great deal of skill and practice. In the first place, beams reaching from the one side to the other are laid on the top of the furnace walls, and are covered with wooden boards, forming a temporary floor. Two or three feet above this floor a strong horizontal network of poles of wood sustains a number of straw ropes, with iron hooks hanging down, and of such a length that the hooks nearly touch the wooden floor. The floor is thereupon covered with a mixture of clay and small stones, 4 to 5 inches thick, the workman being careful to incrustate the iron hooks into this material. It is allowed to dry gradually, and when considered sufficiently hardened, the wooden beams and flooring are removed with the necessary precautions. The bottom of the pan remains suspended by means

of the ropes. The open spaces left all round between the bottom and the top of the furnace walls are then filled up, and the border of the pan, 9 inches to 10 inches high, is made of a similar mixture. It is said that this extraordinary construction lasts from 40 to 50 days when well made, and that it can be filled 16 times in 24 hours, with an average of 500 litres of concentrated lye at each filling ; but the quantity depends upon the weather, and is less in winter than in summer. During the cold season one pan yields 140 litres (of salt) each time it is filled, and in the hot season from 190 to 210 litres. The average consumpt of fuel is said to be 1500 kilos. in 24 hours.

In Persia, near Ballakhan, salt is still made, and has been made from time immemorial, in a very primitive way, which is described by Bellen, in his description of his journey in 1872 from the Indus to the Tigris, as follows:

"For several miles our road led over a succession of salt pits and ovens, and lying about we found several samples of the alimentary "salt prepared here from the soil. It was in fine white granules "massed together in the form of the earthen vessel in which the "salt had been evaporated. The process of collecting the salt is "very rough and simple. A conical pit or basin, 7 or 8 feet deep "and about 12 feet in diameter is dug, and around it are excavated "a succession of smaller pits, each about 2 feet diameter by 12 feet "deep. On one side of the large pit is a deep excavation, to which "the descent from the pit is by a sloping bank. In this excavation "is a domed oven with a couple of fireplaces. At a little distance "off are the piles of earth scraped from the surface and ready for "treatment. And, lastly, circling round each pit is a small water"cut led off from a larger stream running along the line of pits.

"Such is the machinery. The process is simply this:-A shovel"ful of earth is taken from the heap and washed in the basins (a "shovelful to each) circling the pit.

"The liquor from these is, whilst yet turbid, run into the great "central pit, by breaking away a channel for it with the fingers. "The channel is then closed with a dab of clay, and a fresh lot of "earth washed, and the liquor run off as before; and so on till the "pit is nearly full of brine. This is allowed to stand till the liquor "clears. It is then ladled out into earthen jars, set on the fire and "boiled to evaporation successively, till the jar is filled with a cake "of granular salt. The jars are then broken, and the mass of salt '(which retains its shape) is ready for conveyance to market.

66

Large quantities of this salt are used by the nomad population, "and a good deal is taken to Kandahar. The quantity turned out "here must annually be very great. The salt pits extend over at "least ten miles of the country we traversed, and we certainly saw some thousands of pits."

From what I have laid before you, it will be seen that I am strongly of opinion that we must go far beyond the time of Geber or the Arabian school for the origin of our science. The study of the question of its antiquity leads up to such remote times that there is little probability of any date being assigned to its beginning, and to some it may appear but a waste of time to indulge in researches upon the subject; but it has a fascination peculiar to itself, and, in addition, brings before our minds so many phases in the philosophical thought of the world, that it will no doubt long continue to exercise the minds and attract the attention of chemists.

In the course of my own study of the subject, I have felt much dissatisfied with the derivation of the name chemistry or alchemy, as it is given in all works to which I have had access. It is said to be derived from a word meaning dark, hidden, black, and from the ancient name for Egypt, but to my own mind this is an unsatisfactory explanation, and seeking for another more consonant with the character of the science, I think I have found it in quite a different direction.

It is well known that in the old Hindoo philosophy there were recognized five elementary bodies or rather types. These were Water, Fire, Ether, Earth, and Air, and the system of Menu, of which the antiquity is enormous, recognizes as the greatest conception of the universe

1st, God.

2nd, Mind.

3rd, Consciousness.
4th, Matras.

5th, Elements.

(matras being the invisible types of the visible atoms which compose the five elements previously named-viz., Water, Fire, Ether, Earth, and Air).

