Evening Lecture Research Articles

The Dover Meeting of the British Association

THE meeting of the British Association in Dover on September 13 this year promises, on account of its international character, to be a memorable one in the history of the Association. Dover was selected, though it is a smaller town than is usually chosen for these meetings, on account of its nearness to the French coast, in order that an interchange of visits should take place between the British Association and its French counterpart, which meets this year at Boulogne. The French Government has taken a great interest in the arrangements for the meeting, rightly judging that the meeting cannot but promote friendship and good will between the two nations. A good illustration of the truth that science has no nationality will be found in the fact that one of the evening lectures in Dover will be delivered in French by Prof. Chas. Richet, of Paris, on “La vibration Nerveuse.” This will take place on Friday, September 15, at 8.30 p.m. It is extremely probable that Prof. Fleming will find some way of imparting an international character to his lecture on the “Centenary of the Electric Current” to be delivered on Monday, September 18.

Preliminary note on the liquefaction of hydrogen and helium

In a paper entitled “The Liquefaction of Air and Research at Low Temperatures,” read before the Chemical Society, and published in their ‘Proceedings,' No. 158, an account is given of the history of the hydrogen problem and the result of my own experiments up to the end of the year 1895. The subject is again discussed in a Friday Evening Lecture on “New Researches on Liquid Air,” which contains a drawing of the apparatus employed for the production of a jet of hydrogen containing liquid. It was shown that such a jet could be used to cool bodies below the temperature that could be reached by the use of liquid air, but all attempts to collect the liquid in vacuum vessels failed.

The British Association

OXFORD, AUGUST 8. THE sixty-fourth meeting of the British Association, and the fourth which has been held at Oxford, may now be fairly said to have begun. The reception-room was opened at 2 p.m. on Monday last, and at the moment of the opening of the doors there was an unexampled rush to obtain places in the Sheldonian Theatre for the President's address and the evening lectures.

The Oxford Meeting of the British Association

WE regret to announce that Mr. W. H. White, C.B., will be unable, through ill-health, to give the evening lecture on “Steam Navigation at High Speeds,” announced for Thursday, August 9. The Council of the Association has secured the services of Dr. J. W. Gregory to fill his place, and we believe that the title of Dr. Gregory'lecture will be “Experiences and Prospects of African Exploration.”

Henry Nottidge Moseley, F.R.S

I HAVE been asked to write for the readers of NATURE some account of my dear friend Moseley, who, after an illness which removed him from all active life and work for more than four years, died at Clevedon, in Somersetshire, on November 10. He was only fortyseven years of age; and when seized with the illness which necessitated his retirement from active life, was at the zenith of a wonderful career of scientific productiveness and value. He had for six years held the Linacre Professorship of Human and Comparative Anatomy in the University of Oxford; and by his great energy and commanding talent had succeeded in collecting around him a most promising band of younger men devoted to the investigation of embryological and morphological problems. Baldwin Spencer, Gilbert C. Bourne, S. J. Hickson, and G. Herbert Fowler, were his pupils, and have shown by their numerous published works the value of the teaching and impulse which he gave to them. In the early days of his illness (1887), he was cheered by receiving from the Royal Society the Royal Medal, in recognition of the value of his researches on Peripatus, the Hydrocorallinæ, the Land Planarians, and the Chitons. The blow caused by his serious illness was felt not only in the scientific and social life of Oxford, but in many other centres. We missed his valuable and practical help in carrying to completion the Plymouth Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association, of which he had been a, most active and enthusiastic promoter; in the editorship of the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science I found myself once more deprived of the aid of my most valued comrade, as I had been but a few years previously when Frank Balfour died. The readers of NATURE and of the Athenœum missed his varied and always strongly-original contributions; and the Zoological, Anthropological, and Royal Societies had to regret his absence from their meetings and Councils. Moseley had, moreover, at this time made it a practice to give evening lectures in the larger provincial towns as well as in London: from all quarters came expressions of the deep regret which his retirement from public work excited. The amount and variety of work in which he engaged, in addition to the remarkable and extraordinarily minute course of lectures and laboratory work provided by him for his pupils, were certainly more than was wise for him to undertake. But it was a strange and to him a disastrous fact that he never felt tired. He was an exceedingly strong man, and I never saw him fatigued either by physical or mental exertion,

KOCH TREATMENT OF TUBERCULOSIS.

