October 5, 1905] 



NATURE 



575 



A. R. Hinks will lecture on geographical surveying (with 

 field work). The duties of the board of geographical 

 studies, which is responsible for the general administration 

 of the department, include the promotion of geographical 

 study and research within the university, the provision of 

 instruction in the several branches of geographical science, 

 the administration of the geographical education fund, and 

 the publication of schedules defining the range of the 

 geographical examinations for degrees and diplomas of the 

 university in geography. 



The development and strengthening of the relation which 

 the work of technical institutes and evening classes bears 

 to the practice and commercial aspects of our industries 

 are undoubtedly necessary parts of further industrial 

 progress. For this reason we welcome a recent circular 

 issued by the Board of Education to the inspectors of 

 these educational institutions. The Board recognises the 

 existence of a great variety in the character and amount 

 of the cooperation between employers of labour on the 

 one hand and the managers of technical institutions and 

 evening schools on the other, and in its circular gives a 

 short account of a few typical e.xamples with a view of 

 showing inspectors and others the kind of work which 

 can be done with advantage in this direction. It is true 

 that the details of such cooperation must vary from place 

 to place in accordance with the special requirements of 

 each important industry, but unless it exists in one form 

 or another full advantage will not be derived from our 

 expenditure on technical education. The circular proceeds 

 to give a helpful resumi of what has been done to 

 encourage artisans in their studies by means of the pay- 

 ment of fees and the award of prizes, by increases of 

 wages, by allowances of time for attendance at classes, 

 and by providing opportunities for higher instruction. The 

 circular may be commended to all employers of labour who 

 desire that the workmen of this country may be put into 

 the way of competing on equal terms with those of other 

 countries. 



On Friday last Lord Rosebery, as Chancellor of the 

 University of London, opened the Goldsmiths' College at 

 New Cross, formerly the Goldsmiths' Institute. The de- 

 velopment of Polytechnics under the London County Council 

 led the Goldsmiths' Company to reconsider the constitution 

 of the institute, which had been carried on by the company 

 since 1888 ; and last year the buildings were presented by 

 the company to the University of London, with an un- 

 occupied adjoining site of four and a half acres, and an 

 endowment of 5000/. a year for five years. An additional 

 sum of 5000Z. was given by the company to enable the 

 university to carry on evening classes during 1904-5, in 

 cooperation with the London County Council. Lender the 

 new scheme the institution has become the Goldsmiths' 

 College, University of London, and its functions are chiefly 

 those of a day training college for elementary teachers. 

 These students will take the ordinary two years' course 

 provided by the regulations of the Board of Education, and 

 will not prepare for a university degree ; but the evening 

 class work in science and engineering will still lead up to 

 university degrees. In the course of his remarks at the 

 opening ceremony, Lord Rosebery said : — " The University 

 of London is spreading itself over the metropolis. It is 

 not too much to say that, though we cannot say that it 

 will soon spread itself over the Empire, we may at least 

 say that it will very soon appeal to every portion of the 

 Empire. It is a young university. It deals with com- 

 paratively new branches of learning. It deals with the 

 practical and the concrete, rather than with the ancient and 

 the abstract. In that respect there is a marked difference 

 between it and those ancient universities to which some of 

 us owe a loyal and filial allegiance which cannot be 

 obliterated by any newer loyalty or allegiance. The newer 

 universities must be content, and wisely content, with some- 

 thing which is not antiquity, and is not tradition, but may 

 be more immediately useful and practical than either 

 antiquity or tradition. We, placed in the largest com- 

 munity in the world, with our hands, so to speak, on the 

 very heart of the Empire, living among new wants and 

 new aspirations, meeting new needs and new acquirements, 

 ready, as I hope, to face the exigencies of to-day and to- 

 morrow, are the university of the future, though we cannot 

 trace our antiquity back to the hoary past." 