Now, these elements, with the sun and moon, composed the attributes of the dual deity Iswara and Isi, representing the male and female natural powers, and, applying this to the famous Pythagorean triangle, we find that the upright symbol or male, which was the number or power 3, when combined with the female prostrate symbol, which was the number or power 4, gives a product in the Hypotenuse of 5, which is the number of the typical elements of the oldest known Hindoo philosophy. It is also the product of the first male and female numbers, and was anciently called the number of the world-repeated anyhow by an odd multiple it always reappears.

If now we consider chemistry as that science which has to deal with the changes and combinations of the five elements, and if we call it The science of the five parts or elements, should we not, when we find that the Arabic word for five is khams, rather refer the name of our science to this word khams, and read it as

Al-Khams,

The five-part science?

I am inclined, however, to go yet a step further, and remembering that the fifth element or Ether of the most ancient Hindoo philosophy, was in reality an expression for active force, or, that emanating from the central sun caused the natural phenomena of attraction and repulsion, the emission and refraction of light, and other sensible changes of condition, would read the compound word Al-Khamis (The fifth),

as the grand and simple title of our ancient science, meaning

The force

that which causes the changes in the elementary types and their combinations-than which no more descriptive title could be assigned to it, even in the present enlightened age.

V.-On the Present Position of Scientific and Technical Education in Germany. By E. M. DIXON, B.Sc., Secretary of the Society, and Head Master of Allan Glen's Institution.

[Read before the Society, December 17, 1879.]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN,

Referring to the Proceedings of this Society, I find that in recent years two papers have been brought forward by Mr. David Sandeman and the late Dr. Bryce respectively, upon portions of the educational system of Germany. If I may presume to criticise these papers in any way, I will say that it does not appear to have entered into the object of either of these gentlemen to explain the relation in which the schools or institutions that he described stand to the general educational system of the country; and I therefore incline to think that, while these papers are excellent as descriptions of certain schools per se, they may possibly have appeared to some, who are unacquainted with the high standard of education in Germany, as one-sided and overdrawn pictures of a class of schools that would be useless or impracticable in this country. However that may be, it seems to me that a brief description of, at least, the leading features of the schoolsystem of Germany will not be out of place in the present paper; but that, in fact, such a description will throw important light upon the scientific and technical institutions that are to form the main part of my theme.

Further, the adoption of this method of presenting my subject is supported by the fact, that it is necessary to have an acquaintance with the entire educational system of a foreign country before we can judge correctly regarding the introduction of any particular school from that country into our own. It is impossible simply to transplant a foreign school to English soil, for no school will flourish in this country that does not fit properly into our general school-system. The introduction of a foreign school must, therefore, necessarily be accompanied with modifications, and these modifications must be more or less fundamental, according to the relation in which the general school-system of the country from which we borrow stands to the general school-system of our own country.

It is, I believe, very important that the principles I have just stated, with respect to the transference of schools from one country

to another, should be fully recognized at the present time. It seems to me very manifest that the people of this country are on the point of awakening to the fact that something must be done to raise the standard of our education in the direction of pure and applied science; and, if we go to Germany in particular for information as to the course we should pursue, it must not be in the spirit of mere imitators, but in the spirit of intelligent adapters. I cannot well conceive, for instance, a greater mistake that could be committed than to attempt the introduction into this country at the present moment of the Polytechnicum or Technical High School of Germany. That is an institution which, as I shall presently show, is beyond anything as yet dreamt of in this country, both as regards the character of its courses of instruction and as regards the extraordinary completeness of its appliances. I confess it is from the fact that its courses of instruction are so very high that I would despair of introducing it successfully at present into this country. In Germany that school has a position with respect to Secondary Education that it certainly could not have here at present, and which it probably would not have even for many years to come. There it has feeders that supply it with pupils capable of entering at once upon high professional courses of instruction; in this country, it must be admitted, the supply of such pupils would be very limited at present. A Technical High School would, therefore, for the present at least, be a failure in this country; for, either it would be attended by a mere handful of students, or it would have to reduce the standard of its teaching and become a Technical High School only in name.

While, however, I think it necessary to say that the improvement of our school system can be made neither in whole nor in part by the mere imitation of German models, I believe, on the other hand, that many valuable suggestions in that direction may be got from the study of the German schools and universities. Germany offers us also what is, perhaps, more important than a lesson in the technicalities of school arrangements-she offers us the example of a people that still believes, with Lord Bacon, that "knowledge is power," and that, in the practical business of life, 66 expert men can execute and perhaps judge of parti"culars one by one, but the general counsels and the plots and "marshalling of affairs come best from those that are learned." Germany is in no fear, for instance, of making her military officers pedants, by giving them a liberal general education as the founda