In the Polyclinic evening lecture course, February 17, Professor Solomon Solis-Cohen reviewed the published records of cases treated by the method of Koch. He stated his continued disbelief in the etiological role ascribed by the majority of cotemporary writers to Koch's bacillus. The work of Dr. Heneage Gibbes was highly commended, and close attention asked for the facts brought out. The close association of Koch's bacillus with certain forms of the diseases called tuberculous, and its possible determining influence in the destructive outcome of the lesions, were admitted by the lecturer. But the actual disease in the preponderence of cases he found in that condition of system or cells which permits the bacillus to find pabulum in the tissues. Given this condition, the reaction between the tissues and the bacillus gives rise to some product which destroys tissue. If we produce this substance outside the body and inject it, we

Elements and Meta-Elements

THE President of the Chemical Society, in his address at the anniversary meeting, has further developed views which he had already propounded in his address to Section B of the British Association at Birmingham, and in a subsequent Friday evening lecture at the Royal Institution. He would have us believe that the atoms of an element are not all precisely of one absolute pattern; that atomic weights, in* fact, are not constants, as generally supposed; but that we must regard each element as a species of which many varieties exist almost infinitely more like unto each other than to the atoms of any other approximating species of element; and that what we term the atomic weight is but a mean value around which the actual weights of the individual atoms of the species range within certain limits. Could we separate atom from atom, we should find them varying in weight within very narrow limits on each side of the mean.

The Forms of Leaves

I HAVE read Mr. Henslow's letter with interest; and of course any criticisms from him are worthy of all attention. At the same time I may observe that as yet he has only seen what may be called an abstract of an abstract. A Friday evening lecture is scarcely the occasion to work out a special statement in detail; but he is apparently criticising not even my lecture itself, but merely an abstract of it. He commences by saying that it is “self-evident” that the size of the leaf is regulated mainly by the thickness of the stem. This may be, but, so far as I am aware, the importance of this consideration had not been previously pointed out. Having, however, first disposed of my statement as “self-evident,” he proceeds next to deny it altogether, and quotes cases in which the size of certain leaves bore no reference to the thickness of the stem. With regard to these, however, I must observe that I was referring to leaf-area, and as Mr. Henslow does not mention the number of leaves his illustration is incomplete. Moreover, as he was dealing merely with an abstract of what I said, he does not recognise the qualifications to which, in the lecture itself, I called attention.

1. On the Laws of Motion. Part I

The substance of part at least of this paper was given in 1876 as an evening lecture to the British Association at its Glasgow meeting.While engaged in writing the article “Mechanics” for the Ency. Brit., I had to consider carefully what basis to adopt, and decided that the time had not yet come in which (at least in a semi-popular article) Newton's laws of motion could be modified. The article was therefore based entirely on these laws, with a mere hint towards the end that in all probability they would soon require essential modification. It is well, however, that the question of modification should now be considered; and this should be done, not in a popular essay but, before a scientific society.

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION

DUBLIN, Tuesday. SCINCE we last wrote the British Association week has come and gone with even more than its wonted rush and whirl of incessant engagements. That the meeting has been a successful one in every respect is unquestionable. Though no very original papers have been read or any great sensation excited in any section, as at Plymouth, by the telephone, yet the meetings have been above the average in general interest, the evening lectures and entertainments having been specially altractive, and the attendance extremely good. This meeting will always be memorable for the splendid address of the president, Dr. Spottiswoode.

The Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus

THE last of the “present series” of free lectures in connection with the Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus was given on Saturday, in the lecture theatre of the South Kensington Museum. Major Festing, R.E., took the chair, and the theatre was, as usual, crowded. The lecture was given by Mr. W. Stephen Mitchell, M.A., on “The Challenger Soundings and the Lost Island of Atlantis.” An abstract of this will shortly appear. At the end of the lecture Mr. Mitchell said he thought that as this was the last—at any rate of this series—it would be in accordance with the wish of the audience that a few words should be said by way of résumé, to mark the occasion. He regretted that his place was not occupied by some one eminent in science. When the Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus was opened there were planned in connection with it conferences, demonstrations, lectures to science teachers, and the free evening lectures. The conferences lasted as planned during May and June, the lectures to science teachers were carried out as proposed, and the demonstrations were given till December 31. At that date, in consequence of packing the cases for returning the collections lent from abroad, which were lent for a definite period only, it was necessary to close the galleries to the public. The free lectures, however, had been continued, and the apparatus from the galleries had been brought into that theatre, as it had been found necessary, to illustrate the lectures. The lectures had thus kept up the continuity of the collection. He believed he was right in saying that from the outset the promoters of the Loan Collection had looked forward to the establishment of a permanent physical science museum somewhat in imitation of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers of Paris. Such a museum was recommended by the Royal Commission on Scientific Education, under the presidency of the Duke of Devonshire, and composed of some of the most distinguished men of science in this country. For a building to contain such a museum the commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851, under the presidency of the Prince of Wales, have voted 100,000l., and offered it to the Government. A petition in favour of the establishment of such a museum had, since the opening of the collection, been signed by officers and fellows of learned societies, and presented to the Duke of Richmond and Gordon. At this last lecture of the series they would naturally ask what was likely to be done for the future. As he was in no way officially connected with the museum he was not in a position to give any certain information; but this much he could tell them, a number of instruments that would otherwise have been returned had been acquired by purchase, a number had been presented, a number were left on loan for an indefinite period, and many were left under certain conditions. The galleries at the present time contained a collection of fair size to commence a permanent collection. Here, as in considering the lost island of Atlantis, they must be careful to discriminate between facts and inferences to be drawn from facts. No announcement had been made by the Government as to its intentions. The present condition of the Collection, as he had stated it, was a fact, and they would draw for themselves inferences as to what this might mean. He had seen a statement that the permanent museum might be open in May, but he could not say how far this represented official intentions. The crowded audiences at the lectures in that theatre was, he said, a proof that they wished the Collection and the lectures in connection with it to continue.

