LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. [The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for this or any other part of NATURE. No notice is taken of anonymous communications.] Average Number of Kinsfolk in each Degree. As Dr. Galton has completely misunderstood the point of my last remark, I fear it will be necessary again to reopen a discussion which I had thought was satisfactorily closed. My point is this: If we take a large number n of families containing in the aggregate nd sons and nd daughters, and remove on an average one child of specified sex from each family, we shall have a preponderance of the opposite sex in those that remain. The average numbers under this condition will be d and d-1, and not d- and d-, and this was how I was originally led to my first conclusion. If, however, we wish to test the question whether a girl has the same average number of brothers as sisters, we are only concerned with families containing at least one girl, and therefore families containing only boys must be left out of arcount, as I stated. When these have been removed there will be a preponderance of girls in the families that are left. It is this cause which enables us to reconcile the fact that, while the probable total numbers of girls and boys in any family may be equal, the probable numbers of brothers and sters of a single individual of specified sex, say a girl, may still be equal. This may not be such a rigorous method as Dr. Galton employs, but it at least shows that the result is not necessarily opposed to what one would naturally infer from general considerations. G. H. BRYAN. Compound Singularities of Curves. THE compound singularities of algebraic curves may be divided into three primary species. First, point singularities, or multiple points, which are exclusively composed of nodes and cusps; secondly, line singularities, which are exclusively composed of double and stationary tangents; thirdly, mixed singularities, which are composed of a combination of simple point and line singularities. Amongst Compound line singularities may be mentioned (a) a double targent which osculates a curve at one of its points of contact, the constituents of which are one stationary and two ordinary double tangents; (B) a tangent having a contact of the fourth order with a curve, the constituents of which are three double and three stationary tangents. The third species comprises the majority of compound singularities, and may be divided into the following subsidiary ones: (1) Nodes and multiple points, any tangent at which has a contact of a higher order than the first with its own branch, and does not touch the curve elsewhere. The flecnode and biflecnode are the most familiar examples of this species. (2) Nodes, cusps, and multiple points, any tangent at which has a contact of the first or some higher order at some other point or points on the curve. For example, it is possible for each of the six nodal tangents of a trinodal Quintic to touch the curve elsewhere, and it can be shown tat the six points of contact lie on a conic. (3) Two or more nodes, cusps or multiple points may have a common tangent. Thus the reciprocal of a biflecnude is a pair of cusps having a common cuspidal tangent, whilst a septimic curve may possess a node and a rhamphoid cusp having a common tangent. (4) Singularities of the tacnode and oscnode type. When The number of constituent double points is unequal to --1), where n is a positive integer, the singularity cannot be a multiple point, but must be of the tacnode type; and since the constituents of a tacnode are two nodes and two double tangents, every singularity of this species must contain double or stationary tangents, or both. When the number of double points is equal to in(n-1), the singularity may be a multiple point, but when it contains line as well as point singularities, it is of the same type as the oscnode, which is composed of three nodes and three double tangents. (4) A tangent at a node or a multiple point, which has a contact of a higher order than the first with its own branch, may coincide with some other tangent at the singularity. When both tangents at a flecnode coincide, the resulting singularity is a tacnode; but the coincidence of two or more tangents at a multiple point, any of which possess this property, gives rise to a variety of peculiar singularities which do not appear to have been completely examined. It is also possible for a mixed singularity to be formed in more than one manner; in other words, it may possess more than one penultimate form. Thus an oscnode may be formed by the union of two cusps and two stationary tangents, and additional singularities of this character are possessed by quintic and sextic curves. To call a cissoid or a cardioid a nodal curve appears to me a glaring misuse of language, since both curves are nodeless. A. B. BASSET. 