Oct. 1st, 1887.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEVV^S. 



191 



view to placing the higher Technical Education in our Schools 

 and Colleges on a better footing. 



(/) The improvement of the training of teachers, so that they 

 may take an efl'ective part in the work which the Association 

 desires to forward. 



2. The formation of a central consultative body, which will 

 give opportunities for conference between persons of various 

 classes and from different localities, will form and influence 

 public opinion, and will obtain public support for the furtherance 

 of Technical Education. 



3. The collection of information as to the existing means for 

 carrying out the work of Technical Education, and the best 

 methods of extending and organising it throughout the United 

 Kingdom. 



4. The preparation, in a popular form, of information to be 

 obtained from Reports of Commissions, Consular Reports, and 

 from various other sources (including, if necessar)', special 

 inquiries at home and abroad), for diffusion throughout the 

 country. 



I3y these and other means the Association desires to bring 

 about the organisation and co-ordination of the Industrial 

 Education of both sexes in accordance with the needs of various 

 localities ; and with the view of assisting the Executive Com- 

 mittee in their work, sub-committees in connection with the 

 following subjects are being formed ; — 



Technical Education in relation to Elementary Schools. 



Higher Technical Education. 



Technical Education in relation to Agriculture. 



Commercial Education. 



REVIEWS. 



Treatise on Animal Alkaloids, Ptomaines, and Lcucomaines. 

 By Dr. k. M. Brown. Bailliere, Tindall, and Cox. 



This most interesting question is fully gone into, bringing up 

 the record of discovery and clinical labour to the latest date. 

 The book will receive additional interest from the fact that the 

 well-known Armand Gautier, of the Paris Faculty of Medicine, 

 has especially written an introduction for the work. The 

 curious phases of auto-infection, typhusation, and intoxication, 

 are very elaborately dealt with, and this portion of the work 

 has already attracted the attention and praise of Sir William 

 Aitken. 



Pj-actical Amateur Photography. By C. C. Vevers. Horsforth, 

 Leeds. 



It is simply and clearly expressed, and cannot fail to be under- 

 . stood by beginners, for whom it is chiefly intended. In the 

 second part there are some useful hints for more advanced 

 amateurs. 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 



"Programme of Technological Examinations, Session 1887-88, 

 City and Guilds of London Institute." 



Gives a syllabus of subjects for the next examination, as well 

 as the examination questions of the previous session. It shows 

 the great advance in the work of the Institute and the numerous 

 branches of industry it deals with. 

 "Technology Quarterly." Boston, U.S. Vol. i., No. I. 



Contains accounts of the results of original investigations in 

 the chemical, physical, and other laboratories of the Massa- 

 chusetts Institute of Technology. It is ably edited by a board 

 of editors chosen from the Senior and Junior Classes of the 

 Institute. 

 " Stevens Indicator." Hoboken, U.S. Nos. i' and 3. 



The organ of the Stevens Institute of Technology. 



"The Bookbinder." No. I. London: Clowes and Sons, Ltd. 



Well printed and illustrated. A useful and welcome addition 

 to our special journals. 

 "Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry," July, August. 



Good as usual. 

 "The Naturalists' Monthly." London : Walter Scott. Vol. i., No. i. 



Contains articles and notes on Natural History ; and the first 

 part of a feeble Biography of Darwin. 

 "Institution of Mechanical Engineers," May, 1887. No. 1. 



Contains the President's address on Fifty Years' Progress in 

 Gun Making," and an exhaustive paper on Canadian Loco- 

 motives. 



SCIENTIFIC IMEETINGS AND EXHIBITIONS. 

 Royal Institution. — We understand that .Sir Robert Ball 

 is about to give a course of six lectures at this Institution. 



The Academy of Sciences. — Mme. Foehr, lately deceased 

 in Paris, has given to the Academy a sum of 40,ooof to be 

 invested in national stock, and the income is to be awarded 

 yearly, under the name of " Dellion Prize," to a meritorious work 

 or paper on the art of healing. Another benefactor has just 

 left a bequest sufficient to found a 2,ooof. prize to be given every 

 second year, and to be known as the " Pourrat Prize," after 

 the name of the founder. It is to reward the best work 

 on a medical or surgical question to be selected by the 

 Academy. 