Lectures to Working Man

THE workmen of England wish for more education. I speak of the better classes of them; those who can read and write and cast up accounts in some sort of fashion, though it may in many cases be a poor one. There is a great desire, which is very widely spread among them, for some kind of higher education: they wish to learn something of Science. They cannot learn it at school, and they cannot get all they want from books; so that they must look to a great extent for what they require to evening lectures. Now in these there are two things which they dread. The first is that they should only hear a string of technical terms, which they cannot understand; and the second is that they should have what ordinarily go by the name of “Popular Lectures on Science,” lectures which are often illustrated by inconsequent “experiments.” We have not to go far to find the reason of their dislike to such lectures: the fact is, they distrust them. The English workman is a clear-headed, shrewd man, and he has a good intuition of what is worth having. That is the reason he cares for scientific knowledge. He knows very well that science is “one of the best things going;” and he has also a very thorough appreciation of everything of the nature of humbug in any line whatsoever. Perhaps there is no audience in the world who, on the one hand, recognises readily the existence of humbug, and, on the other, recognises what is genuine, so well as an audience of intelligent English working men. I have often conversed with such men, and while I have heard them express the greatest desire for scientific information, I have heard them also speak most, disrespectfully of that which is too often presented to them instead of it; and I have, over and over again, heard this said, “What is the use of our going to lectures, when we are to hear no more of the subject again?” Such sentiments as these find practical expression in the fact that I have found courses of a few consecutive and carefully digested lectures to workmen always well attended by a persistent audience. It is nothing desultory that these men want, but something solid—something which will give them real information. What they want is not a single lecture, or bits of the thing shown to them in a random sort of way, but a piece of real teaching, something which helps them to see their way a little through some subject, and gives them a better grasp of the thing which they are seeking for, namely, the method and facts of science. To be told only a number of the facts and results of science without the method is what workmen do not want; they are greedy for the facts of science, but they want something more. On the other hand, to try to impart to them the method of science without doing so by some particular instance, is to engage them in a kind of vague philosophising, suitable perhaps for the learned, but not for the ignorant. Ignorant people do not want, and cannot profit by, abstractions.

XXVII. On the long spectrum of electric light

The experimental researches described in a former paper led me indirectly to the con­clusion that the electric spark, whether obtained directly from the prime conductor of an ordinary electrifying machine, or from the discharge of a Leyden jar, emits rays of very high refrangibility, surpassing in this respect any that reach us from the sun—and that these rays pass freely through quartz, while glass absorbs them, as it does also the most refrangible of the solar rays. I was induced in consequence to procure prisms and a lens of quartz, which were applied in the first instance to the examination of the solar spectrum, and which immediately revealed the existence of an invisible region extending as far beyond that previously known as the latter extends beyond the visible spectrum, and exhibiting a continuation of Fraunhofer’s lines. A map of the new lines was exhibited at an evening lecture delivered before the British Association at their Meeting in Belfast in the autumn of the same year; and I then stated that I conceived we had obtained evidence that the limit of the solar spectrum in the more refrangible direction had been reached. In fact, the very same arrangement which revealed, by means of fluorescence, the existence of what were evidently rays of higher refrangibility coming from the electric spark failed to show anything of the kind when applied to the solar spectrum. At least, the only link in the chain of evidence which remained to be sup­plied by direct experiment related to the reflecting power, for rays of high refrangibility, of the metallic speculum of the heliostat which was employed to reflect the sun’s rays into a convenient direction; and this was shortly afterwards tested by direct experiment, on rays from an electric discharge separated by prismatic refraction. In making preparations for a lecture on the subject delivered at the Royal Institution in February 1853, in which I had the benefit of the kind assistance of Mr. Faraday, recourse was naturally had to electric light, on account of the extraordinary richness which it had been found to possess in rays of high refrangibility. Although fully pre­pared to expect rays of much higher refrangibility than were found in the solar spectrum, I was perfectly astonished, on subjecting a powerful discharge from a Leyden jar to prismatic analysis with quartz apparatus, to find a spectrum extending no less than six or eight times the length of the visible spectrum, and could not help at first suspecting that it was a mistake arising from the reflexion of stray light. A similarly extensive spectrum was obtained from the voltaic arc, and this was sufficiently bright to be exhi­bited to the audience, the arc passing between copper electrodes, and the pure spectrum formed by quartz apparatus being received on a piece of uranium glass cut for the pur­pose. The spectrum thus formed was found to consist entirely of bright lines, whereas the spectrum of the discharge of a Leyden jar had appeared (perhaps from not having been truly in focus) to be continuous, or at least not wholly discontinuous.