66 November 18. The Origin of Life. No doubt "Geologist" points out a literal flaw in my statement, but I thought it would be obvious that by the potentiality of life,' which would be destroyed by heat, I meant potentiality of life, appearing within the time of the experiment. Given countless ages, then, on the evolution hypothesis, the potentiality of life, as of the rest of nature as we know it, existed in the fluid mass of the uncooled earth, and I did not mean to say anything inconsistent with this. Nor, on the other hand, did I mean to say that by the heat applied the potentiality of life in the matter under test would be destroyed for all time. I meant potentiality of appearing within a given time, the time of the experiment, and I cannot help thinking this was the natural sense of my words. In asking me to explain the introduction of life or its potentiality into this planet, Geologist" shows that he has entirely mistaken the purport of my letter. My aim was only logical, not constructive. If I could explain how life first appeared on the earth, I should probably be able to suggest a more promising line of experiment than that hitherto followed, which I find myself unable to do. My sole object was to point out a logical error, as it seemed to me, in the view commonly taken by men of science of the results of these experiments, an error, if my memory serves me, fully shared by Huxley-in admiration for whom, I hasten to say, I yield to no one. Huxley, if I remember rightly, was so impressed with the strength of the evidence against the contemporary origination of life that he practically gave up the idea, and put the date back. In this, I am venturing to suggest, he was illogical; through having overlooked the fact that in all the experiments the agent, which was used to destroy actual life and its germs, would probably be efficacious in destroying the potentiality of life in non-living matter on the point of assuming life, if any such there were, and, consequently, the positive result having artificially been made impossible, the negative result meant nothing, and should not be allowed to influence opinion. GEORGE HOOKHAM. Change in Colour of Moss Agates. THE following observations may perhaps throw light on the colour changes in moss agate and flint noted by Messrs. Whitton and Simmonds in your issues of November 10 and 17. Specimens of the flints from Bournemouth referred to by Mr. Simmonds were brought to this laboratory some months ago, and, though they were not submitted to any very searching examination, it was found that the colouring matter could be removed on boiling a fragment with hydrochloric acid, while the solution gave well marked reactions for iron and phosphoric acid. Now the compound Fe,(PO4)2.8H2O, whether prepared in the laboratory or occurring as the mineral vivianite, is colourless when pure, but becomes oxidised to ferrosoferric orthophosphate, and turns blue, when exposed to the atmosphere. It seems probable, then, that the change of colour of these flints is due to a layer of vivianite which alters on exposure. In considering the case of the agate penholder, it should be noted that such objects are but rarely made of agate in its natural condition, it being the practice of the manufacturers to colour the stone artificially by chemical treatment. Thus a fine blue colour can be developed by soaking the stone first in a solution of potassium ferrocyanide and then in a solution of a ferric salt. Now as exposure to the action of alkalies, or in some cases to direct sunlight, suffices to destroy the blue colouring matter, it would seem probable that it is in this direction that an explanation of the change observed by Mr. Whitton is to be sought. In conclusion, I may add that a very instructive series of specimens illustrative of the artificial colouring of agate is on exhibition in the mineral gallery of the British Museum (Natural History). A. HUTCHINSON. The Mineralogical Laboratory, Cambridge, November 21. Eocene Whales. IN NATURE for September 29 (p. 543) "R. L." reviews Dr. Fraas's paper on the Egyptian zeuglodonts, dissenting from the conclusions that the zeuglodonts are not whales, and that the ancestors of the whales are at present unknown. I trust "R. L." will pardon me for in turn dissenting from these assertions, and for agreeing entirely with Dr. Fraas. So long ago as 1900, in discussing the pelvic girdle of Basilosaurus, I pointed out that the vestigial femur suggested that of a creodont, while later, in Science for March 11, I recorded my utter disbelief in any relationship between Basilosaurus and existing whales. Consequently, while greatly pleased at the results of Dr. Fraas's study of the small zeuglodonts, I was not at all surprised. It seems to me that our knowledge of Eocene mammals is really very small, and that it will be many years before we will be able to trace the line of descent of many existing forms with any degree of certainty. This is most emphatically true of the whales, the ancestry of which is still obscure. At the same time I have pointed out (Science, March 11) that the Eocene deposits of the southern United States contain remains of a large cetacean that is at present known to us by a few caudals alone. This form is undescribed, because it seemed to me best to await the discovery of better material than caudals. So while the ancestors of whales are still unknown, we have a hint that they may be discovered any day. F. A. LUCAS. Brooklyn Institute Museum, November 4. The Discovery of Argon. IN reference to the slip indicated in the last issue of NATURE by Prof. G. H. Darwin, permit me to mention that the slip was mine-not Mendeléeff's. In Mendeléeff's text it stands: "As to argon and its congeners-helium, neon, krypton and xenon-these simple gases discovered mainly (preimuschestvenno) by Ramsay. I am sorry to see that I had omitted the word mainly. In reality, my manuscript (which I enclose) contained, as you see, the words "discovered chiefly by Ramsay," but as "chiefly was not the proper word it was struck out, probably by myself, in the proof. THE TRANSLATOR. The Leonids, 1904. WATCHING was begun on November 14, when between 18h. 10m. and 18h. 40m., in a sky rapidly brightening with approaching sunrise, one certain Leonid, of magnitude excelling that of Sirius, shot from Cancer into Gemini. November 15.