NO. 1875. VOL. 72] 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Royal Society, June 8. — "The Synthesis of a Substance 

 allied to ."Adrenalin." By H. D. Dakin. Communicated 

 by Prof. E. H. Starling, F.R.S. 



The paper contains an account of attempts to synthesise 

 adrenalin — the physiologically active principle of the supra- 

 renal gland. Adrenalin is commonly regarded as a 

 secondary alcohol of the formula 



C,H3(OH),.CH(OH).CH,NHCH3. 



The corresponding ketone may be prepared by acting upon 

 chloracetylcatechol with methylamine, and is a crystalline 

 substance forming stable crystalline salts. The ketone may 

 be reduced electrolytically, and the product may have 

 the structure assigned to natural adrenalin. .'Mthough the 

 synthetical base has many chemical and physiological 

 properties in common with adrenalin, it probably is not 

 the racemic form of the latter substance. The base forms 

 extremely deliquescent salts which are unstable in hot 

 solution ; on addition of ammonia to aqueous solutions of 

 the salts, the free base is precipitated in the form of a grey- 

 white amorphous precipitate which is extraordinarily 

 unstable in the dry state. Owing to experimental 

 difficulties, satisfactory analytical and molecular weight 

 determinations have not yet been made. 



A close physiological relationship between the natural 

 and synthetical bases is shown by the fact that, in the case 

 of a rabbit, intravenous injection of less than ooooooi gram 

 is followed by a marked rise in arterial blood-pressure. 



A base which is probably identical with the substance 

 above described has been obtained by acting upon methyl- 

 aminoacetylcatechol with aluminium and mercuric sulphate 

 (D.R.-P. 157,300), and it is assumed to be a secondary 

 alcohol. If this be correct, the formula for natural 

 adrenalin will require modification, but more experimental 

 evidence is needed before the question can be settled. 



July I. — " On the Influence of Collisions and of the 

 Motion of Molecules in the Line of Sight, upon the Con- 

 stitution of a Spectrum Line." By Lord Rayleigrh, 

 O.M., F.R.S. 



.'\part from the above and other causes of disturbance, 

 a line in the spectrum of a radiating gas would be infinitely 

 narrow. A good many years ago,' in connection with 

 some estimates by Ebert, the author investigated the 

 widening of a line in consequence of the motion of mole- 

 cules in the line of sight, taking as a basis Maxwell's 

 well known law respecting the distribution of velocities 

 among colliding molecules, and he calculated the number 

 of interference bands to be expected, upon a certain sup- 

 position as to the degree of contrast between dark and 

 bright parts necessary for visibility. In this investigation 

 no regard was paid to the collisions, the vibrations issuing 

 from each molecule being supposed to be maintained with 

 complete regularity for an indefinite time. 



Although little is known with certainty respecting the 

 genesis of radiation, it has long been thought that collisions 

 act as another source of disturbance. The vibrations of a 

 molecule are supposed to remain undisturbed while a free 

 path is described, but to be liable to sudden and arbitrary 

 alteration of phase and amplitude when another molecule 

 is encountered. A limitation in the number of vibrations 

 executed with regularity necessarily implies a certain in- 

 determinateness in the frequency, that is, a dilatation of 

 the spectrum line. In its nature this effect is independent 

 of the Doppler effect — for example, it will be diminished 

 relatively to the latter if the molecules are smaller ; but 

 the problem naturally arises of calculating the conjoint 

 action of both causes upon the constitution of a spectrum 

 line. This is the question considered by Mr. C. Godfrey 

 in an interesting paper," upon which it is the principal 

 object of the present note to comment. The formulae at 

 which he arrives are somewhat complicated, and they are 

 discussed only in the case in which the densitv of the gas 

 is reduced without limit. .According to the view of the 



1 Pr,!i. Mag., vol. 



p. 258. 



^ " On the .ApDli( 

 Problems," Phil. Tm 



3 ; " Scientific Pape 



' vol. 



tion of Fourier's Double Integrals to Optical 



S., A, vol. CXCV., p. 329, T?gg. 