Exhibition at Berlin.— Ne.xt May there will be an exhibi- 

 tion of the work of Berlin apprentices in all the principal indus- 

 tries, and of the pupils of the various technical and trade schools 

 of Berlin. 



St. Petersburg Exhibition. — The following notice has 

 been circulated by the Foreign Office :— The Secretary of State 

 for Foreign Affairs has received information that the Imperial 

 Polytechnical Society of Russia intend to hold an exhibition of 

 illuminating apparatus and of the naphtha industry at St. Peters- 

 burg during November next. Further particulars may probably 

 appear in the Board of Trade Journal. 



1ntern.\tion.\l Competition at Brussels. — A great inter- 

 national competition of industries will take place at Brussels 

 next year. The object of the gathering is to show what kind of 

 work can be turned out by workmen with their tools, many of 

 them of the plainest description. 



Civil and Mechanical Engineers' Society. — The offices 

 of this society have been removed to 6, Queen Anne's Gate, 

 Westminster, S.W., where future meetings will be held. 



Proposed Entomological Society at Birmingham. — It is 

 intended to form, some time during the present autumn, an ento- 

 mological society in Birmingham. All who wish to join should 

 apply to W. Harcourt Bath, hon. sec. (pro tern.), Ladywood, 

 Birmingham. 



The French Gas Association. — This association offers a 

 prize of one thousand francs, open to all the world, for the best 

 essay on the ventilation of buildings lighted by gas, special atten- 

 tion being paid to the utilisation of gas itself as a means of venti- 

 lation. The essays must be written in French, and sent in before 

 May 15th, 1 888. 



Institution of Mechanical Engineers. — At the ordinary 

 general meeting of this Institution about to be held, the chair 

 will be taken by Mr. E. H. Carbutt, and after the nomination of 

 officers and other formal business the discussion will be resumed 

 on the paper read by Major English, R.E., at the previous meet- 

 ing, on " Experiments on the Distribution of Heat in a Stationary 

 Steam-engine." A paper will also be read by Mr. J. Richards, 

 of San Francisco, on " Irrigating Machinery on the Pacific 

 Coast." 



King's College— Metallurgical Department. — In addition 

 to lectures to be delivered by Professor Huntington on Monday 

 and Friday afternoons, on and after the loth October, evening 

 lectures will be given on Mondays, fron eight to nine, on " Metal- 

 lurgy," and from seven to eight on " Fuel." A special course of 

 evening University lectures on the " Manufacture and Use of Iron 

 and Steel" will also be given by the demonstrator on Thursdays, 

 from seven to eight, commencing with a free public lecture on 

 " The Ores of Iron and primitive Methods of Dealing with 

 them," on the 13th October. 



Gresham Lectures. — The lectures founded by Sir Thomas 

 Gresham will be read to the public in the theatre of Gresham 

 College, Basinghall Street, on the following days, commencing 

 each day at six o'clock :— Physic (Dr. Symes Thompson), Octo- 

 ber 4, 5, 6, and 7 ; Rhetoric (Mr. Nixon), October 11, 12, 13, and 

 14; Astronomy (Rev. E. Ledger), October 18, 19, 20, and 21 ; 

 Law (Judge Abdy), October 25, 26, 27, and 28 ; Geometry (Dean 

 of Exeter), November I, 2, 3, and 4 ; Divinity (Dean of Chiches- 

 ter), November 7, 8, 10, and 1 1 ; and Music (Dr. H. Wylde), 

 November 15, 16, 17, and 18. 



Natural Gas in Minnesota. — Natural gas has been dis- 

 covered in the southern part of Minnesota, and three wells 

 lately sunk have produced an immense flow of gas. A 

 company has been formed to work gas wells on io,ooo 

 acres of land. 