-Watch from 12h. 5m. to 12h. 40m., and 14h. 5m. to 15h. 45m. The heavens were very clear at the start. I had just commenced looking out when a beautiful tailed Leonid, of mag. 3, shot from 851°+2° to 74° -2°. At 12h. 17m. thin, broken clouds began to pass over, the sky becoming completely covered at 12h. 40m. At 12h. 38m. a huge-headed Leonid, outrivalling Venus in brilliancy, was seen travelling behind small, broken clouds from 129°+351° to 107°43° in three-quarters of a second. The path here given is probably a little too long. About 13h. 30m. the sky began to clear again, and was pretty good by the time of the commencement of the second watch. There were many thin clouds, but the interspaces were large and very clear. At 15h, 25m. the heavens became quite unclouded. In this last look-out Leonids were more numerous, six being between 14h. 45m. and 15h. 38m. The increase in frequenc of meteors of the dominant shower at this period was not due to improvement of seeing conditions. In the latter watch three shooting stars coming from 160°+48° were mapped. The radiant point of the Leonics of November 15, as determined from eight tracks, was at 151° +20°. The meteors were. swift, and mostly Jer streaks. There was a decided tendency towards green ir their colouring. Below are particulars of some of the most interesting Leonids, other than those mentioned above:-November 15. THE PATAGONIA.1 A HE dispute between the Argentine Republic and Chile with regard to the boundary line of their Patagonian possessions threatened at one time to result in a prolonged and sanguinary struggle. Happily this misfortune was averted by the decision, honourable to both nations, to refer the differences that had arisen to the arbitration of our Sovereign. British Commission was accordingly appointed to examine the geographical features of the country and judge how far they could be reconciled with the terms of the treaties the interpretation of which was in question. As the head of this commission was chosen Sir Thomas Holdich, who had served his country as boundary commissioner in the wild inaccessible lands that lie to the north and west of our Indian possessions, and this selection was abundantly justified by the tact and skill with which a frontier more than Soo miles in length was traced in such a manner as to accomplish the almost unprecedented feat of satisfying both parties. In the present volume Sir Thomas Holdich has given us his impressions of the progressive republics of Chile and the Argentine, and of the scene of his "The Countries of the King's Award." By Sir Thomas Holdi-h K.C.M.G. Pp. xv+420. (London: Hurst and Blackett, Ltd., 1904. Price 16. net. labours in Patagonia-impressions all the more valuable because they are those of a distinguished soldier and man of science who has spent the greater part of his life in the East, and whose principal achievements have been amongst the great mountain masses and plateaux of Central Asia, which find their only parallel in the Andes. Again and again he dwells on the likeness and on the contrasts between the new lands that he was visiting and those with which he had long been familiar. We have only space to quote one passage (p. 149):"One could not see the stiff rows of poplars streaking the stony slopes of the eastern Andes near Mendoza without being forcibly reminded of the Indian frontiers; and the plains of Chile round about Santiago might be the plains of Afghanistan round about Kabul. Standing on the slopes of the hills near Kabul, where Baber's tomb overlooks the Chardeh valley and the It is, however, the pages that describe the author's experiences in Patagonia that will appeal most strongly to the scientific reader. The international differences have borne at least some good fruit. In the hope of finding evidence to support one view or the other the interior of Patagonia has been so energetically explored that there are few countries of which there has been so rapid an increase of our geographical knowledge in recent years. Comparatively little of the tract examined by Sir Thomas Holdich had been trodden by the foot of civilised man a dozen years before his visit. We follow with absorbing interest the author in his rapid journey through the varied scenery of the central depression between the Andes on the one hand and the pampas on the other-a fertile land of hill and valley, with here and there great lakes that occupy the deeper hollows and overflow, some to the Atlantic flat range of the Hindu Kush fills up the western horizon, where interlacing lines of poplars chequering the purple and yellow fields mark the course of the irrigation channels, an impression once drifted in upon my mind of a land of promise set in the midst of barren hills, specially designed to illustrate man's ingenuity in making green things to grow where no green thing had been before. It was the wealth of the poplars and the willows which produced the impression, contrasted with the sterility of the mountains which formed their background and which were only