634 KEPOKT— 1888. 



7. On the Formation of Crystals of Calcium Oxide and Magnesium Oxide 

 in tlie Oxijhijdrogen Flame. By J. Joly, M.A., B.E. 



Lime cyliuders whicli have been ia use for some time iu the production of the 

 lime-light will be found to have undergone alteration in structure in the imme- 

 diate vicinity of the part played on by the fiarae, becoming lustrous and crystalline. 

 With, the lens it is seen that the reflecting faces are squares. By playing on a 

 small heap of fragments of pure lime \\-itli the oxyhydrogen flame larger and very 

 distinct cubes are easily produced. The crystals are very evidently formed by 

 sublimation. They build upon the rough surface of tlie lime in arborescent growths 

 of cubes and cubo-octahedrons, having a common orientation. They are limpid or 

 milky, very lustrous, showing a plated structure on the cube face and appear to 

 offer a greater resistance to hydration than the amorphous substance. In the 

 polariscope they are optically inactive. Up to the present CaO seems to have only 

 been crystallised from the nitrate (Briigelmann). 



In a similar manner, but with more difficulty, minute transparent cubes of 

 magnesium oxide may be prepared from the amorphous substance. 



SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8. 



The following Report and Paper were read : — 



1. Report of the Committee on the present methods of teaching Chemistry. 



See Reports, p. 73. 



2. Chemistry as a School Subject. By the Rev. A. Ikving, D.Sc, B.A. 



The author expressed some doubt as to the means adopted by the committee 

 appointed last year for dealing with this matter in our public schools, and strongly 

 urged considerable addition to the committee of men who, as science-masters, have 

 first-hand knowledge of the facts. Speaking from a personal experience of some 

 twenty years, both as a schoolmaster and as a teacher of science, he deprecated 

 any attempt by syllabus or otherwise to fetter the freedom of action which every 

 real educator knows to be one of the first conditions of fruitful educational work. 

 The high educational value of experimental science alone considered tells us that 

 this must be our guiding principle in dealing with chemistry as a school-subject; 

 we must not aim at making all our boys professional chemists ; we must defer in 

 this matter to the higher educational law expressed in the formula, 'Mens sana in 

 corpore sa)io.' The slur cast indiscriminately upon the public schools in a paper 

 read last year was repudiated, and the practical inapplicability to the necessary 

 conditions of school-work of many suggestions contained in that paper was pointed 

 out. The alleged sterility of English chemical science was referred rather to a 

 divorcement in the past between the laboratory-worker and the higher culture of 

 the coimtry, and it was maintained that the remedy lies mainly iu the recognition 

 of the true importance of the subject by the older universities, with a further 

 development of the professoriate, which (with the healthy rivalry of numbers) is 

 the true secret of the working productiveness in science of the German as compared 

 with the English academical system. It was suggested that the committee would 

 do well to select a fairly large number of real contributors to the science in the 

 last quarter of a century and attempt to arrive inductivelj' from the facts of their 

 individual biographies at some general conclusions as to what intellectual ante- 

 cedents and environment seemed to enter most essentially into the genesis of the 

 scientific chemist ; while the strongest possible appeals should be made to the 

 ancient universities to lead public opinion, especially the governing-bodies of our 

 public schools, to recognise genuine work in science and proved capacity in 



