Fune 18, 1885 | 
evening, May 7, by Sir Edward Reed, K.C.B., M.P., on 
‘The Forms of Ships.’ The President, Sir Frederick Bramwell, 
F.R.S., occupied the chair. 
In the course of his address the Lecturer briefly explained the 
great development which the science of fluid resistance had 
undergone of late years, largely owing to the labours of Stokes, 
Rankine and others, but more largely still to those admirable 
investigations which had been carried out under the patronage 
of the Admiralty by the late Dr. William Froude, and subse- 
quently by his son, Mr. R. E. Froude. He likewise explained 
the very great effect which those inyestigations had produced in 
the Royal Navy, owing to the judicious and prompt adoption of 
Froude’s results by the Admiralty Constructors. Stress was laid 
throughout the lecture upon the importance of adjusting the 
form and proportions of ships not only to the loads which they 
have to carry, but likewise to the weight of the materials enter- 
ing into their structure. It was a common error to judge of the 
merits of steamships by the relations which exist between their 
displacement, steam power, and speed, as expressed by formulae 
of various kinds. Approximations to the theoretical form of 
least resistance were sought by some naval designers, and all 
considerable departures from that form were regarded as objec- 
tionable. The Lecturer, on the contrary, pointed out that no 
such theoretical form was any true or proper guide for a naval 
designer, since every change in the average weight of the hull 
necessitated a corresponding change in the form and proportions 
of the ship, and the great merit of a designer often was that he 
adopted forms differing widely from the abstract forms of the 
schools, and presenting a very inferior appearance when put into 
what are known as ‘‘Constants of Performance.” This was 
illustrated by examples derived partly from actual ships and 
partly from calculations made for the purpose. Two actual war- 
ships were compared, one attaining the high figure of 213 marks 
when examined by the received formule, and the other gaining 
but 172 marks ; yet in the Lecturer’s view the latter was far and 
away the better ship, because she performed precisely the same 
service as the other, being inferior in no respect, and yet had cost 
less than the other by £114,000, and expended no more steam- 
power in attaining an equalspeed. The Lecturer remarked that 
he should probably have regarded the abstract ‘‘ form of least 
resistance ” with more respect but for the circumstance that the 
designing of armoured vessels in which he was much engaged is 
‘4 branch of naval construction of much too concrete and 
ponderous a character to admit of any dalliance with abstract or 
fancy forms.” He went on to express his regret that, owing 
largely to the restrictions which granite docks imposed upon 
naval constructors, and to the absence of iron flouting docks 
capable of receiving ships of any form, and owing to other 
causes likewise, the construction of armoured ships—by which 
he meant ships which had a sufficient volume protected above the 
water to keep them afloat and upright while the armour remained 
intact—had been abandoned, and the first place upon the sea had 
been offered to any nation which had the courage and the will to 
assume it. In his opinion this was a purely voluntary abandon- 
ment, and was not the result of any scientific or economic neces- 
sity. He admitted that great changes in forms and proportions 
were very desirable in our great line-of-battle ships ; for example, 
a great increase of breadth was necessary in order to economise 
the side armour, and to keep the ram and torpedo at ample 
distance from the boilers and magazines, which should be pro- 
tected by an inner citadel, so to speak, well removed from the 
outer one. But so far was true science from presenting obstacles 
to these and other important changes, it actually invited these 
very changes, and increase of beam in particular had been shown 
by Froude to facilitate the attainment of practical invulner- 
ability combined with very high speed. Size and cost were 
among the bugbears of our naval administration ; by the true 
engineer they were always regarded as secondary to great and 
noble objects, among which objects he included the naval pre- 
eminence of our country. At any rate, there was no engineering 
obstacle whatever to England constructing and sending to sea, 
not merely those great and swift but delicate and fragile Atlantic 
hotels in which the British Navy is now to embark and fight, for 
the want of something better, but also war-ships—real war-ships— 
almost as invulnerable as these islands themselves, and capable 
of bearing the once-proud flag of England boldly into the waters 
of any enemy whateyer. 
On the motion of the President, a cordial vote of thanks was 
a to Sir Edward Reed for his interesting and instructive 
ecture. 
