tice as well as the theory of the subjects they profess. Such as far as I am able to judge, your Council has found in present able staff of professors.

Taen again, in measuring the success of such a College, it arbe remembered that it is intended for the élite of the strial world, and that, as individual attention must be paid sach student in the laboratories and drawing-offices, the est technical instruction of crowds is impossible.

ittle seems hitherto to have been done in the way of training hnical teachers, and for the obvious reason that the demand cach is very limited, whilst that for competent men to enter a more practical career is great.

But whether the College is training teachers, or those who are carry out the lessons of such teachers into practice, does not a. The object is to train men who can improve our present sones, and raise up new ones; and this may be accomplished cather or by both methods. Neither the one nor the other however, succeed unless the student of technology has a in grasp of the scientific principles upon which his industry is

It is useless, and worse, to attempt to teach the applications pupils to whom the science itself is an unknown quantity. Hente arises the question, How and where can the preliminary ence training be best given? and the answer to this raises ry difficult and some delicate matters.

First, however, let me disabuse your minds of a notion which ay become general, and, if so, harmful-namely, the new Mermpolitan Polytechnic Institutions, as they are called, can ever to this highest and most important kind of education. Do het det us lancy that the establishment of these no doubt very valuable institutions is the ultimatum to be aimed at in technical

fucation, or imagine that they can attempt to do what is done In sermany, France, or Switzerland by institutions bearing the Ale name I look upon it as a misfortune that, by mere

, the name of the old Institution in Regent Street, known ume as the home of the diving-bell and of Prof. Pepper's how, should have been retained for institutions which neither emble it nor the high schools which form so marked a feature the Continental educational system. These latter are in our carry rather represented by the scientific departments of our wersities, and by those of the metropolitan and local Unirity Colleges, by the Royal Normal School of Science, and your own Central Institution. We cannot too clearly underthad that whatever success attends the foundation of these Metropolitan Polytechnics and no one more cordially wishes sess than I do the work of the centres of the highest bon will remains to be done; indeed, the greater the prity of the lower institutions, the greater the need and e for the higher ones.

The rapid growth in London of this idea of the importance banticraft and recreative education is most remarkable, and this stimulus we are almost wholly indebted to Mr. Quintin ing

The effect of this movement upon your Institute has been why felt, for it is clear that, whereas seven or eight years ago enthusiasm of the City Companies was strongly in favour of &gher technical education in the Continental sense, it is now for this newer and more popular, I will not say less useful,

handicraft and recreative instruction.

is a fact which may as well be clearly stated, that the Central 'ition cannot do all it might do for want of a few thousands, dhat the scheme of technological examinations is crippled by 100 of the support of those who at first nobly contributed ands these objects.

The Drapers prefer to support more popular institutions at the Ind, and the Goldsmiths do likewise in regard to their own duhon at New Cross, so that there is no doubt that the inst formerly felt in the general and collective work of the dite is distinctly on the wane.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, a consideration of these patent leads one to the question, How are these things to go on? e we never to have law and order"-about which we have rd enough in other matters-introduced into affairs educa

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d in what I am about to say, let me premise that I merely es my own individual opinion as an independent observer, ous only for the success of the good cause which we all have art. Then may I say that I am dead against a cut-andsystem of Governmental education such as we see in other tries? I am all for stimulating and developing local effort cal requirements, and it is because I am fully aware of the

dangers of centralization, and desire to promote adaptability to local needs, that I gave my hearty support to the Government Technical Instruction Bill as amended in the House of Commons, in which the power of the locality to work out its own educational salvation is fully safe-guarded.

But holding these views I see clearly that there are things which can only be satisfactorily accomplished by a central authority.

That our primary education can only be properly conducted on a national basis has been admitted for more than a quarter of a century; so it will be with the higher or secondary education, whether technical, commercial, or professional-we must have a system. As I have said, the foundation of your Institute was the beginning of such a system for technical instruction; but has it not already outstripped the bounds of your control? Can it be satisfactorily worked in the future on its present lines?

