SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



329 



of the convenience of being able to make one's own 

 instruments, even of only the more simple in 

 character, the mechanical training obtained during 

 their construction is of much value to a physical 

 student. The book is divided into four chapters, 

 with a couple of appendices. Chapter i. treats of 

 the Manipulation ot Glass, and Glass-Blowing for 

 Laboratory. Professor Threlfall goes elaborately 

 into the subject of glass and glass-blowing, and 

 gives figures of the blowpipes both hand and 

 mechanical, where the current of air is obtained by 

 a foot bellows. There are instructions for welding 

 tubes, making thermometers, and, in fact, doing 

 much that is likely to be needed. The appendix to 

 this chapter is on the preparation of vacuum tubes 

 for the production of Rontgen radiation, and for 

 the completion of the tubes by the attachment of 

 cathode and anode. Chapter ii. is on Glass-Grind- 

 ing and Optician's Work. Simple instructions 

 are given to enable the student to make his own 

 lenses, and afterwards to grind and polish them, 

 with mathematical accuracy: Next is information 

 for coating glass with aluminium and working in 

 that metal, gilding glass, with formula for solu- 

 tions, the use of the diamond-cutting wheel, 

 cutting rock sections and sections of soft sub- 

 stances, the production of quartz threads, modes 

 of soldering quartz and metals, brazing, the 

 construction of electrical apparatus, the treatment 

 of ebonite or hard rubber, and instructions for 

 electro-plating, with many more equally interesting 

 arts. 



Lessons with Plants. By L. H. Bailey. 522 pp. 

 8vo, illustrated by 446 drawings. (New York and 

 London : Macmiilan and Co., 1S98.) 



The author, who is connected with the Horti- 

 cultural Department of the Cornell University, 

 describes his work as " Suggestions for seeing and 

 interpreting some of the common forms of vege- 

 tation " The delineations are from nature, by Prof. 

 W. S. Holdsworth, of the Agricultural College, 

 Michigan. These drawings are well selected 

 and effectively rendered. Although the book has 

 been prepared for American readers, English 

 students will find that nearly all the plants selected 

 are familiar in this country, either in themselves 

 or through allied species. The author's intention 

 has been to prepare for a teacher of children a book 

 which will enable him, even if not a botanist, to 

 explain the different forms of plant growth with 

 simplicity, and at the same time accurately 

 subject has its pictorial illustration, and it 

 U recommended that the teacher should himself 

 gather a specimen to match the illustration, and 

 then, with the real plant, explain it to his class or 

 pupil as does the author in the pages before us. 

 hject all through is to make the subject as 

 simple and attractive as possible, so that the first 

 step* to a systematic study of botany may be such 

 empt the pupil to continue the work for the 

 The whole of the examples in this 

 handbook arc of external structure. With its ex- 

 illustrations and clear letterpress, it cannot 

 (ail to become a favourite with both teach' 

 scholars . but much of its success will depend 

 on the aptitude of the teacher to eliminate ail the 

 •• dryness' of the subject, though ln:r<: we find it 

 nearly absent. The worst of ifau '.ystem 



of teaching is. that more attention is paid to the 

 passing of pupils in examir. . the earning of 



capitation grants, tha 

 subject of study which will become a relaxation in 



Sir Henry BESstMEK, F.K.S. — It falls to me 

 lot of but few of the whole of those who are 

 devoted to science to revolutionize a great industry 

 by its application. It generally happens also that 

 every opposition is met with by the inventor before 

 he gets his applied science recognized. Such was 

 the case with Sir Henry Bessemer and his 

 improvements in the manufacture of steel with 

 which his name will be always associated. Born, 

 on January 19th, 1S13, at Charlton, in Hertford- 

 shire, his death took place on March 15th last, in 

 his S6th year. Sir Henry's father was a man of 

 artistic culture and a member of the French 

 Academy of Sciences. From an early age Henry 

 Bessemer devoted himself to scientific research, 

 with the object of applying it to invention of 

 commercial objects. One of his first successes 

 was a gold paint, made from Dutch metal. 

 Thence his mind seems to have ranged over 

 a wide field, for we find he spent some 

 £10,000 in Patent Office fees alone during his 

 long lifetime. These applications include such 

 wide apart objects as steamboats, astronomical, 

 telescopes and sugar-making machinery. His 

 chief success was due to his passion lor investiga- 

 tions in metallurgical science. Bessemer, during 

 the Crimean War, erected works at St. Pancras, 

 London, with the intention of making guns, 

 and devoted considerable energy and money, but 

 without much result. After a couple of years or 

 so he hit upon the method of converting cast iron 

 into steel, and as is so frequently the case in great 

 discoveries — by an accident. Up to that period 

 steel had been produced by the operation of 

 "puddling," wnich was both laborious and ex- 

 pensive, as only masses of about seventy-five 

 pounds could be treated in one furnace. It 

 was the custom to stir the molten iron with 

 long rods, so as to expose as much surface as 

 possible to the atmospheric air, with the object of 

 decarbonizing the metal. Bessemer, it is said, in 

 the first instance had his attention drawn to the 

 sufferings of the partly naked men who were the 

 puddlers, and conceived the idea of driving hot 

 air into the mass by mechanical means, until ii 

 was as efficiently decarbonized as by puddling. 

 On the suggestion of George Kennie, in 1856, he 

 read a paper on his invention before the British 

 Association Meeting, at Cheltenham, and though it 

 commanded some notice, it was not considered 

 sufficiently important to publish. Then came a 

 period of hostile opinion and failure of those who 

 had taken licenses to work the process. Bessemer, 

 however, plodded on, fully believing in its ultimate 

 success. After another two years' struggling, he 

 '•■I a. ;ood 1 I", puddling, but no com- 

 mercial man would have any connection with 

 what bad 1 1 ,tood to be a failure, Hi 

 i 1 ■ : ■ :. and the I ralloways, "I 

 Manchester, to help him to start works at Sheffield, 

 with the result that now the Bessemer process is 

 I lip Inn '.1 iii-lir. h 11", in tin win lil, 



and sir Henry received almost every decoratii 1 



honour available for the man of science. — J. T. C. 



