256 



NA TURE 



[July 13, 1905 



ing a number of photographs of Mars, which were secured 

 with the 1 i-inch Draper telescope during the period March 

 31 to April 30, it was seen that no snow-caps properly 

 so-called appeared until April 23. The photograph of 

 March 31 showed clouds on both the terminator and the 

 limb, but no polar caps. On April 23 a clearly visible 

 and extensive light area appeared at the southern pole, 

 but was not bright enough for snow, rather resembling 

 an extensive region of clouds. A very small light area 

 appeared near to the northern pole on April 15, but was 

 only seen with difficulty. A visual examination with a 

 24-inch reflector revealed the southern polar cap on April 

 30 as extending far towards the north in long. 340°. 



Prof. Pickering thinks that when the clouds disperse 

 snow will probably be revealed lying in their place. He 

 also contends that the observed seasonal colour-changes 

 from brown to green on such features as the Mare 

 Erythr<Eum is the surest evidence of the existence of 

 vegetation on Mars. 



Recent Observ..\tion of Eros. — From an equatorial 

 observation of Eros on June 12, in which the planet's 

 position was referred to that of 5 Capricorni, Prof. Millose- 

 vich determined the following position : — 



(1905 June I2d. I4h. 32m. 24s. M.T. Rome). 

 o (app.) = 2lh. 48m. 4174s 5 {app.)= - 16° 41' 35"-3 

 {Astronomische Nachrichten, No. 4029.) 

 Standard Time in Various Countries. — An interesting 

 and useful summary of the present status of the use of 

 standard time the world over is given in appendix iv., 

 vol. iv., of the Publications of the U.S. Naval Observatory. 

 The director of the observatory, Rear-Admiral Chester, 

 has prepared various tables in which he shows the 

 relation of the standard time employed in each country, 

 state, or colony, to the meridians of Greenwich and 

 Washington. In the first table is given a summary of 

 nations that use standard time, and it shows that, of the 

 thirty-six nations specifically mentioned, twentv employ 

 Greenwich time as the basis of their systems. The areas 

 and population concerned in these twenty nations form a 

 very large majority of the totals, and of the remaining 

 sixteen no two agree. This Mr. Chester regards as a 

 powerful argument in favour of the adoption of a universal 

 time system. 



Other tables show in detail the present status of the 

 time systems employed in a large number of localities, 

 and enumerate the dividing lines separating those con- 

 tiguous areas in which different standards are in use. 



Harvard College Observatory Annual Report. — In 

 the forty-ninth annual report of the Harvard College 

 Observatory Prof. E. C. Pickering, dealing with the vear 

 ending September 30, 1904, gives a brief outline of the 

 progress made in each of the many and various researches 

 vi'hich are being carried out at that observatory. 



Variable stars and asteroids were photometrically ob- 

 served, with the polarising photometer, by Prof. Wendell, 

 who, inter alia, found that the asteroid [7] Iris varies 

 about one-quarter of a magnitude in a period of 6h. 12m. 

 The measurement of all the Durchmusterung stars in 

 zones 10' wide at intervals of 5° was continued with the 

 12-inch meridian photometer, and the observations of many 

 of the zones are now practically complete. 



543 photographs taken with the ii-inch Draper telescope 

 brought the total number secured with this instrument up 

 to 15,030, and 1 1 16 photographs were secured with the 

 .S-inch Draper telescope, raising the total up to date to 

 32,oq4. It is proposed to extend this work to the spectra 

 of the fainter stars by giving exposures of sixty minutes' 

 duration and using only one prism. Many objects having 

 peculiar spectra were discovered by Mrs. Fleming during 

 the examination of the Draper photographs. 



The Boyden and Bruce telescopes were employed con- 

 tinuously, and from the examination of the long-exposure 

 chart plates Prof. Frost discovered many new nebulsE, &c., 

 including 203 nebulae in Virgo where the Dreyer (N.G.C.) 

 catalogue mentions only 58. 