Let us look at the matter from an independent point of view. We have now three Government Departments charged with educational work-the Education Department for Elementary Instruction, the Science and Art Department, and the Charity Commissioners. One of the most important steps which could be taken to bring these under effective control is the appointment of a Minister of Education, of Cabinet rank, who would be in close touch with every part of our now discordant educational system. But that is not the immediate question before us.

This refers more especially to the desirability of consolidating the Science and Art Department. As you know, this controls and stimulates, in what I think we may allow to be a satisfactory manner, the teaching of elementary science and of art throughout the country. Would it not conduce to the benefit of the country, if the Guilds' technological examinations were to be undertaken by the Department, and thus placed on a national basis? Several of the subjects now included in the Directory of the Department, on which grants are made, are of a distinctly technical character, and therefore no objection can be raised that the other subjects now under the Guilds Institute cannot equally well be placed under the Department.

The benefits which would thus accrue are great and palpable, the two systems of examinations in pure and in applied science would then work side by side without friction or overlapping, and the extension of the technical examinations would be easy and certain.

If this were accomplished, I for one would strongly urge the removal of the system of payment on individual results-a method in all cases to be deprecated, but one which is especially unsuited for testing the value of technical instruction. This can be much more certainly effected by ascertaining the efficiency of the whole class, of the teacher, and of his appliances, by inspection or otherwise.

If once we get rid of this system of payment on individual results in one set of subjects, we may look forward to its ultimate extinction in the others, and no subject seems so suitable for making a beginning as that of technical instruction.

I would therefore suggest that the best means of securing the permanency and the extension of the very useful technological examinations which your Council-and all honour to them for ithave started, is to request the Government to take them over, thereby rendering the Science and Art Department more efficient, and enabling that Department to make the improvements and alterations in the system which it undoubtedly requires.

May I go one step further in these suggestions, and ask if this should be done, is it not a necessary corollary that the Central Institution should likewise become a Government Normal School for Applied Science? There is much to be said in favour of such a proposal.

The very situation, close to the Royal Normal School of Science, seems to forecast its ultimate destiny. Under separate management, no consistent or well-arranged scheme of common work is possible; brought under one direction, the essential alliance between pure and applied science, as regards teaching, becomes easy of attainment.

Students would pass and re-pass from the one school to the other, obtaining at the one the knowledge of the scientific principles, and, at the other, that of their applications.

Of the national advantages of such a fusion there can, I think, be little doubt. England would then be in possession of an institution which might, for completeness and efficiency, both as regards the personnel and the appliances, soon be made second to none on the Continent, and worthy of the greatest industrial nation in the world.

Your Institute would thus set itself free to extend its influence

racteristic, 36, of silicon deduced from an equivalent prowed by M. Regnault, and which is very remarkable, from its cidence with the characteristic of ammonium.

By the discussion, which has shown me the advisability of epting various results hitherto looked on as scarcely reconlable, I have been led to conceive the possibility of reproducwe the series of natural numbers in the series formed by the merical characteristics of the real or supposed simple bodies suplemented by the characteristics of the compound radicles formed from gazolytic elements, such as cyanogen, the ammoms,&c., and doubtless also by the compound radicles formed Nom metallic elements, of which the alloys offer us an example. his natural series, the bodies which are really simple, or at irreducible by the ordinary means at our disposal, would represented by the prime numbers. It will be at once seen

there are in my table at least twelve bodies, which, Be sodium (23), have characteristics which are prime numbers. This is what led me to perceive this law, which, I believe, is stined, when established, to form one of the bases for the Escovery of the law of molecular attraction. The predomin

e of the law of divisibility by 4 in the series of my table, 1:redominance which is also to be found in the elements of the theory of numbers, has confirmed me in the idea-an idea in rself really simple-that there is a perfect agreement between bodies, the elements of the material order, and numbers, the elements of the abstract order of things (éléments de la variété antéridie, de la variété abstraite). This goal once caught sight of, it will seem natural that I should have recourse to the theory of numbers to help me attain it. It will seem not less natural that I should also have recourse to higher geometry; for the eries of relations it offers cannot fail to afford resources which may enable one to establish connections between the different numerical characteristics.

