

 K. H. Amaerat. — The action of sulphuretted hydrogen on 

 some oxides. Applications to volcanic phenomena and hot 

 springs : Armand Gautier. .At a white heat, sulphuretted 

 hydrogen reacts with both the magnetic oxide and peroxide 

 of iron, giving iron sulphide and a mixture of hvdrogen 

 and sulphur dioxide. .A small quantity of sulphuric acid is 

 formed simultaneously, even when oxygen is absent. With 

 alumina, sulphuretted hydrogen gives an oxvsulphide of 

 aluminium, together with a mixture of the same gases as 

 above. Sulphuretted hydrogen and carbon dioxide at a red 

 heat give carbon oxysulphide, water, carbon monoxide, and 

 hydrogen, the reaction being the same whether the gases 

 are initially dry or wet. The bearing of these experiments 

 on the composition of volcanic gases is pointed out. — The 

 lava produced by the recent eruption of Vesuvius : A. 

 Lacroix. The general phenomena characterising the recent 

 erupiion have been described in earlier papers; in the 

 present note the composition of the products corresponding 

 to each phase of the eruption has been studied. — The earth- 

 quake in California according to the preliminary official 

 report : A. de Uapparent. The evidence is distinctly 

 against the view which has been put forward that there 

 is any connection between the earthquake and volcanic 

 phenomena. The Californian earthquake was essentially an 

 orogenic phenomenon, there being signs of dislocation for 

 a distance of more than 600 kilometres along the Californian 

 coast. The connection between the damage done to build- 

 ings and the nature of the soil upon which thev were built 

 has also been clearly brought out by the preliminarv investi- 

 gations. — Some synthetical reactions of pinacoline : Louis 

 Henry. A study of the products of the reactions between 

 pinacoline and magnesium-methyl bromide and hvdrocyanic 

 acid. Both the reactions are normal. — Families' of Lam6 

 with plane trajectories, the planes passing through a fixed 

 point : S. Carrus. — H. C. Vogel was elected a corre- 

 spondant for the section of astronomy in the place of the 

 late Prof. Langley. — The classification of irrationals : Ed. 

 Maillet. — Researches on armoured concrete and the 

 influence of the removal of the charge : F. Schiile. — The 

 influence of surface tension on the propagation of w.ives 

 parallel to the surface of a liquid plate : M. Alliaume. — 

 .An optical arrangement generalising the use of the tele- 

 scope of I metre diameter at the Observatory of Meudon : 

 Ci. Millochau. The arrangement consists of an objective 

 of three divergent lenses, placed between the telescope 

 mirror and its focus. By varying the position of the 

 lenses, images can be obtained having the dimensions of 

 those which would be produced by a mirror of a metre 

 diameter and a focal distance capable of variation from 

 15 metres to 2;; metres. — The colorations of fringes 

 localised in a thin plate limited by a grating : Georges 

 Meslin. — Phosphorus chloronilride : MM. Besson and 

 Rosset. .An advantageous method of preparing this sub- 

 stance is described, and details given of its reactions with 