faintly visible through the summer haze, with just the glint of snowpatch here and there. The impression was reproduced with the first view of the plains stretching from the foot hills of the Andes outwards to the Pacific. For twenty-five years Time might have stood still, and Chardeh, Maidan, and the road to Ghazni were all back again before me." and others through deep breaks in the mountains to the Pacific. Everywhere there are evidences of important changes in the still recent past-the shrinkage or complete disappearance of lakes, the diversion of the drainage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the retrocession of the glaciers. Elsewhere we read of cruises amid the channels and inlets of the Pacific coast, which form the submerged continuations of the central valley of Chile, and of the glens of the rivers that traverse the Andean chain. Further inland these latter are filled with alluvium overgrown with impenetrable jungle. On this side, too, of the Andes there is evidence of recent changes, for-as Darwin was the first to point out-high above the sea-level are raised beaches and deposits containing shells of forms that still live in the neighbouring ocean. But although the axis of the Cordillera and the outer chain of islands appear to be rising from a position of depression, the line of the great Chilian valley is probably still sinking, for near the head of the Gulf of Penas, and south of the isthmus of Ofqui, that connects the peninsula of Taitao with the mainland, are found forests so recently submerged as to render it necessary to be cautious in steering amongst the tree tops. Future generations of mankind, the author thinks, may see the isthmus submerged beneath the ocean, above which it is even now but slightly raised. Part of this isthmus is occupied by Lake San Rafael, which is remarkable as the "terminus of an enormous glacier that scatters huge icebergs about its waters. "Is there any other glacier," the author asks, descending to sea level in latitude 47° either N. or S.?" We know of none; but however that may be there are several that reach the sea between this point and the Straits of Magellan; and yet southern Patagonia is a land of luxuriant vegetation, at least on its western coasts. "Forest was everywhere about us, dense, shadowy, dark and generally dripping. The long lines. of the higher sierra were thick with it up to the point where the granite cliffs polished and smoothed by icecap and glacier gave foothold to vegetation only on their flat ledges. The little islets that seemed to chase one another through the streaky grey sea were rounded and packed with it." In the Ultima Esperanza district in latitude 52° there are grazing grounds where the sheep fatten quickly on the tufted grass of the country, and are left to find their own shelter, while in the neighbouring woods the puma waits his opportunity as he does in the tropical forests of Brazil. And over the whole country, mountains, valleys, and pampas alike, blow untiringly the strenuous western winds, for the most part in blustering gales that succeed one another in quick succession. "In no country in the world," remarks our author, 6 must weather' and climate be so differentiated as in Patagonia. The weather is bad as bad can be -wild and boisterous, bursting into fury, breaking into sunshine, freezing the blood in one's veins with a biting blizzard, or suffocating the system with the still steady glare of a noonday sun, and it may do all this and more in the course of a few hours' interval; but whether storming or shining, tearing one's tent to rags or bathing the landscape in sunshine, who can describe the life-giving, purifying, sweetening, strengthening effects of the climate." Such is Patagonia, a land that seems destined to nourish a hardy race woven of many strands, among which the sturdy Welsh colonists of the 16th of October Valley, of whom the author has much to tell us, will not be least important. To the man of science it is a land of striking illustrations of long established principles and of problems that will require many years of research to solve, for of the story of its making scarcely the first chapter a chapter of which Darwin wrote the opening pages-is yet complete. J. W. E. LORD KELVIN AND GLASGOW T Vice-Chancellor. Many occasions arise, however, when it is of importance to the universities concerned that statesmen, such as the Prime Minister, who is Chancellor of Edinburgh, Mr. Chamberlain, who is Charcellor of Birmingham, Lord Rosebery, who is Chancellor of London, and Lord Spencer, who 18 Chancellor of Manchester, should represent their universities in Parliament or elsewhere, and such men have usually been elected not so much on account of their own connection with the universities they preside over as of the eminent place they have taken in the State, and the weight which must on all occasions be attached to their considered opinions. Lord Kelvin has been connected with the University of Glasgow since his early boyhood, he has spent his life within her walls, and he built up his enduring fame during the fifty-three years when he was professor of natural philosophy in the university. Lord Kelvin's father was a north of Ireland man, preparing for the ministry of the Presbyterian Church. In his day, and until the foundation of the Queen's Colleges in Ireland, Glasgow was the university to which many north of Ireland men resorted, and