Dec. ist, 1887.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



219 



bodies like Sirius, and on the descending limb stars like our 

 sun, and dimmer ones down to bodies no longer luminous. 

 At an early date we shall endeavour to lay before our 

 readers a more complete exposition of Mr. Lockyer's 

 researches. 



Technical Education. — At a recent conference of the 

 friends of technical education, Professor Silvanus Thompson 

 expressed his deep regret that in many institutions for 

 technical education the leading principle was not to supply 

 a training required for practical purposes, but to earn grants 

 under the conditions prescribed by the Science and Art 

 Department at South Kensington. That department had 

 drawn up a syllabus of twenty-five subjects called " Science 

 subjects," and refused to recognise even the existence of any 

 science teaching that does not fit to their artificial classifica- 

 tion. Optics is not a science unless taught with heat and 

 acoustics. Heat is not a science unless taught along with 

 optics and acoustics. Teaching about the steam-engine is 

 science ; but teaching about the gas-engine or the electric- 

 motor is not. There is a Government grant for teaching the 

 one ; there is none for teaching the other. 



Among illustrations of the resultant absurdities, he noted 

 the case of an accomplished engineer and draughtsman who 

 had served his time in the great firm of Maudslay, and who 

 had occupied every post in engineering works up to man- 

 ager, who was disallowed as a teacher of machine construc- 

 tion and drawing because he had never passed the South 

 Kensington examination, whilst at the same time any Board- 

 school teacher who had passed that examination was recog- 

 nised as competent to teach, though he might never have 

 been inside an engineer's drawing-office in his life. Accord- 

 ing to Professor Thompson, the Technical High School 

 of Berlin has been built at a cost, including the land, 

 of nearly a million sterling, and is maintained by an annual 

 grant exceeding the cost (;£^35,ooo) of erecting Finsbury 

 College. He might have added that in the Berlin High 

 School, and in other similar institutions in Germany, the 

 teachers are not paid on the fatal system of " results." 



Darwin's Life. — After a hurried perusal of the book of 

 the season, the leading thought on one's mind is that great 

 good will be done by spreading the knowledge of Darwin's 

 real character. The unadorned record of his daily life 

 affords at once an example of extraordinary industry under 

 most adverse circumstances, and a lesson of self-control 

 during years of painful illness which we shall all do well to 

 bear in mind. For about forty-five years he was never 

 twenty-four hours without pain and discomfort, and he was 

 unable to do more than three hours' work a day. Often he 

 was not able to work at all, and yet he was in no way 

 embittered, but was always cheerful and considerate, not 

 only to his immediate friends, but even to those strangers 

 who intruded upon him with troublesome letters and com- 



plaints about the theories he had advanced. All who have 

 read his books have been struck with his surprising in- 

 dustry and candour, and these characteristics are fully con- 

 firmed by the letters and incidents now made public. 



With his usual simplicity, he appears to have told Mr. 

 Francis Galton, in answer to an inquiry as to what were his 

 peculiar merits, that "he had none whatever." At the same 

 time he admitted that, in his opinion, " all he had learnt of 

 any value had been self-taught." His school career was by 

 no means promising, and his father almost despaired of 

 making anything good of him. He began to study medicine, 

 but could not stand operations, and, as a dernier ressort, he 

 was sent to Cambridge to prepare for the Church. For- 

 tunately for the world, he was allowed to sail in the Beagle, 

 and during a five years' voyage he was not only busily 

 employed in collecting specimens and information, but his 

 own education was greatly advanced. He returned with a 

 mind stored with knowledge and teeming with new ideas, 

 to which, however, he only gave expression after many 

 years' exhaustive inquiry. We commend the study of his 

 life to all who care for what is best in man. 



The Light of the Glow-worm. — The following singular 

 experiment is recorded in the Moniteur de la Photographie 

 of Paris. People have long wondered whether the light of 

 the glow-worm and other luminous animals, which is due 

 to the secretion of a substance called noctilucine, possesses 

 any chemical action or not. In order to decide this ques- 

 tion, a small square cardboard box, having at the bottom a 

 little plate of highly sensitive bromated gelatine, and a lid 

 perforated with a number of minute apertures, was placed 

 in a dark cupboard, and upon the lid a female glow-worm, 

 Lampyris noctiluca, was secured by means of an inverted 

 tumbler. The insect was highly luminous, and it was 

 allowed to crawl about over the perforations in the lid of 

 the box for the whole of the night. At the end of that 

 time the sensitive plate was taken out and developed in the 

 dark room in the ordinary manner. An image was thus 

 obtained, consisting of a series of minute circular discs, 

 corresponding to the perforations in the lid of the box, and 

 to the movements of the insect during the time it was con- 

 fined in its temporary prison. Here, then, we have a 

 photograph produced by the glow-worm itself, proving that 

 the light emitted by the noctilucine secretion is endowed 

 with chemical activity like the light of the sun or the elec- 

 tric light. This curious experiment supplies another argu- 

 ment in favour of the theory that the light of the glow- 

 worm is due to a chemical action consisting in the oxidation 

 of the noctilucine produced by the insect. 



Dr. Octavius Sturges, of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 

 has been appointed Assessor to the Regius Professor of 

 Physics. 



Mr. William Bateson, BA., Fellow of St. John's College, 

 has been elected to the Balfour studentship of the annual value 

 of ^200, and tenable for three years. The student is required 

 to devote himself to original biological research. 



