694 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 122. 



tioQ of the results. This contention was sup- 

 ported by means of a table proving that the re- 

 sults arrived at by experiment agreed with 

 those predicted by the theory. He showed 

 that a weak solution of permanganate of potash 

 when frozen yielded at first nothing but pure 

 colorless ice, all the color, and hence all the 

 salt in solution, becoming concentrated in the 

 central unfrozen part. While seeking to 

 establish that the same held true for the 

 metals Mr. Neville and himself had hit on 

 a method which he believed to be one of 

 importance and which was shown that even- 

 ing for the first time. Gold was very readily 

 dissolved by metallic sodium, and if a so- 

 lution of gold in sodium were allowed to 

 solidify very slowly then sections cut from the 

 solid alloy would appear perfectly uniform to 

 the eye. If, however, the sections were placed 

 on a photographic plate and exposed to the X- 

 rays, on developing the plate a picture was ob- 

 tained showing the actual structure of the solid 

 alloy, the sodium being transparent to these 

 rays, while the gold was opaque. By means of 

 lantern slides sections were exhibited cut from 

 sodium-gold alloys containing different percent- 

 ages of gold. These sections showed that 

 crystalline plates of sodium traversed the mass 

 both horizontally and vertically, and that the 

 gold, as the solution solidified, had become con- 

 centrated between the crystalline plates of so- 

 dium. The analogy between the solidification 

 of an alloy and the solidification of an aqueous 

 solution was thus established. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 



The will of the late Judge B. R. Shelden, of 

 Eockford, 111., bequeathes $100,000 to Williams 

 College, $100,000 to the Hampton Institute and 

 $10,000 to Rockford College. 



It is stated in the New York Medical Record 

 that Dr. William H. Welch and Dr. William 

 Osier, of the Johns Hopkins Medical School, of 

 Baltimore, have declined the call extended to 

 them by the University of New York, which 

 has lately been consolidated with Bellevue 

 Hospital. 



Professor Albert Bushnell Hart has 



been promoted to a full professorship of physics 

 at Harvard University. 



Professor W. F. Edwards has been elected 

 President of the Washington University, Seat- 

 tle, in the place of Dr. Mark W. Harrington. 



Db. Andr. Lipp has been appointed professor 

 of analytical chemistry in the Polytechnic In- 

 stitute at Munich. Professor Sissingle, of the 

 Polytechnic Institute of Delft, has been called 

 to the chair of physics in the University of Am- 

 sterdam, and Dr. George Scheflfers, of Leipzig, 

 to an assistant professorship of mathematics in 

 the Polytechnic Institute in Darmstadt. Dr. 

 Wiilfing, decent in mineralogy at Tiibingen, 

 and Dr. Max Siegfried, docent in physiology at 

 Leipzig, have been promoted to assistant pro- 

 fessorships. 



DISCUSSION AND COBEESPONDENCE. 



THE re-distribution OF TYPE-SPECIMENS IN 



MUSEUMS. 



I can't think why Mr. F. A. Lucas, in his 

 most friendly review of my paper ' How may 

 Museums best Retard the Advance of Science?' 

 (Science, April 2, V., p. 543), should say: " Mr. 

 Bather seems to use the term type a little 

 vaguely, as one does not feel quite sure 

 whether he means type or typical material." 

 The term I used was 'type-specimen,' which 

 has for me, and doubtless for Mr. Lucas, one 

 meaning and one only. The question raised in 

 my paper has been much discussed of late in 

 England ; permit me to put my view, which 

 differs from that of Mr. Lucas, without satirical 

 obscurity. 



The object of museums is after all to advance 

 and not to retard science. Take the case of a 

 provincial museum, say at Thurso, in the ex- 

 treme north of Scotland ; suppose that this 

 museum by some chance acquires a single 

 specimen of a new Mexican beetle ; suppose 

 that some wandering ' Koleopterolog ' from 

 Germany chances on this and describes it in 

 the Zoologischer Anzeiger. The specimen is 

 now a type-specimen, "and ho museum," says 

 Mr. Lucas, ' ' can afford to permanently part 

 with these." But does the retention of this 

 specimen at Thurso, in charge of some under- 

 paid jack-of-all-trades curator, do anything 