"My helicoidal system in this way leads me on towards abstract views of an extremely general nature; and on the other hand it should, it seems to me, find an application in the natural2 sciences, as a method of classification throughout their whole domain, from the series of simple bodies which forms the prototype, to the opposite extreme of our natural divisions; in it will be found, I believe, the means of bringing into connection simultaneously, and by all their characters, the different terms ef those parallel series, orders, families, genera, species, and races, in each natural kingdom, of which men of science have in sain tried to show the affiliation. In geology, as is evident, the application is implicit.

"Whatever may be the import of these considerations, and to return to the principal object of the present memoir, I think that the efficacy of the helicoidal system will be admitted as a means towards hastening the advent of the time when chemical phenomena shall be amenable to mathematical investigations. "My table, by the distribution of bodies in simple or coupled enes, by its indication of the existence of conjugate groups, &c., traces a plan for diverse categories of syntheses and analyses ready executed or to be executed; it draws up very definite programmes for the execution of several researches which are exciting attention. Will not my series, for instance, essentially romatic as they are, be a guide in researches on the spectrum ? Will not the relations of the different rays of the spectrum prove to be derived directly from the law of numerical characteristics, wir verid? This idea, which occurred to me before we were aught the identification of the lines in the spectrum, and the dmirable applications of this discovery, seems to me now even more than probable. Finally, looking upon it only as a concise representation of known facts, and reducing it to the points which offer no matter for discussion, the geometrical table of merical characteristics affords a rapid method for teaching a rge number of notions in physics, chemistry, mineralogy, and logy. I hope, therefore, that my natural classification of the le bodies and radicles being capable of rendering manifold aces, will need, like every object in habitual use, a name of ay application; hence, on account of its graphic representation d its origin, I give it the significant name of telluric helix." It will be well to point out immediately that M. de ChanFurious's system assigns to the numerical characteristics of the ements a general formula of the form (n + 16n'), where n' is ecessarily an integer; and his table thus brings out the fact

1

But the discovery of the "octaves" or "periods" cannot be ascribed to our author, although it seems almost impossible that chemists should not have perceived their existence on looking at

Three important points, however, do exist in common between de Chancourtois's system and that of Mendeleeff:Firstly, all the known elements are arranged in the order of their combining weights.

Secondly, the combining weights chosen as best suited to bring out clearly the numerical relations existing between them are those adopted by Cannizzaro in 1858, a striking fact when we recollect that de Chancourtois wrote only in 1862, at a date long before these numbers had gained anything like general acceptance.

Lastly, an attempt is made to show that simple numerical relations exist, not only between the combining weights, but between all the measurable properties (toutes les capacités physiques et chimiques) of allied elements.

The reasons for the neglect of de Chancourtois's researches and the oblivion into which they have fallen are not far to seek. His style was heavy and at times obscure, and, moreover, his ideas were presented in a way most unattractive to chemists.

A geologist by profession, de Chancourtois had been power fully impressed by the facts of isomorphism in the case of the feldspars and pyroxenes, which form such important constituents of the volcanic rocks he was studying; and he was thus led to seek for a system of classification which should bring out some simple relationship between the elements they contained.

To quote from his paper (Comptes rendus, vol. liv. p. 969) : "The parallelism of the groups of manganese (7 +3.16) and iron (8 + 3.16), of potassium (7 +2.16) and calcium (8+2. 16), of sodium (7 + 16) and magnesium (8+ 16), is the origin of my system"; and again, suggesting the expediency of adopting 55 (= 7+3.16) as a characteristic for aluminium, which would bring the element on the sodium and potassium generating line, "this would render perfect the parallelism between the elements of the feldspars and the pyroxenes, the starting-point of my system" (Comptes rendus, lvi. p. 1479).

Thus the correct idea of seeking for a relationship between the combining weights of isomorphous elements was marred by a somewhat imp imperfect comprehension of the facts of isomorphism. No chemist would certainly have tried to show any close relationship between aluminium on the one hand and the group of the alkalies on the other, notwithstanding their union in the feldspars and pyroxenes; and a suggestion of this kind served to cast discredit on de Chancourtois's really important views.