Lord Kelvin's father was a distinguished student in Glasgow, gaining prizes in many classes more than ninety years since. About eighty years ago he gave up his studies for the ministry and became professor of mathematics in the Belfast Academical Institution. Eight years later-in 1832-he was elected to the chair of mathematics in Glasgow, which he filled for sixteen years with eminent success. There were no better text-books anywhere than those which he pub lished on the subjects of his chair, and the small number of his students who remember him testify that they never met a clearer or better teacher of mathematics. Prof. James Thomson had a genius for teaching other things besides mathematics, and both Lord Kelvin and his elder brother, who was professor of engineering first in Belfast and afterwards in Glasgow, owed the best of their education to their father. Lord Kelvin was only twenty-two years old when the university had the courage to elect him to the chair of natural philosophy, on the strength of his quite exceptional brilliancy as a student first in Glasgow and afterwards in Cambridge. How he has discharged the duties of his chair and how wide and fruitful have been his conception of its duties is known to the whole world of science. can On Tuesday, after Lord Kelvin had been formally installed as Chancellor of the University, he proceeded to confer the following honorary degrees of LL.D. on the recommendation of the Senate. Princess Louise (Duchess of Argyll), who was president of Queen Margaret College until the college was incorporated with the university in 1893. The Marquess of Ailsa, who has taken a great interest in naval architecture, and in its practical application to the building of yachts and other vessels. Dr. J. T. Bottomley, F.R.S.; Dr. James Donaldson, principal of the University of St. Andrews; Admiral Sir John Charles Dalrymple Hay, G.C.B., F.R.S.; Dr. J. M. Lang, principal of the University of Aberdeen; Mr. G. Marconi; Mr. Andrew Graham Murray, M.P.. Secretary for Scotland; the Hon. C. A. Parsons, F.R.S.; and the Lord Provost of Glasgow, Sir John Ure Primrose, Bart. After conferring these degrees Lord Kelvin delivered an address, in the course of which he spoke as follows:- To be Chancellor of one of the universities of our country is indeed a distinguished honour. For me to be Chancellor of this my beloved University of Glasgow is more than an honour. I am a child of the University of Glasgow. I lived in it sixty-seven years (1832 to 1899). But my veneration for the ancient Scottish university, then practically the university for Ulster, began earlier than that happy part of my life. My father, born in County Down, was for four years (1810 to 1814) a student of the University of Glasgow, and in his Irish home, first as professor of mathematics in the newly-founded Royal Belfast Academical Institution, his children were taught to venerate the University of Glasgow. One of my earliest memories of those old Belfast days is of 1829, when the joyful intelligence came that the Senate of the University of Glasgow had conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws on my father. Two years later came the announcement that the faculty of Glasgow College had elected him to the professorship of mathematics. In 1834, two years after my father was promoted from Belfast to the Glasgow professorship of mathematics, I became a matriculated member of the University of Glasgow. To this day I look back to Prof. William Ramsay's lectures on Roman antiquities and readings of Juvenal and Plautus as more interesting than many a good stage play that I have seen in the theatre. Happy it is for our university, and happy for myself, that his name, and a kindred spirit, are with us still in my old friend and colleague, our senior professor, George Ramsay. Greek, under Sir Daniel Sandford and Lushington, logic under Robert Buchanan, moral philosophy under William Fleming, natural philosophy and astronomy under John Pringle Nichol, chemistry under Thomas Thomson (a very advanced teacher and investigator), natural history (zoology and geology) under William Couper, were, as I can testify by my own experience, all made interesting and valuable to the students of Glasgow University in the 'thirties and 'forties of the nineteenth century. Sandford, in teaching his junior class the Greek alphabet and a few characteristic Greek words, and The Scottish pronunciation of Greek, gave ideas, and something touching on philology, to very young students, which remains on their minds after the heavier grammar and syntax which followed have vanished from their knowledge. Logic was delightfully unlike the Collegium Legicum described by Goethe to the young German student through the lips of Mephistopheles. Even the dry bones of predicate and syllogism were made by Prof. Buchanan very lively for six weeks among the students of logic and rhetoric in Glasgow College sixty-seven years ago; and the delicious holastic gibberish of Barbara, Celarent" remains with them an amusing recollection. A happy and instructive dlustration of the inductive logic was taken from Wells's "Theory of Dew," then twenty years old. My predecessor in the natural philosophy chair, Dr. Meikleham, taught his students reverence for the great French mathematicians, Legendre, Lagrange, Laplace. His immediate successor in the teaching of the natural philosophy class, Dr. Nichol, added Fresnel and