The meteorological observations were continued at the 

 Blue Hill Observatory, kites being employed on fourteen 

 occasions. The average maximum height reached by the 

 kites was 7750 feet above sea level, the maximum altitude 

 attained on one occasion being 14,660 feet. 



NO. 1863, VOL. 72] 



THE .ACADEMIC SIDE OF TECHNICAL 

 TRAINING.' 



T T is not so very long ago that engineers, at any rate, 

 ■'• became willing to recognise that technical training had 

 an academic side at all. Almost the first, and still un- 

 doubtedly the greatest, representative of the academic 

 side of our profession was the late W. J. Macquorn 

 Rankine, who, after eighteen years of practical engineer- 

 ing experience, became professor of engineering in Glasgow 

 in 1855, and held the chair until his death in 1872, and 

 some of whose pupils have occupied, and now occupy, very 

 high positions in the profession for which he did so much. 

 Perhaps it may be said that Rankine was by nature rather 

 a physicist dealing with engineering problems than an 

 engineer (in spite of his love for the " three-foot rule " ■) 

 dealing with engineering problems. But only those of us 

 who have had occasion carefully to study his work from 

 the point of view of trying to teach subjects similar to his 

 can ever know what an extraordinary physicist he w^as. 

 But up to the years 1870 and 1880, Rankine's pupils and 

 their contemporaries were not yet old enough to influence 

 the body of the engineering profession, and there stilt 

 existed a pronounced dislike on the part of an enormous 

 number of engineers to anything academic, a dislike which 

 can hardly be realised now by those who see the various 

 professional bodies vieing with one another in their 

 endeavours to ensure that their members shall have a 

 proper and complete scientific training. 



Now all the great engineering societies have recognised 

 formally that no engineering training is complete without 

 its academic side, and a very important committee, consist- 

 ing of delegates from the five great engineering societies, 

 with Sir William White as president, has been at work for 

 some time, formulating their ideas as to the nature of 

 the qualifying training, and going so far as to formulate 

 also ideas as to the preliminary education of young 

 engineers before they commence their academic training. 

 I do not wish — rather I do wish very much, but it is not 

 my subject to-day — to enter upon the very thorny questions 

 involved in what that preliminary education ought to be 

 according to the notions of a grown-up engineer. I wilt 

 say, however, for it is no secret, that communications 

 received from many headmasters of our great schools, 

 while not going so far as some of us would like, are yet 

 quite astonishingly radical in their ideas as compared not 

 only with thirty, but even with fifteen years ago. 



As to the general trend of our academic training, I think 

 we engineers are entitled to say that it should be so 

 arranged as best to train the best engineers. I put it in 

 this way because I mean it to be understood that while 

 on the one hand the best engineer is certainly not the 

 man who knows his own business only and narrowly ; on 

 the other hand, I think we are entitled to demand that 

 the engineer should not be looked upon as the mere bye- 

 product of the training, but as the chief result to which 

 other things are to be subordinated. I think that 

 University College is not likely to fall into this mistake, 

 but the point has really to be kept in mind in cases where, 

 as here, the engineering education is only one branch of 

 the wide range of education covered by the whole work 

 of a university college. 



In saying this, however, I particularly do not mean that 

 the academic training of engineers should be laid out 

 exactly on superficially utilitarian lines. The idea of giving 

 a young man just as much mathematics, just as much 

 physics, or just as much chemistry as the minimum that 

 he can professionallv require, is not only pernicious, but 

 absolutely fallacious. I am sure that the only way of 

 knowing a subject up to a certain point in such a fashion 

 that, up to that point, it can be thoroughly utilised, is to 

 study the subject up to a point very much further advanced. 

 It is not at all a valid objection to the teaching of any 

 particular point in mathematics or physics that it is more 



J Abiideed from an Address delivered before the Union Society of t^ni- 

 versity College, London, on June 29, by Dr. Alex. B. W. Kennedy, F.R.S. 



; Some talk of millimetre 

 And some of decilitres, 1 

 Put I'm a British workman, loo o 

 So by pounds I'll eat, and by qu 



of kiloeri 

 beer and drams ; 



to EO to school ; 

 ts I'll drink, and I'll 