Notwithstanding his frequently eccentric ideas, de Chancour tois had the merit, so rare in an inventor of this stamp, of not considering his system as final. We cannot do better than let him speak for himself; and quote the conclusion of his last paper on the subject (Comptes rendus, lvi. p. 481) :- " In presence of the rapid increase in the list of elements which engage the attention of chemists and physicists, it has become urgent to unite in one synthesis all the notions of chemical and physical capacities, of which the exposition would otherwise become an impossible task.

"It is, therefore, perhaps not unnecessary to recall the ideas of Pythagoras, or what I may better term the Biblical truth which dominates all the sciences, and of which I propose to make practical use by the following concrete example,1 the first general conclusion of my essay :

"THE PROPERTIES OF BODIES ARE THE PROPERTIES OF

NUMBERS.

"It is easily perceived, that a helicoidal system of some kind or another, which is necessarily a graphic table of divisibility, offers the most convenient means for rendering manifest the relations between the two orders of ideas. It is evident, also, that the particular system which I have adopted brings into relief the relations of the most important and usual of the proper ties of matter, because the case of divisibility by 4, which is the basis of my plan, is the first which presents itself in arithmetical speculation after the case of divisibility by 2, to which there corresponds directly, as one perceives by a first glance at my table, the existence of the natural couples of elements, with consecutive odd and even characteristics.

"I hope, therefore, that the telluric helix will offer, until it is replaced by some more perfect invention, a practical framework, a convenient scale, on which to set down and compare all measurements of capacities, whatever the point of view which may be taken, whatever elasticity or variation, whatever interpretation may be given to the numerical characteristics, by which these capacities must always be represented.

The French is vulgarisation, literally popularization.

"The development in a plane of the cylinder ri into squares, with the circumference at the base dividet un 16 equal parts, seems to me, in a word, to be a dre which men of science, after the fashion of musicians, wil F down the results of their experimental or speculative co either to co-ordinate their work, or to give a summary the most concise and clear form to their colleagues al public."

Lothar Meyer has noted down his classification in the fo a helix,1 and Dr. Johnstone Stoney, F. R.S., has shown that t numerical values of the atomic weights may be expressei metrically as functions of a series of integral numbers by all lying approximately on a logarithmic spiral.

But no simple mathematical formula has so far been disc to express the relationships of the atomic weights accurately i.e. within the limits of experimental error, and de Chancen predictions still remain but incompletely fulfilled.

I need not comment further on the remarkable breadth z originality of our author's views, taken as a whole. Strange say, it was only a year or two before his death that he ach through a colleague, of the immense development they undergone; nor did he ever set up any claims to priority.b when we speak of the greatest generalization of modern chemis and recall the names of Newlands and Mendeleeff, it is on 'y that we should no longer forget their distinguished prea de Chancourtois. P. J. HAP

SCIENTIFIC SERIALS.

American Journal of Science, December. The temperara of the moon, by S. P. Langley, with the assistan F. W. Bery. With this memoir the authors complete researches begun at the Allegheny Observatory in 1853 28 continued during the next four years. The main outcome that the mean temperature of the sunlit lunar surface is mu lower than has been supposed, most probably not being g above oo C.-The Lower Cretaceous of the South-West, and relation to the underlying and overlying formations, by Char A. White. The chalk formations constituting the cl "Texas Section" are here referred to two natural divisions which may be designated the Upper and Lower Cretagrsin respectively, although not necessarily the exact equivalent, the corresponding European strata. Their fossil contents that each represents an unbroken portion of Cretaceous tim while the palæontological contrast between the two mdiene that there is a time hiatus between them. But this hiatus greater than exhibited in others of the mountain uplifts in same region, and not so great as it is in some cases.-On hinge of Pelecypods and its development, with an attem toward a better subdivision of the group, by William II Three fundamental types of hinges are described, and on is based a new classification comprising the three onderi Anomalodesmacea with five sub-orders, Prionodesmaces wil eight sub-orders, and Teleodesmacea with eleven or more 5 orders. The magnetism of nickel and tungsten alloys, te John Trowbridge and Samuel Sheldon. The question is be discussed whether nickel and tungsten alloys magnetized saturation increase in specific magnetism as different kinds steel alloyed in small proportions with tungsten or wolfram known to do. The tabulated results show that tungsten graf increases the magnetic moment of nickel, if the alloy be forge and rolled, but has small influence if simply cast; nor do chang in the amount of tungsten appear to cause corresponding chang in the magnetic properties of the alloy. - Note on the mezizwe ment of the internal resistance of batteries, by B. O. Fe and R. W. Willson. The authors' researches show that th value of the resistance of a cell obtained by the use of alter currents is always smaller than that obtained by other metho but the application of the method of alternate currents "fatigue all but the so-called constant cells. In most cases there tendency in the internal resistance to decrease as the strength the current which the cell is delivering increases,-Paper contributed by Robert T. Hill and R. A. F. Penrose, fun.. the relation of the uppermost Cretaceous beds of the Ex. and Southern United States, and on the Tertiary Creta parting of Arkansas and Texas; by W. E. Hichlea "Die modernen Theorien der Chemie," iv. Auflage, p. 137,