Fourier to this list of scientific nobles; and by his own inspiring enthusiasm for the great French sthool of mathematical physics, continually manifested in his experimental and theoretical teaching of the wave theory of light and of practical astronomy, he largely promoted entific study and thorough appreciation of science in the University of Glasgow. In this hall you see side by side two memorial windows presented to the university to mark permanently its admiration of three men of genius, John Card, John Pringle Nichol, and his son, John Nichol, who lived in it, and worked for it and for the world, in the two departments of activity for which universities exist, the humanities and science. As far back as 1818 to 1830 Thomas Thomson, the first professor of chemistry in the University of Glasgow, began the systematic teaching of practical chemistry to students, and by aid of the faculty of Glasgow College, which gave the site and the money for the building, realised a well equipped laboratory, which preceded I believe, by some years Liebig's famous laboratory of Giessen, and was, I believe, the first of all the laboratories in the world for chemical research and the practical instruction of university students in chemistry. That was af a time when an imperfectly informed public used to regard the University of Glasgow as a stagnant survival of mediavalism and to call its professors the Monks of the Molendinar! The university of Adam Smith, James Watt, and Thomas Reid was never stagnant. For two centuries and a quarter it has been very progressive. Nearly two centuries ago it had a laboratory of human anatomy. Seventy-five years Sixty ago it had the first chemical students' laboratory. five years ago it had the first professorship of engineering of the British Empire. Fifty years ago it had the first physical students' laboratory-a deserted wine cellar of an old professorial house, enlarged a few years later by the annexation of a deserted examination room. Thirty-four years ago, when it migrated from its four hundred years old site off the High Street of Glasgow to this brighter and airier hilltop, it acquired laboratories of physiology and zoology, too small and too meagrely equipped. And now every university in the world has, or desires to have, laboratories of human anatomy, of chemistry, of physics, of physiology, of zoology. Within the last thirty years laboratories of engineering, of botany, and of public health have been added to some of the universities of the British Empire, with highly beneficent results for our country and the world. All these the University of Glasgow now has. During the last fifty years our university has grown in material greatness and in working power to an extent that its most ardent well-wishers in the first half of the nineteenth century could scarcely have imagined possible. Two successive legislative commissions (1858 and 1889) have re-formed its constitution and broadened its foundations, and added to its financial resources, and admitted women to its membership, with all the privileges of students and graduates. Splendidly liberal subscriptions by the people of Glasgow and by a world-wide public outside, backed by powerful aid from the National Treasury, enabled the university, on leaving its ancient site, to enter into the grand group of buildings on Gilmorehill, in which it has happily lived ever since. A few years later the generous gift of 45,000l. by the late Marquis of Bute built the hall called after his name, in which we are now At the same time the adjoining Randolph Hall and staircase were built by a portion of the legacy left to the university by the late Mr. Randolph. The Queen Margaret College and grounds were presented to the university by Mrs. Elder, who also added largely to the endowment of the engineering professorship, and founded the professorship of naval architecture. Other generous donors have given an engineering laboratory with lecture-rooms, and botanical buildings, and great and much needed extensions in the anatomical department. The Carnegie Trust and the principal's university equipment scheme are at present providing two new buildings; one of these is for extensions in the medical school. The other, in which I naturally take the most personal interest, is for the natural philosophy department, including lecture-rooms and a physical laboratory, all designed and at present being realised under the able direction of my successor in the natural philosophy chair, Prof. Andrew Gray. met. In In the province of the humanities the working power of the university for instruction and research has been largely augmented during the last fifty years by the foundation of new professorships, conveyancing, English language and literature, Biblical criticism, clinical surgery, clinical medicine, history (in my opinion the most important of all in the literary department), pathology, political economy. mathematics and in the science of dead matter, professorships of naval architecture and geology; lectureships of electricity, of physics, and of physical chemistry; and demonstratorships and official assistantships in all departments have most usefully extended the range of study, and largely strengthened the working corps for research and instruction. I venture to congratulate the city of Glasgow on having for her god-daughter a university so splendidly equipped and so admirably provided with workers. |