NATURE 
165 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE 
CAMBRIDGE.—In the second part of the Nattral Science 
Tripos the examiners have placed the following in the first class 
in alphabetical order:—Men: Acton (Botany), St. John’s; 
Eve, B.A. (Physics), Pembroke ; Fitzpatrick (Physics), Christ’s ; 
Gordon (Physiology), Trinity ; Shore (Physiology), St. John’s ; 
F. M. Young, B.A. (Physics), Trinity. 
The Senior Wrangler, Mr. Berry, of King’s College, was a 
student at University College School and College ; the Second 
Wrangler, Mr. Love, of St. John’s, was educated at Wolver- 
hampton Grammar School. The Wranglers, thirty-four in 
number, are alone eligible to compete in the third part of the 
Mathematical Tripos a year hence. 
In the Natural Sciences Tripos, Part 1, the following were 
placed in the first class, in alphabetical order :—Men: Bury, 
Trinity ; Couldridge, Emmanuel ; Edgeworth, Caius; Evans, 
F. P., St. John’s; Oliver, F. W., Trinity; Rolleston, St. 
John’s ; Seward, St. John’s; Walters, H. G., Trinity. 
Women: Freund, J., Girton; Willoughby, C. A. J., 
Newnham. 
The University Lectureship in Mathematics, lately held by 
Prof. J. J. Thomson, will be filled up by the General Board or 
Studies and the Special Board for Mathematics early in the 
Michaelmas Term. 
It is proposed, in dealing with the increased income of the 
Craven Fund, to establivh a new Studentship of 200/. a year 
for research in the Languages and History of Ancient Greece 
and Rome and the Comparative Philology of the Indo-European 
Languages ; the Studentship to be tenable for one year, but a 
student might be re-elected on not more than two occasions. 
It is proposed still further to systematise and improve the 
courses of local lectures in populous centres, and to give students 
University certificates and exemptions in all cases where satis- 
factory work has been done, instead of confining these special 
privileges to affiliated Colleges. The majority of the courses 
given in the past winter have been scientific, and the work con- 
tinues to extend, under the energetic administration of Dr. R.D. 
Roberts. Much difficulty exists in some of the most promising 
centres, where the students (miners and artisans) are poor, in 
providing funds. There ought to be no difficulty in persuading 
colliery proprietors and manufacturers to find the money needed. 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
Bulletins de la Société d’ Anthropologie de Paris, 5° Fascicule, 
1884.—On ancient superstitions still surviving among the 
Bretons, by M. Bonnemére. An interesting paper, showing 
among many other proofs of superstition that the peasantry 
believe in the possession by certain individuals, whom they 
characterise as ‘‘ Ribotteurs,” of the power of injuring others by 
causing their milch cows to lose their milk. The so-called 
‘Ribotteurs ’ are believed to acquire this power by roaming 
naked through the fields on the night of April 30 to gather, at 
early dawn, the May dew, in which dwells the malevolent property 
of drying up the milk of cows.—On the uni-discoidal placenta 
of a mandril, by M. Chudzinski.—On the degree of atrophy of 
the olfactory nerves compatible with the persistence of the sense 
of smell, by M. Mathias Duval. The writer draws attention to 
the number of cases in which a post-mortem examination has_ 
proved the atrophy, or even total absence, of olfactory nerves, 
although there had been no apparent defect in the sense of smell 
during life. M. Dally is of opinion that in such cases an 
excess of the gray matter of the brain at any one point may 
serve to supplement a deficiency in some other cerebral region. 
—M. Topinard presented to the Society a copy of his great 
chart of the relative heights, registered among the conscripts 
and in the public schools of different parts of France.—Report 
of proceedings at the first meeting of the ‘‘ Conférence Trans- 
formiste,” organised last year in memory of Darwin. In accord- 
ance with the scheme of the Conference an address was to be 
annually delivered by a member of the Anthropological Society 
of Paris, who was to indicate the influence which Darwinian 
(‘‘ Transformist”) views had had on the special branch of scientific 
inquiry which the lecturer prosecuted.—This year’s address in 
the Physical Section of the Conference was delivered by M. 
Duval, who chose for his theme the evolution of the eye from 
the early development of the visual organs among the lower 
animals. His treatise is profusely illustrated by admirable dia- 
