July 15, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



75 



the City of Boston, compiled by Ellen H. Rich- 

 ards and Sarah E. Wentworth (Institutions 

 Comm., Boston, Bpt., 1S9G, pp. 206-219). On the 

 basis of raw materials furnished and number of 

 persons fed the above data were secured. 



SCIENCE AND INDUSTRIAL SUPREMACY. 

 A RECENT writer in the Bevue des Deux Mondes, 

 M. Raphael-Georges L6vy, draws a comparison 

 between the chemical industries of Germany and 

 France which is greatly to the disadvantage of 

 the latter, says the British Medical Journal. 

 Thus it is stated that the total annual European 

 production of coal-tar derivatives reaches the 

 value of 125 million francs. This is divided up 

 in the following proportions : Germany, 90 

 millions ; Switzerland, 16 millions ; France, 

 10 millions, and England, 9 millions. A sin- 

 gle factory at Ludwigshafen employs more 

 technical chemists than are working at the 

 same branch in the whole of England, while 

 the attempts at organized teaching of tech- 

 nical chemistry here have hitherto been lu- 

 dicrously inadequate. This is wherein our 

 defect mainly lies. The industrious Teuton 

 fastens upon the discoveries of chemists and 

 physicists, and extracts from them the maxi- 

 mum of practical utility. Thus the secret of 

 the aniline dyes was discovered in England; 

 France took up the investigations ; but it was 

 in Germany that particular attention was first 

 paid to their mercantile perfection as regards 

 brilliancy, permanence and cheapness. As a 

 natural result, Germany now almost monop- 

 olizes their production. The same is true 

 in respect of electricity ; the monetary bene- 

 fit of the researches of Lord Kelvin and the 

 late Professor Clark Maxwell is mainly reaped 

 by the Allgemeine Elektrische Gesellschaft, and 

 the great firms of Siemens, Loewe and Schuck- 

 ert, which have a combined capital of over 15 

 million pounds. Almost the only chemical in- 

 dustry which holds its own in England is the 

 manufacture of alkali, and this owes its success 

 to a distinguished pupil of Bunsen's, Mr. Lud- 

 wig Mond. M. Levy, in the article to which 

 reference has already been made, points out 

 that Bunsen and Liebig were the founders of 

 German chemical industry. It was Liebig who 

 devoted his energy and influence to obtaining 



state aid for laboratories of technical science. 

 From these laboratories issue annually some 800 

 doctors of science to undertake the direction of 

 factories or the investigation of new products of 

 commercial value. Their education has been 

 assisted by the state, and the knowledge they 

 have acquired will he devoted to increasing, by 

 the surest of all means, the wealth of the nation. 



GENERAL. 



The new observatory at Heidelberg, on the 

 Konigsstuhl, was dedicated on May 20th. Ad- 

 dresses were made by Professor Kehrer, Pro- 

 rector of the University, and by the Directors of 

 the Observatory, Professors Valentiner and 

 "Wolf. The Observatory belongs to the State 

 and is not a part of the University, but oppor- 

 tunities are offered to students for study and 

 research. 



The Gottingen Academy of Sciences has re- 

 ceived from the Emperor's special fund $25,000 

 for gravity determinations in East Africa. 



■ The French Conservatoire Nationale des Arts 

 et Metiers celebrated, on June 26th, the cente- 

 nary of its foundation. 



The Physical-mathematical Section of the 

 Berlin Academy of Sciences has made the fol- 

 lowing grants: 2,000 Marks to Professor Engler, 

 of Berlin, for the continuation of his mono- 

 graph on East African plants ; 1,500 Marks 

 to Professor Schultze, of Berlin, for the publica- 

 tion of a work on American Ilektinellidse ; 1,000 

 Marks to Professor Brandt, of Kiel, to enable 

 him to accompany the Prince of Monaco in his 

 investigations in the Atlantic Ocean ; 1,000 

 Marks to Professor Burckhardt, of Basle, for 

 investigations on the comparative anatomy of 

 the brain ; 1,000 Marks to Professor Kohen, of 

 Greifswald, for the continuation of his investi- 

 gations on meteoric iron ; 600 Marks to Pro- 

 fessor Graebner, of Berlin, for the continuation, 

 of his investigations of the formation of the 

 German heaths ; 500 Marks to Dr. Kruger, of 

 Charlottenburg, for investigations on the urine ; 

 500 Marks to Dr. Kiister, of Tiibingen, for his 

 investigations for the coloring matter of the 

 blood and bile ; 500 Marks to Dr. Loesner, of 

 Berlin, for the completion of a monograph on 

 the Aquifoliaceffi ; 5,000 Marks to Dr. F. 

 Ristenpart, of Kiel, for preliminary studies for 