1. Mackintosh, on sundry yttria and thoria minerals from O County, Texas; and by O. C. Marsh, on the skull of the nuc Ceratopside.

THE American Meteorological Journal for November contains first part of an article on "Theories of Storms, based on Ldfield's Laws," by M. H. Faye, member of the French ute. In support of his "whirlpool" theory, he urges that neorologists have constructed a theory of storms on the basis

ungle fact, viz, that storms which burst over a region cause aid of the barometer there, and he points out that starting with sies of an ascending column, exercising an aspiration below, hing is invariably produced which neither turns nor progresses. Mr. A. L. Rotch contributes the first part of an article on Meteorology at the Paris Exposition," dealing with the truments exhibited in the French Section. Among the most Peresting are (1) the actinometers exhibited by the Montsouris bservatory; (2) the Richard actinometer, which has bright and akbulbs in vacuo, connected with two thermometers, by which curves are traced giving at each instant the radiation from Ay, both at night and day; (3) the Richard anemographs, Which have, instead of the usual Robinson cups, a fan wheel med of six blades inclined at 45°, and fastened to a very light , one revolution of the wheel corresponding to one metre of d. Parrigou-Lagrange's anemometer (NATURE, vol. xxxvii. p.

giving the vertical component of the wind, was also exhibited. M. Bardin showed some very fine standard thermometers, and fr. kotch describes various other instruments, such as hygroLevers, aneroids, &c. Dr. F. Waldo continues his discussion of he Distribution of Average Wind-velocities in the United "The present article deals with the comparison of verage wind-velocities with other elements, e.g. with barometric anima. Lieutenant Finley contributes State tornado charts or Aransas, North Carolina, and Dakota.

"HC numbers of the Journal of Botany for November and amber are chiefly occupied with articles of special interest to 10 Lents of British botany. Mr. Thiselton Dyer gives a very teresting biography of the late Mr. John Ball, F.R.S., first edent of the Alpine Club, Under-Secretary of State for the Jones under Lord Palmerston, an ardent explorer in all the

quarters of the globe, and a botanist of wide and varied Bowledge. In the December number is a remarkable article the disappearance of British plants, mainly through the edations of collectors.

conté del Reale Istituto Lombardo, November 1.-Phyarearches on the lakes of North Italy, by Prof. F. A. Forel. ing a visit to this lacustrine region, last autumn, the author the waters of Lakes Maggiore, Como, Piano, and -50, with a view to determining their temperature, colour, transparency, as compared with the analogous properties of - Luceme and Geneva. The results, which are here tabushow that the temperature is generally higher, and the derper in the Italian than in the Swiss lakes, while the rency is about the same, except in the shallow Lake where the temperature is lower and the transparency less

1.

any of these basins. -Meteorological observations made

The Brera Observatory during the month of September. me observations include records of temperature, barometric we, atmospheric moisture, rainfall, direction of the winds,

adiness.

SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES.

LONDON.

Royal Society, December 12. - "The Relation of Physioacai Action to Atomic Weight." By Miss E. J. Johnston, versity College, Dundee, and Thos. Carnelley, Professor of atry in the University of Aberdeen. Communicated by lienry Roscoe, F.R.S.

A dutuced from the Character of the Elements occurring Mraly in Living Organisms. It is shown (a) that life is ated with a low atomic weight, so that elements with an dweight of 40 and under are required by the living am, whereas those of an atomic weight greater than 40 there or less inimical to life (compare Sestini, Gazz. Chim. vol. 15, p. 107). (6) That the eight elements which enter lugely into the composition of the earth's crust, and which, refore, are the most easily accessible to the living organism,

are all included, with the exception of aluminium, in the fourteen elements which are required by the living organism.

A consideration of the exceptions (viz. Li, Be, B, Al, and Fe) to the first rule and of all the known facts bearing on the question leads to the conclusion that, "The degree of necessity of an element to the living organism is a function of, first, its atomic weight, and, second, its accessibility to the organism." An element may be inaccessible to living organisms either because it is rare (e.g. Li and Be); or because, though moderately common, it has a very limited distribution (e.g. B); or because, though plentiful and widely distributed, it does not occur in nature in a form in which it can be assimilated (e.g. Al, on account of the insolubility of its native compounds).

That elements which are necessary to life must be readily accessible is self-evident, but that living organisms should require elements with low atomic weights, while elements with high atomic weights are inimical to life, is not so evident. This, however, may be due, in part at least, to the fact that the elements with low atomic weights are on the whole the most common elements (as shown by Gladstone, Phil. Mag. [5], vol. 4, p. 379; compare also Mendeljeff, Zeit. f. Chem. vol. 5, 1869, p. 405), and therefore the most accessible, so that from the first the elements utilized in vital processes have been those which have been the most accessible, and therefore those with the lowest atomic weights.

B. As deduced from the Toxic Action of Compounds administered artificially. In view of the somewhat discordant results obtained by previous observers as to the relation between atomic weight and physiological action, the authors have reinvestigated the subject as carefully as possible. Their experiments have been made partly with fish (sticklebacks) and partly with aërial micro-organisms, the salt being administered by solution in the medium (water or Koch's jelly) in which the organism lived. the following conclusions are drawn from the results of about 800 experiments which the authors have made during the two years they have worked on this subject :

1. With corresponding compounds of elements belonging to the same sub-group, the toxic action alters regularly (i.e. increases or diminishes) with the atomic weight.

2. In almost all cases this alteration takes place in such a way that the toxic power increases with the atomic weight. (This is analogous to increase in toxic action in homologous series of carbon compounds.)

3. Elements belonging to odd series (Mendeljeff's classification) are much more toxic than the corresponding elements of even

series.

4. Other things being the same, the greater the ease of reducibility of an element from a state of combination to the free state the greater its toxic action. (Applicable to compounds of odd as compared with those of elements of even series, and also to compounds of the elements of odd series belonging to the same group when compared with one another.)

5. Other things being the same and the compounds comparable, the greater the heat of formation of a compound from its elements the smaller is its toxic power; or, in other words, the greater the stability of a compound the smaller its toxic power. (Applicable to elements belonging to odd series; data for those belonging to even series are wanting or are too incomplete.)

There is a close connection between rules 3, 4, and 5.

6. Lithium forms a very marked exception to all the above rules, for notwithstanding its very low atomic weight, its difficult reducibility to the free state, the fact that it belongs to an even series, and the great stability of its compounds, as indicated by their relatively great heat of formation, its toxic power is, nevertheless comparatively very great. This exceptional character of lithium, however, is not limited to its physiological action only, but applies likewise to many of its purely chemical and physical properties. So much so, indeed, is this the case that its exceptional physiological character might have been foreseen.

7. The toxic action of a series of comparable salts runs parallel with the solubility in such a way that as the solubility increases the toxic action either increases likewise or else diminishes.

8. When the quantity of salt present in Koch's jelly is less than the minimum dose required to prevent the development of

micro-organisms, the number of colonies which develops increases

as the amount of salt diminishes, but as a rule much more rapidly.

As represented in terms of either the minimum toxic weight of metal or of the minimum molecular toxic dose. The minimum molecular toxic dose = minimum toxic weight of salt molecular weight of the salt.